It’s PPO time in B-Schools

Ipsita Sarkar Gupta

As India Inc. grapples with economic downturn and slowdown in job market, various B-schools posted the successful results of their summer placements.

What does this indicate?

“Employers are choosing to hire students over a 35-week window of internship as opposed to three-day campus interview,” says Sankarshan Basu, placement chairman, IIM-Bangalore. As a result, all the top B-Schools are witnessing an increased number of Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs).

“There is definitely an increase in the rate of PPOs. Naturally, the lesser no of students are getting jobs in final placements,” says Professor Basu.  With the cost of recruiting and training going up, companies prefer the option of PPOs and PPIs (Pre-Placement Interviews).

Confirming the same, Professor Pushpendra Priyadarshi, placement chairman at IIM Lucknow says, “In terms of numbers, there has been an increase in summer internships offered this year. However, PPO offers are still being received. Hence, it is premature to comment before December end/January.”

IMT Ghaziabad is also witnessing an increase in the number of summer placement offers and PPOs. “At IMT, we have taken it a step further. Instead of a two-month internship, we give the option of five month or 150-day internship, where the students experience an intensive on-the-job learning model. We have converted this into a course of 15 credits,” says Vishal Goyal, head of corporate relation, IMT Ghaziabad.

Various firms have queued up for IMT’s five-month internship model. “The trend is picking up fast. Both PPOs and PPIs have gone up this year,” says Goyal.

IIM Bangalore witnessed a 17% growth in PPOs and has already received around 80 offers so far. In 2012, the total number was 97. Other IIMs – Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Lucknow – too are confident of surpassing previous years’ number, though most refused to divulge the figures. XLRI Jamshedpur too has received more than 65 offers so far, while the total number of PPOs in 2012 was 72.

And for most B-Schools, this is just the beginning. The flurry of PPOs will continue till December-end/January.

However, both Basu and Goyal admit that the PPOs are coming from established firms who have been hiring management trainees (MT) for a long time. “Firms that have been recruiting MTs for dinosaur years are more willing to experiment with the PPO model since they have a proper hiring system in place. The newer or the inexperienced firms still prefer recruiting through a five-tier or seven-tier GD-interview-test model in a short window,” says Goyal.