XLRI beats economic slowdown, placement hits 100% for summer interns in record time

Despite slowdown, country's premier B-School XLRI here has managed to find well-paid summer internship opportunities in April-May 2014 for its largest first-year batch of 303 students in a record time of 3.5 days. The recruitment drive saw 105 companies make 336 offers to the batch.

XLRI director Father E Abraham said, "This is an affirmation of the all-round integral formation we strive to impart that even during an economic slowdown, our students are much sought after by firms across industry sectors."

The top 5 recruiters, in terms of number of offers made at XLRI, were Vodafone, Microsoft, ITC, TAS and Standard Chartered, with the highest stipend offered being Rs 3 lakh for the internship period.

While XLRI maintained its stronghold as a human resources and marketing talent destination, it witnessed a steep 33% rise in the number of offers made in the finance domain.

Professor Rajiv Mishra, chairperson, placement, XLRI, said, "The meteoric increase (of almost 50%) in the number of recruiters... Stands testimony to the sustained faith shown by the industry in the much sought-after management professional talent at XLRI."

The B-School saw a third of its batch of 184 business management students receive offers from the finance domain.

While PE Carlyle Group continues to recruit summer interns exclusively from XLRI, a European hedge fund, a Singapore-based venture capital firm and the World Bank recruited for the first time.

Goldman Sachs was the largest finance recruiter followed by Standard Chartered Bank. Similarly, the FMCG sector saw 40% of its students land up offers with companies like Unilever, P&G, ITC, Reckitt Benckiser, Kraft Cadbury, Asian Paints, GSK-CH, Coca Cola, Colgate Palmolive, etc.

The healthcare sector was strongly represented by majors like Novartis, Roche, Dr Reddy's, GSK Pharma, etc.

The consulting domain too saw The Boston Consulting Group, KPMG, Cognizant Business Consulting, Deloitte, etc, participate. Technology and e-commerce also saw some key recruiters likeAmazon.com, Flipkart, Microsoft, Cisco offering roles in programme management and HR.