Recession blues fade away as recruiters begin hiring

Firms that suspended recruitments last year have begun hiring this year in a reiteration that recession is over and that all is well, again.

At Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) Indian investment banks and global FMCG firms among others constituted the Cluster (week) Two of placements that started on Friday evening.

The placement season, which started last week, marked the return of names like Merill Lynch and Bank of America that suspended their recruitments last year, in the wake of the recession. A few new ones like Gaja Capital also made their presence.

Investment firms and strategic consultants - J P Morgan, HSBC, Bain, BCG, Mc Kinsey, AT Kearney – recruited several students.

Deloitte made 10 offers (including lateral offers) for consulting roles. Other regular recruiters like TAS and Feedback Ventures offered general management and consulting roles and hired six students each. HUL, P&G, American Express, Standard Chartered and Nestle were others in the cluster that ended on Sunday.

Apart from the offers extended, Nestle SA would exclusively hire IIM, Ahdmedabad students for its international management and sales training programme – a role offered for the first time in the country, a placement office source said.

In all, 12 to 15 companies came for the second cluster and about 250 students sat through the process, Himanshu Nema, student head, placement committee told HT.

Around 310 students of 2010 batch would appear and reappear for the interviews, according to their choice and recruiters’ short list – till March end.

Apart from deviating from regular day-wise recruitment process to weekend cluster model, the top IIM also separated the Group Discussions and interviews, ‘to improve the interviewing experience for both interviews and students’.

Cohort is a set of companies offering similar profile (roles, pay packs etc) agreed by the students to visit on a particular weekend. A set of cohorts on a particular weekend constitutes a cluster. Results for that week interviews would be known within the two day period allowing the student to prepare in the week between for the next week options.

The third Cluster would start next weekend on the campus.