The Summer Internship Placement process for the PGP batch of 2016-18 at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) saw Amazon emerge as the top recruiter with 25 offers across 6 roles followed by Accenture Strategy with 17 offers and Microsoft with 7 offers.
As many as 130 students participated in the placement process and were offered roles across 17 sectors and functions of their choice.Five students opted out of the process to start their own entrepreneurial ventures.
Cluster based Placements
The placement process was conducted in three clusters on November 5, 8 and 11 with the firms grouped into cohorts based on the profiles offered.
Cluster 1
Accordingly, Cluster 1 comprised six cohorts – Management Consulting, Advisory Consulting, Niche Consulting, Investment Banking, Markets and PE, VC and Hedge Funds.
More than 40 firms participated in Cluster 1, of which Accenture Strategy was the top recruiter with 17 offers. The other prominent recruiters included Bain & Co., Bank of America Merrill Lynch (6 offers, highest among global banks), Barclays, Citibank, McKinsey & Co., Morgan Stanley, Strategy&, The Boston Consulting Group etc.
“The reason behind IIM A being our preferred campus for recruitment is the quality of students and its brand. We plan a long term association with the college and plan to continue to hire from here,” Ritvik Gaud, HR Associate at Accenture Strategy said.
Rajesh Kamat, Director at Strategy& said, “Candidate profiles are really good at IIM A, quite at par with the global standards of the firm. The cohort system is quite unique at IIM A which is essential in getting the right candidate. Strategy& is recruiting from IIM A campus for a long time. We will continue doing so in future as well,” he added.
Cluster 2
In Cluster 2, a majority of the firms conducted a process before the interview through group discussions on November 7. This cluster had 5 cohorts: Consumer Goods, Consumer Services, General Management and Leadership, Retail B2B & B2C and Pharma & healthcare.
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The recruiters in the General Management cohort included Conglomerates such as Aditya Birla Group, Mahindra and Tata Administrative Services (TAS) which offered leadership roles to students.
The recruiters in the Consumer Goods and Services Cohort included Coke, General Mills, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Marico, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble and others. Retail B2B & B2C firms like Amazon and Zilingo took in students for business development, product management, operations, marketing and sales strategy & growth roles. Amazon was the top recruiter for cluster 2 giving 25 offers across its six roles.
Cluster 3
In Cluster 3 too, several firms conducted pre-interview processes in the form of group discussions on November 10. It comprised six cohorts: Analytics, Banking and Financial Services, Consumer Tech, IT Consulting, Infra and Core Manufacturing, Government and Social Services.
Key recruiters in the Banking and Financial Services cohort included Altisource, Axis Bank and FinIQ. The consumer Tech cohort included Microsoft and Sprinklr. Danaher and JP Infra. Vedanta offered sales and marketing and business development roles in the Infra and Core Manufacturing cohort.
Manoj Asrani, VP Sales and Marketing, JP Infra Pvt Ltd. said,” It was great to see that the students were very well prepared. The reason why IIM A is our preferred campus for recruitment is the quality of students, diverse backgrounds, domain knowledge and the fierce attitude.”
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the prominent recruiter in the Government and Social Service cohort. Microsoft was the largest recruiter for the cluster with 7 offers.
The students also had the facility of making “dream” applications to firms of their choice in a subsequent cluster even with an offer in hand. It gave them flexibility and choice to build careers in sectors of their preference. This year, the students had the opportunity to work under the mentorship of Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship on their entrepreneurial ideas.(Image Source:Pixbay)
