IIM Lucknow, one of the premier Indian B-schools, did what was considered “The Impossible” amidst the economic slowdown. It achieved 100% summer placements for its 29th batch of 475 students, the largest IIM batch, in a record time of 5.5 days. The recruitment drive saw participation from 159 domestic and international recruiters.
The top 4 segments based on roles offered were sales & marketing, finance, consulting and business development. In spite of the current economic situation, IIM Lucknow attracted significant roles in the finance domain. The rest of the offers came from domains such as operations/supply chain, general management, systems/IT, market research, analytics and HR.
Some of the top recruiters across different sectors were Aditya Birla Group, Accenture, Al Shaya, Amazon, a Delhi based NGO, Headstrong, HSBC, Hindustan Unilever, Kraft-Cadbury, McKinsey, P&G, Rakshak Foundation, a startup in the taxi business, an SME advisory firm and The Boston Consulting Group.
Some of the top firms from the FMCG/consumer goods/telecom sector were Asian Paints, Airtel, Coke, Dabur, GSK Consumer, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Kraft-Cadbury, L’Oreal, Marico, Mars, Nivea, P&G, Pepsi, Puma, Reckitt Benckiser and Vodafone. In addition to the traditional sales & marketing roles, these firms offered roles in supply chain management, IT, finance, HR, analytics with some of them being exclusive roles for IIM Lucknow. P&G, which was the top recruiter in this segment, opened the highest number of profiles and hired 10 interns. Kraft-Cadbury and Hindustan Unilever were the next top recruiters. DuPont hired an intern for its prestigious Marketing Leadership Development Program. Dabur gave an international offer for its Dubai office.
BFSI sector was represented by firms such as American Express, Avendus Capital, Aviva, Axis Bank, BNP Paribas, Citibank, DBS, Edelweiss, Goldman Sachs, Headstrong, HSBC, ICICI bank, India Quotient Fund, 2 Indian PE players, Karvy, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Macquarie, Magma Fin Corp, Nomura, Sharekhan, a European hedge fund, Standard Chartered among others. The major roles were in front end investment banking, global markets, corporate/wholesale/retail banking, market research, trading and operations.
In the consulting domain, McKinsey, BCG, AT Kearney, Deloitte and Accenture made a total of 29 offers with McKinsey and Accenture being the top 2 recruiters. WolffOlins, a niche brand consulting firm based out of Dubai, hired 3 interns exclusively from IIM Lucknow for its Dubai office. The General Management domain saw participation from companies such as Aditya Birla Group (ABG), Cipla, JSPL, Mahindra and Mahindra, RIL and TAS among others. ABG was the highest recruiter in this domain with 10 offers.
Some of the firms from the IT/e-Commerce/Technology sectors were Amazon, Capgemini, Cognizant, Comviva, eBay, Flipkart, Google, HCL, InMobi, Microsoft, Infoedge and Wipro. These firms opened not only IT/Systems profiles but also roles such as business development, supply chain management, product marketing, strategic alliances, program manager and analytics.
A few of the Pharma/healthcare firms were Bristol Myers Squibb, BoehringerIngelheim, Cipla, GSK Pharma, J&J Pharma and Piramal Healthcare. The roles were primarily in sales and marketing, finance, operations, market research and general management. One of these firms also opened its prestigious internship for leadership roles in Asia-Pacific, Europe/Middle East/Africa or Latin America.
One of the new segments that came up this year was the social and education sector with paid stipends. A total of 14 such firms participated offering roles in sales and marketing, market research, business development, finance, IT, policy research and project implementation.
The college also attracted the highest number of international firms from the Middle East and Africa from diverse sectors such as retail, real estate, brand consulting and advertising.
IIM Lucknow set the standards for Summer Placements last year with 100% placements for 453 students. However, it yet again raised the bar by achieving the same feat but for the largest IIM batch of 475 students in a record time of five and a half days.