Last year saw a lot of turmoil on the employment front and forced the premier B-schools of the country to rework their corporate strategy. IIM Ahmedabad responded with a ‘Cohort’ placement system bidding goodbye to the generic Placement Week approach. As per the system the companies will follow a Weekend oriented interaction platform with the candidates with different companies representing different job profiles visiting every week. The system aims at providing the recruiters with a broad timeframe to interact with the prospective employees and also helps the students select the right jobs rather than running a rat race on the day zero.

'Cohort’ is working

While the emerging economic scenario and the summer placement season signalled a recovery for placements this year, ‘Cohort’ was certainly something that needed to be tested out. The response thus far has been pretty good and 35-40 offers have already been made to the 2010 pass outs at IIM-A by bigwigs of the corporate world. The first cluster had companies across four cohorts - international investment banks, global strategy consulting, global niche consulting and private equity/venture capital. Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co. made eight offers, including pre-placement offers.

Investment banking is also making a comeback. Reliable sources suggest a return of the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, HSBC Holdings PLC and JPMorgan Chase & Co on the IIM, Ahmedabad campus. Placement committee chairman Saral Mukherjee said that they were a little apprehensive as this was the first time that the new system has been introduced. "We are now sure we have moved in the right direction. The recruiters have expressed satisfaction with the new process and students too have interviewed with the firms of their choice," he added.

Last Updated on Thursday, 18 February 2010 10:03.

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