Booming economy reflects at XLRI’s record Summer Placements

• FMCG Sector picks up 30% of the batch
• Number of Consultancy offers goes up by 67%
• IBM emerges as biggest recruiter taking 13; HLL and ICICI Bank are next with 11 each

The Placement Committee of XLRI added another feather to its cap as the Summer Internship Process was completed successfully with the batch being placed over the very first weekend of summer placements. After a hugely successful Final Placement for the batch of 2004, the confidence that the Corporate world reposes on XLRI was reinforced, with students securing summer internship in the finest names. By consensus, this was rated as one of the best Summer Placements in recent memory. The batch of 2006 has 189 students – 126 in Business Management and 63 in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations.

The biggest recruiter was IBM, which picked up 13 candidates; this was closely followed by HLL and ICICI Bank, which recruited 11 each and BPCL with 9. The FMCG Sector – comprising Arvind Brands, Asian Paints, Cadbury, Castrol, Coke, Colgate Palmolive, Gillette, Godrej, HLL, ICI, ITC, Pepsi, Reckitt Benckiser, Seagrams and Titan – was the top recruiter picking up 54 students (30% of the batch). In sync with the boom witnessed by the economy, the process saw bulk recruitments in the sector - HLL picked 11 students, while ITC and Gillette took 7 and 6 respectively. The Pharma industry was represented by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Ranbaxy.
The number of offers accepted from Consulting firms - which included Accenture, Ernst & Young, Hay Group, Hewitt, Mercer and PwC – went up by a whopping 67% compared to last year.

The IT/ITES Sector accounted for 22% of the batch, with 37 accepted offers from Cognizant Technology Solutions, EXL Services, IBM, NSE-IT, TCS, Texas Instruments, WeP and Wipro. The Core Sector picked the next highest numbers with 36 offers made in all by Aditya Birla Group, BPCL, Murugappa Group, Shree Cements, TAS and Tata Motors.

19% of the batch was picked up by Banks and Financial Institutions (BFI): after ICICI Bank, the next highest numbers in this sector were from GE, which took 8 and Citibank with 6. The sector also comprised ABN Amro, AIG, ICICI Prudential, SBI, Standard Chartered and UTI Bank. Major recruiters from the Core sector like Murugappa, TAS, Aditya Birla Group saw 13 offers being accepted.

In all, there were 45 companies participating in the process. The highest stipend offered was Rs 64,000 by Hay Group, the international consulting firm, which was on campus for the first time. XLRI welcomed first-time participants in Arvind Brands, CRY, Ranbaxy and Shree Cements. Cadbury India and Titan returned to Campus after a short break.

Technology played a major role in the placements this year with companies such as Cadbury making use of Video Conferencing for recruitment. A number of Companies also used the integrated Online Placement System for various stages of their recruitment process: it may be noted that XLRI was among the first B-Schools to take the Process online early this year.

The Placement Coordinator, Dr Sabyasachi Sengupta expressed his pleasure commenting, “The positive response from companies this year is heartening: this is evident from the growing number of Companies visiting XLRI with every Placement session. The enthusiasm of Companies also strikes an optimistic note for the Final Placements scheduled this February.”

Harshvardhan Ratanpal Singh, Secretary, Placement Committee of XLRI summed up Summers 2005 saying, “The summer recruitment for this year has been marked by heavy recruitments by our regular recruiters, and increased participation by companies in the Consulting and FMCG sectors. This is an indication of the belief corporates have in the unique talent being groomed at XLRI, and a reaffirmation of the highly rigorous selection process of XLRI with a selection ratio of 1:158.”