IIM-Ahmedabad registers 100% placement; 163 dream applications

Among the investment banks, Goldman Sachs was the largest recruiter, making 9 offers, closely followed by JP Morgan with 5 offers. In the general management domain, Adani made the highest number of offers – 10, closely followed by Essar Group, which rolled out 6 offers.

This year the management consulting cohort witnessed a decrease in the number of offers by 15 per cent vis-à-vis last year, while niche consulting witnessed a very significant increase. The roles offered by conglomerates also increased by 13 per cent.

Apart from this, Tata Consultancy Services was a prominent recruiter with consulting roles with 17 offers, followed by PwC with 9 offers. In the Laterals process, FinIQ made the highest number of offers – 11, closely followed by Navi – 9 offers. Other notable offers were HUL – 6 (all PPOs), Microsoft in Laterals – 6 offers, and Praxis Consulting – 7 offers.

This year, there were 23 new recruiters, including Abhinandan Lodha, Bluestone, Crompton Greaves, DE Shaw, Diageo, Elevation Capital, GDi Partners, HDFC ERGO, India Sotheby’s International Realty, Javis and Jindal Shadeed.

Prof Ankur Sinha, Chairperson of the Placement Committee at IIM Ahmedabad, said, “Despite a challenging job market this year, IIM A witnessed significant recruiter engagement during the placement season. This year, we observed not only an increase in the number of participating companies but also a greater diversity in the job roles offered. Completing the placement process in just three cluster days underscores the excellence of our educational offerings and the effectiveness of our cluster-cohort placement system for both companies and students. This year’s placements reflect that the demand for top-tier talent continues to rise, regardless of the economic environment. While there was a decline in management consulting offers, niche consulting offers increased significantly. We also saw increase in hiring by conglomerates and domestic firms.”

The placement process was conducted in two stages. The first was the laterals process, where firms interviewed students with prior work experience and offered them mid-level managerial positions. 28 firms participated from diverse sectors such as technology, banking, finance, consulting, analytics, etc.

In the second stage (finals) of the process, firms were grouped into cohorts based on their core business, and groups of cohorts were invited to campus across different clusters. As in previous years, students were provided the flexibility of making “dream” applications to firms of their choice in a subsequent cluster, even with an offer in hand.

There were 163 dream applications this year, which is 54 per cent higher than the previous year. This gave students the flexibility and choice to build careers in sectors of their preference.

IIM Ahmedabad Placements conclude with 100% placement. (Representative image. Express photo)

Firms from different sectors and geographies participated in the process at IIM Ahmedabad through Laterals, Finals, and PPOs. Recruiters in the consulting domain included Arthur D. Little, Boston Consulting Group, Kearney, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, Monitor Deloitte, Oliver Wyman, Praxis Global Alliance, PwC and Strategy and Middle East, among others.

Prominent recruiters in the Investment Banking and Markets and Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Asset Management space included Arpwood Capital, ARGA Investment, Avendus Capital, Barclays, DE Shaw, Elevation Capital, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Premji Invest, among others. Consumer goods, consumer services, consumer tech, and consumer electronics cohorts’ firms that made offers were Bluestone, Diageo, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, Loreal, Nestle, Phillip Morris International, United Breweries, and Wipro Consumer Care, among others.

The Conglomerate and Retail B2B & B2C cohorts saw participation like Abhinandan Lodha Groups, Adani Group, Aditya Birla Group, CK Birla Group, Essar, Jindal Shadeed and Tata Administrative Services. Some prominent recruiters in Enterprise Tech that gave offers were Cisco, HCL Tech, Javis, Microsoft, Media.Net and Newgen Software Technologies Ltd, etc. Firms participating in the Laterals process included Amazon, BrowserStack, Cisco, Coforge, Crompton Greaves, Edra Labs, EXL Service, FinIQ, Lodha Group, Livspace, Microsoft, Myntra, Navi, Piramal, PH Values and Wipro, among others.

Pratyush Adhikary, the Recruitment Secretary at IIM Ahmedabad, said, “In our endeavour of ensuring student recruiter fit, like every year, students were once again free to exercise their dream and hold options, allowing both recruiters and students to find their match. Multiple dream options including across and within clusters, options to hold and upgrade pre-placement offers and lateral placement offers were provided to the PGP 2024 batch. Thanks to this, in a year wherein there were fears of opportunities drying up, we saw an increase not only in terms of recruiters but also in the kinds of roles being offered, and in all the three clusters, newer recruiters made their presence felt by recruiting in good numbers”.

Akarsh Shrivastava, Principal at Elevation Capital said “At Elevation Capital, we have been consistently recruiting from global top tier ivy league universities, and as we sought to expand the program, IIMA was an obvious first port of call. We were impressed by the incredible quality and maturity of the students.”

Mohit Agarwal, Senior Partner at Simon Kucher, said, “Participating in the IIM Ahmedabad Final Placements of 2024 has been, yet again, a rewarding experience for Simon Kucher. The professionalism and efficiency of the placement committee have greatly helped our recruitment process, allowing us to discover and onboard some of the most talented and dynamic individuals for our consultant positions.”