BANGALORE: In this dog-eat-dog world of competition for jobs, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) students are in a class of their own. They don’t hunt for work-the jobs just come to them.

Graduates clinching job offers with astronomical figures as salary has become sort of a custom in IIM campuses and this year too is no exception.

An IIM, Bangalore student landed himself a job with Barclays Capital in London at an annual package of 1,93,000 USD (about Rs 86.36 lakh).

To add to the joy, another student of the prestigious institute has been placed with a Rs 30 lakh per annum job, the highest a fresher ever got for an India-based assignment.

Gaurav Agarwal, an IIT-K (Kanpur) alumnus, graduating from IIM-B this year, received an offer to join as ‘associate’ with Barclays Capital in London at USD 1,93,000, IIMB placement committee sources said.

Two of his peers in IIM, Ahmedabad have also secured offers for posts of ‘associate' from Barclays, Singapore, which comes with a package of 1,85,000 USD each.

While IIM Banglore may have beaten IIM-A in securing the highest package, Piyush Sinha, chairman (recruitment), maintained that the institute was successful in \"increasing the spread of companies\".

\"There were 30 more recruiters this time. The total number of recruitment agencies participating in the placement drive was 118 this time. There are companies functioning in areas new for our placement programme, for instance, travel firms and information technology (IT),\" he said.

The offer was the highest one ever made to an IIM graduate, they added attributing it to ‘the economy, probably because the banks are focusing more on the emerging markets and are looking towards India to recruit for lateral positions’.

Venkaeeshan Shankaran, who has also done his masters from US, has bagged the highest offer from an MNC for a position based in India.

Overall, a total of 21 companies took part in the placement process on March 10, including who’s who of global investment banking, the likes of Goldman Sachs, Hong Kong-based BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, UBS, etc.

“The highest domestic offer of Rs 34 lakh per annum was given to a student by RPG Enterprises,” IIM-A Director Bakul Dholakia said on Monday.

Another student from the B-school’s Bangalore campus has accepted a Rs 30 lakh per annum job for an India-based assignment.

Agarwal, 29, described the offer as an ‘amazing opportunity’ and attributed it to ‘the economy, probably because the banks are focusing more on the emerging markets and are looking towards India to recruit at lateral positions’.

The IIM-B pass-out, who has had a two-year stint in the US after his MS In electrical engineering from University of California, will look into Barclays Global Financial Risk Management, operating from London.

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Speech by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times....

"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were told to eat our
vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the
starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my
children: 'Finish your maths homework. Think of the children in India
who would make you starve, if you don't.'"