NEW DELHI: Pre-placement offers (PPOs) for students of the country’s top notch business management institutes, IIMs, have started pouring in much ahead of schedule.

PPOs are made by companies to candidates who intern with them for around two months during the summers. Early offers indicate employers want to retain talent ahead of the final placements in January next year. Better corporate earnings over the last one year has boosted job prospects in the country as companies are looking to expand operations after going slow on recruitment with bare minimum increments till last year.

Companies across sectors are looking to hire and they would surely use PPO as a medium to lap up good talent from across IIMs as there is a sense of familiarity on both sides, said a senior human resource executive who recently moved from a pharma company to one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. “The war for talent is definitely going to be more intensive this year,” he said requesting anonymity.

Picture this: IIM Calcutta has reported 37 PPOs, more than twice compared to 15 such job offers received by its students in the same period last year. This means that nearly 10% of the batch already have a job offer, a mark they could achieve only around October last year.

“Last year nobody was sure how placements were going to shape up since companies came out with fewer PPOs. This year, early offers have given us much more confidence and placement prospects for our batch are already looking brighter,” said Paromita Chakravarty, a student from IIM-C, who recently received an offer from an FMCG giant.

This year, PPOs at IIM-C include those from consulting firms McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co and AT Kearney besides international banks such as UBS, Nomura and Morgan Stanley. Majority of the offers from these banks are for international positions like Singapore, London and New York. Apart from MNCs, Tata Administrative Services and Hindustan Unilever have also offered jobs to students at IIM-C. About 18 students are also going through pre-placement interviews at the campus, most of which are likely to get converted into PPOs in the coming days.

IIM Lucknow has reported 22 PPOs so far, from recruiters such as McKinsey & Co, BCG, Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, Essar Group and L&T. Although, a number of companies have give PPOs already, the real rush of PPOs would be felt only by October, said IIM-L recruitment coordinator Rahul Tom Joseph.

Both IIM-A and IIM-B did not disclose the numbers but said that PPOs have primarily come from consulting firms and a few investment banks.

At IIM-B, PPOs started coming from July and the institute says the numbers are at par with last year. “The trend looks healthy,” says IIM-B placement head Sapna Agarwal. “If we go by the sentiments during final placements for students passing out early this year and the PPOs being offered now, the scenario looks quite bright. But we need to be cautious and invite more companies, since our batch size is larger this year,” she added.

Source: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com

HOUSTON: To expand its global footprint without compromising its core values, MIT Sloan is heading up for a new collaboration with Business schools in India, by entering into a partnership with Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Although MIT’s Sloan School of Management was instrumental in starting Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta fifty years back, but it never collaborated with B schools there.

“India was a gaping hole that existed in our strategy,” said Sloan Deputy Dean S P Kothari. Kothari, also a professor of management at the Cambridge-based school, is heading up a new partnership between Sloan and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, one of India’s top business school. The deal cemented in early April, will create exchanges of both professors and students between MIT and ISB.

ISB is itself the product of international partnerships. It was founded in 2001 in collaboration with Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and Penn’s Wharton School. According to the partnership, ISB will send up to two professors a year to teach at MIT and two to four Sloan professors will teach at ISB, Kothari says.

The exchange will also allow the professors to conduct research abroad and get to know the faculty at the partner school, Kothari said, helping them bring a greater understanding of international business to their home institutions. ”We have a strong desire to further MIT’s mission, which is to build management education capacity and also be a catalyst for research around the globe,” Kothari said.

Two to four teams of up to six Sloan students each–mostly graduate students–will also go to India to do projects with ISB students, he added. Sloan professors will also help ISB start institutes dedicated to manufacturing and infrastructure management, according to Kothari.

The MIT faculty will manage the institutes and help recruit faculty from around the globe. Additionally, MIT and ISB will jointly organise an annual conference that will likely focus on either manufacturing or infrastructure management, Kothari said.

Source: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com

The third of the four newly sanctioned Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) at Raipur released its admission notification today, inviting CAT 2009 applicants with minimum 90 percentile for the general category.

IIM Raipur, which is being mentored by IIM Indore, will have 70 seats for the two-year Post-Graduate Program (PGP) in Management to begin with. The tuition fees will be Rs 3 lakh per academic year.

The institute plans to start the academic year on October 8, 2010. In order to apply, you need to have a minimum of 90 percentile in CAT 2009 if you are from the General category, 80 percentile for Non-creamy-layer OBC, 70 percentile for SC and 50 percentile for ST.

Timeline for admissions to IIM Raipur:

1. August 17, 2010 (Tuesday): Release of Admissions notification
2. August 30, 2010 (Monday): Last date for acceptance of Applications
3. September 6, 2010 (Monday): Release of shortlisted candidates for Personal Interview
4. September 10-12, 2010 (Friday-Sunday): Interviews for shortlisted candidates at Benguluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.
5. September 10-14, 2010 (Friday-Tuesday): Interviews for shortlisted candidates at Indore.
6. September 25, 2010 (Saturday): Release of shortlisted candidates for admission
7. October 4, 2010 (Monday): Last date for receiving the acceptance from the
   candidates
8. October 8, 2010 (Friday): Proposed date for Registration for the Programme and commencement of the term

Prior to this, IIM Ranchi and IIM Rohtak have already commenced their academic sessions. The fourth among the new IIMs at Trichy is yet to make any announcement of starting up.

After years of being meted out step-fatherly treatment by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), b-schools that offer one-year MBA courses now have reason to cheer. The AICTE has just about approved the one-year Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) conducted by Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

This move is expected to ease the granting of approvals to similar programmes in other management institutes too. The approval to Great Lakes has however been issued under the ‘certificate program’ category and not the full-fledged diploma category which is usually awarded to two-year management programs. Under AICTE guidelines, programmes which are of less than two years duration are considered ‘certificate programmes’. For a ‘diploma programme’, the duration of the course has to be two years or 15 months, with a stress on the applicant’s prior work experience. Apparently, the approval came about after stringent norms laid out by the AICTE concerning issues like infrastructure, faculty and student strength were met with by Great Lakes.

According to Prof R Sriram, Executive Director at Great Lakes, the college had earlier applied for approval for its 12-month course in 2006. But nothing came by then, since AICTE as a practice did not approve of one-year courses in management. The institute applied once again in 2009 when it learnt that the AICTE had relaxed its stand on the issue. The second application was followed by a number of visits by the AICTE officials to the Great Lakes campus, interactions at different level with faculty and a thorough check on the different facilities and services on the complex. The approvals also had to go through a string of nods from the regional AICTE office, apart from its headquarters in Delhi.

When asked whether the approval was just a fancy seal or would it have a bearing on the quality of education imparted, or the reputation of the college, Prof Sriram said it would not impact either. “Students have been opting for these courses anyway, even when the AICTE had not approved it.” However, Prof Sriram was certain that the approval would help students to get jobs in the government or in public sector companies, where the AICTE stamp is a necessary requirement. Prof Sriram also states that the approval will help Indians who worked for Indian companies abroad and want to switch companies within that location. “In such cases too, clearance from immigration offices and other local offices become easier when there is a government stamp on your degree.”

However, Great Lakes has encountered very few students who have had dismal job prospects for not having studied in a government-approved programme, he claimed. “But this number can go up in the future. Presently, few people must be switching jobs because of this issue. They can now,” added Prof Sriram. Thirdly, the approval will also help remove the ‘unnecessary nuisance value’ associated with not having an AICTE approval for a course. “It’s just a nagging issue, nothing else. If something is written in the media about non-approved courses and your school’s name figures there, it is just irritating.” AICTE approvals do help in the branding and marketing of an institute.

Source: www.pagalguy.com

An astrophysicist, a kickboxer, a Limca Book of Records holder and a go-karting champion may not have much in common. But, they all are students of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) for its flagship programme. Kumar Manish profiles the future MBAs.

Siddharth Shah, 22, go-karting champion
Three times national go-karting champion, Shah led a six-member Indian team which came first at an international go-karting event in Goa in 2008. Shah says, “Go-karting has been a passion for me for the last 10 years. It is basically circuit driving and a stepping stone to international motor sport, especially F1.” Shah nurtures a dream to own a F1 team in future.

Shah’s family comes from Gujarat, but is now settled in Mumbai. He also played a key role in organizing Jyot, an exhibition based on intrinsic Jainism knowledge, in the city. Shah says, “More than 14 lakh people participated in the event which explained the relevance of religious knowledge system with scientific logical interpretations, especially to the youth who have drawn away from religion.”

Tarun Agarwal, 27, astrophysicist
He is a gold medal winner in senior category of International Astronomy Olympiad held in Russia in 2007. Agarwal says, “The world of astronomy always intrigued me and it is my inquisitiveness to know more about our universe that took me to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the US in 2001,”

Agarwal also set up an astronomy club in his school. “During my stay in the US, 9/11 attack happened and it changed the perspective of my life. I got more oriented towards using my knowledge that can be applicable in real world. ”

Agarwal also traded in equity options after graduating from MIT. He says, “During the recession, trading in the volatile situation that prevailed in the US, where everything around was crashing, was a learning experience.” In 2009, Agarwal shifted his base to India. He says, “I was working in New York but I wanted to be a part of the Indian growth story. The Asian giants — India and China – are leading the pack in global market now.”

Urvashi Gupta, 21, kickboxer
A commerce graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, Urvashi is an amateur kickboxer. She cracked the CAT in her first attempt and got interview calls from top five IIMs, including IIM-A. On her hobby, Gupta says, “Kickboxing is a great way to remain fit. I have trained for some months but never took part in a professional fight.”

On the less number of girls making it to IIM-A, Gupta says, “It never bothered me during my preparation for the exams.” This feisty girl wants to be an entrepreneur, a job creator, after graduating from IIM-A. She says, “There will always be limited job offers and I do not want to get into that race. I would like to start my own venture. Being an entrepreneur gives one more freedom and responsibility.”

Anirban Das, 25, Limca Book of Records holder
Limca Book record holder Anirban Das, 25, worked with Microsoft’s Hyderabad Campus before belling the CAT. It was a unique spectacle watching strategically placed dominoes fall in a synchronised manner creating the logo of Windows 7. Sharing his unique feat, Das says, “We wanted to make it a special moment during the launch of Windows 7. We had got 7,000 dominoes for the challenge which we accomplished successfully.”

“It was an idea, which started as an email exchange among a small group of 22 employees interested in doing something different on the launch,” Das recalls.
Source: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com