Brain drain 2.0 -- Top IIMB grads file overseas flight plan

Brain drain 2.0 -- Top IIMB grads file overseas flight plan
Anubha Ghosh

FEB 26: After information technology, the next target for brain drain seems to be management talent, if the trend of business school graduates' placements is any indication. While the salaries of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), students placed overseas is growing rapidly, the number of offers being doled out by the foreign recruiters has jumped by nearly 50 per cent this year.

According to placement coordinators, this year average salaries for the IIMB graduates of the class of 2001 with jobs abroad rose to Rs 30-40 lakh per annum as against Rs 20-23 lakh per annum clocked last year.

Even the number of students with at least one overseas job offer has jumped by 50 per cent to over 60 overseas offers in 2001 from 40 in year 2000 of the total batch of 180 students. Or, to put in other words, a third of this class will leave the country shortly.

Contributing the maximum to the stupendous average salary figure has been Nimesh Gupta with a job offer of pound 125,000 by Deustche Bank Global. Last year the highest salary was 100,000 pound. However, salary is not the only issue for students looking for an overseas posting.

Says Ajit Kumar, who has an offer of $80,000 with Deloitte Consulting, "with students getting more focussed, it's also a question of fit rather than simply salaries." Adds Saurabh Singh, with an around 1,00,000 pound job offer from Lehman Brothers, "The financial markets in India are not as developed. Overseas one can get exposure to newer products and larger financial deals."

The domestic package has gone up with a 20-30 per cent increase in package from Rs 5.5-6.0 lakh last year to Rs 7-8 lakh in 2001. Including the foreign icing on the placement cake, the average, however, increases from Rs 10.5-11.0 lakh to Rs 11.5-Rs 12.0 lakh.

Chief among the foreign recruiters were Lehman Brothers which picked up 7 MBAs, Exeter (5), Deloitte Consulting (5), Deutche Bank Global (3), J P Morgan (3) and i2 technologies (6). This year also saw some new companies in the IIMB campus including Bristle Cole and OrbitE. Says Rishikesha T Krishnan, associate professor of corporate strategy, IIMB, "Investment banks and consulting firms have always been on the top. Last year there was a deviation with a flood of dotcoms, but this year it is back to square one."

Hence, a large chunk of IIM-B graduates found their way to consulting firms and investment bankers on the first two days of placement. IT systems companies trailed in only on the third day with barely 40 students left to be placed.

Infy backs out

Dogged by reports of slowing down on fresh recruitments, software major Infosys seems to have backed out at the last minute from the placements round at IIMB. The company seems to have been miffed at not having been placed on the first day (placements started with Day Zero, which was Friday, when the Who's Who of international firms were wooing students), according to the student placement committee. Some students, however, were wondering if this was part of the go-slow on recruitments.