Hiring rebounds at top Indian business schools

Placement heads of some of the older IIMs said that while crore-plus salaries have been coming in, the median pay packages are similar to last year’s or have seen marginal uptick. Recruiters from consulting, manufacturing and, in some cases, financial services too have shown higher interest in hiring so far this year.

Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, one of the older IIMs, has already placed its first cohort and, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the students were “upbeat” about the placements this year. The management college did not respond to Mint’s queries.

Recruiters, too, are pointing to hiring more this year. “Our hiring numbers have gone up this year, and we will likely hire more candidates from the IIMs compared to the last two years,” said Supratik Bhattacharyya, chief talent officer for RPG Group. According to Bhattacharyya, the business house typically visits older IIMs such as IIM-Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow as well as other premier campuses such as FMS, SP Jain or XLRI.

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Placements at the older IIMs typically begin in end-January and February, while the newer ones’ placements begin the previous December.

Geopolitical changes and the new Donald Trump-led US government’s unorthodox thinking may have prevented companies from rolling out international offers in large numbers.

“In the tech sector, we noticed fewer offers from the large MNC (multinational corporation) players, with some of the regular recruiters not participating,” said Viswanath Pingali, chairperson of placements for Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Ahmedabad. “Perhaps, uncertainty in the global geopolitical environment contributed to this.”

Although there has been no direct diktat from new governments like the one in the US, consultants believe the focus for many companies in such countries would be to hire from local colleges rather than get work visas processed for graduates from India.

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Some of the companies that have recruited from IIM-Ahmedabad include BCG, McKinsey, Kearney, Accenture Strategy, Monitor Deloitte, Simon-Kucher, EY Parthenon, Deloitte, PwC and KPMG.

Different strategies

This year, the IIMs have adopted different strategies to get companies over to the campuses, after reeling last year from sluggish placements. Median pay—what a middle-ranked candidate would get—had stagnated or, in some cases, even dipped for the batch of 2024 versus the one that graduated in 2023.

“We were prepared for a tough market and had informed the students to align their goals in terms of jobs that are on offer. While we saw some uptick in the consulting space, we saw some dip in the FMCG and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) cohorts,” Pingali told Mint.

At the same time, the recruiting companies have upped their scrutiny, and job seekers were subject to questions on the developing political climate and its impact on markets. For instance, a big consulting firm that visited the older IIMs asked candidates about why some of the automakers were selling more vehicles in global markets than in their home turfs.

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“We wanted to know if the students understood market dynamics and our questions were around how companies are strategizing product sales in different geographies,” said a senior executive in one of the consulting firms that went for the first cohort. The company offered around ₹40 lakh in compensation and a couple of the posts included roles in the middle-east.

Hospitality firm Oyo, too, made offers at IIM-Ahmedabad. “We were extremely happy to participate in the recruitment process at IIM Ahmedabad this year, and were immensely impressed with the strong talent pool of candidates on offer this time,” said a company spokesperson. “We made three offers for roles based out of our Gurugram headquarters, and all these candidates will be working on our international businesses.”

However, the newer lot of IIMs may be slightly more worried as a larger flock of firms heads to the older brethren. “This year, the job market looks tight compared to the previous year, resulting in companies prioritising the older IIMs over the younger ones. Some of the regular recruiters visited the campus during placement talk but did not recruit,” said one of the students at IIM-Raipur. The B-school did not respond to Mint’s queries.

However, IIM Bodh Gaya said it has placed about 300 out of 450 students from the batch of 2025 who are pursuing their two-year MBA course, including some in specialised ones. Sabyasachi Mohapatra, chairperson of the B-school’s career development cell, told Mint that the remaining 150 should get recruited over the next couple of months.

“We expect the median salary to be around ₹15 lakh versus ₹13 lakh last year. The top 75 percentile of the batch should get ₹18 lakh, similar to last year,” Mohapatra noted. “We cannot harp on the same set of recruiters to come and hire every year. This year, more profiles came in for analytics as firms shift from services-oriented to product management roles.”

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Unlike engineering colleges like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), IIMs often hold their placements in cohorts or groups. This is especially true for the older of the 21 IIMs including Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and Calcutta. So, the first cluster could be investment bankers, the second could be consumer goods and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), etc.