Sign In / Register
Make This My Home Page | Feedback |RSS
You are here: IE »   Story

IIMs get their reality check: those six-figure Wall Street salaries will have to wait

  • Print
  • Mail This Article
  • Comments
  • Add to favorites
  • Over the weekend, as Lehman Brothers went bust, Merrill Lynch was sold and the world of global high finance shook, hearts broke on Kolkata’s IIM campus. For two students of IIM-C’s Class of 2009 who had accepted pre-placement offers only a couple of weeks ago, the immediate future was suddenly a void.

    “We interned at Lehman’s London office only this summer. Work was as usual, no one had any idea that trade was declining,” one of them told The Indian Express.

    The student could have been speaking for hundreds of fresh graduates at Indian Institutes of Management from Kolkata to Ahmedabad, Lucknow to Bangalore. Firms like Merrill and Lehman have been among the biggest recruiters on campus, and the investment banking and financial services sector has been setting the aspirational benchmark with offers of salaries that have ranged from $120,000 to $360,000 annually. In the 24 hours after what the global media is describing as the blackest day in decades on Wall Street, many aspirations are appearing unreasonable.

    Ads by Google

    The two IIM-C students have received no official word yet from Lehman, but the silence holds only a slim hope. “We put in 12-13 hours a day at the London office and worked on hot sectors like commodities and equity sales. Everyone there was very interested in India,” recalled the student.

    A third of last year’s IIM-C batch of 291 got jobs in the investment banking and financial services sector. For summer placements, Merrill hired 18 students, Morgan Stanley 11, JP Morgan Chase 13 and HSBC Global Investment Banking Division 6. “Both Merrill and Lehman are big players as far as placements are concerned,” said IIM-C chief administrative officer Dinesh Varma. “They are good paymasters too. Probably this year we will miss them.”

    ... contd.

    Next12
    MBA's and their fancy theories!By: Rajan | 17-Sep-2008 Reply | Forward MBA's and their fancy theories about money management learned in class room environment are directly put in high managerial positions within a short time. They then try to put their fancy theories to practice and commit huge resources. When market forces don't go as assumed by these MBA's theorists then the corporates pay a heavy price. Aggresive use of structured products and high leverage corporates are the products of such MBA's as they are interested in providing short term results which raises their careers further!. No wonder corporates pay a heavy price for their decisions.
    Bubble burstBy: (Dr.) B.N.Anand | 17-Sep-2008 Reply | Forward The bubble has finally burst. It was always bewildering that these financial companies offered very fat salary cheques to the fresh pass outs from IIMs with out any experience. May be their inexperience in international financial dealings have contributed in the meltdown of these companies. It seems the focus may shift from expertising in finance to other variety of economic fields.The disappointment of the IIM graduates is understanable.
    Overhyped IIM'sBy: Harish | 17-Sep-2008 Reply | Forward IIM's are highly hyped institutions, 20 something fresh MBA's given responsibility without any experience were the cause of the Asian meltdown, as they are to some extent of this meltdown also
    IIMs not producing leaders...By: Neeraj | 17-Sep-2008 Reply | Forward India should rethink its education system and so should IIM, where they are unable to produce leaders in the industry. IIM is supposed to be the best mgmt. college in India. Its sad that neither the IIM students nor their professors could foresee anything wrong in the market, esp. the financial market.
    Nothing much in name of institutions, it is quality, integrity, honesty, zeal, commitment of product that matters.By: P. Suresh | 17-Sep-2008 Reply | Forward It is not the institution that matters mostly, it is individuals who matter.
    Post a Comment
    Name:
    Email:
    Title:
    Maximum characters allowed     
    Comment:
    TERMS OF USE:
    The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).
    I agree to the terms of use.