Class of ’24: Summer internships show way to a heady placement season

Seen as a precursor to final placements, summer internship placements at top business schools (B-schools) in India this year have witnessed a healthy rise in stipends being offered to students.

With over 140 firms participating in the summer internship placement process at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Indore, the B-school witnessed a 50 per cent increase over the highest stipend amount secured by its students last year, to Rs 6 lakh for two months. The average stood at Rs 2.74 lakh for two months’ internship — a 37 per cent jump over the previous year.

At IIM-Kozhikode, the highest stipend offered stood at Rs 6.47 lakh, while the mean stipend was Rs 2.5 lakh at the conclusion of its summer internship recruitment drive for its two-year full-time post graduate programmes — a 25 per cent jump over last year.

The Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi, recorded the highest ever average stipend at Rs 3.02 lakh for two months for the batch of 2022-24; the highest stipend was Rs 4.4 lakh.

Summer placements for the 2022-24 batch of PGP and PGP-ABM at IIM Lucknow, too, were good, with the highest-ever average and median stipends of Rs 1.41 lakh per month and Rs 1.50 lakh per month respectively. The best offering was Rs 3.50 lakh a month. The institute secured 100 per cent placement for the largest batch in its 38-year history, securing 570 offers for 566 students. For instance, while summer interns’ hiring by RPG Group remained at last year’s level, its average stipend offering witnessed an increase.

“We’ve raised stipends for those we have hired to remain competitive and be able to attract the right talents for our group companies. Summer internships have always been the most vital first step towards our final hiring,” Supratik Bhattacharya, chief talent officer- RPG Group, told Business Standard.

She added: “We ensure that we offer projects that are not only meaningful, but also real-time and of value to us. We get a fair view of the interns’ aptitude, attitude, and skills as they work through these projects over two months. We ensure that pre-placement offers are given out to the most deserving ones. We are increasingly taking this approach of making such offers to the best among interns.”

Sector-wise, consulting continued to rule the roost, followed by financial services, IT, and sales & marketing.

At FMS Delhi, consulting & strategy domains of major recruiters like Accenture Strategy, Bain & Co., BCG, Ernst & Young, Kearney, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Redseer Consulting, and Synergy Consulting roped in 29 per cent of students, followed by sales & marketing (26 per cent), product management & analytics (17 per cent), BFSI (15 per cent), and general management (13 per cent).

Prominent firms offered consulting roles at IIM Indore, accounting for 25 per cent of offers. These companies included Accenture Strategy & Consulting, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte India, EY India, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, PwC India, PwC US Advisory, Redseer Consulting, and Synergy Consulting.

At IIM Indore, recruiters in the sales & marketing domain, making 23 per cent of total offers, included AB InBev India, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Limited, Disney Star, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Google, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Puma, Sony Pictures Networks, Tata Consumer Products, and The Coca-Cola Company. Finance came in at third — 16 per cent of internship offers at the campus, led by recruiters like Citigroup, Credit Suisse, CRISIL, The D.E. Shaw Group, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ICICI Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, and YES Bank.

Commenting on summer internship placements, IIM-Indore Director Himanshu Rai said: “The trust reinforced by our recruiters reflects the institute’s commitment to excellence and… IIM-Indore looks forward to strengthening our industry engagement and delivering impact through socially conscious leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs.”

IIM-Ahmedabad follows a cluster-based summer internship recruitment process. The first cluster comprises five cohorts — investment banking & markets, management consulting, niche consulting, cards and financial advisory, and private equity, venture capital & asset management. From a pool of 60 firms participating in the first cluster, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) was the top recruiter with 28 offers, followed by Bain and Company with 23 offers at IIM Ahmedabad.

The summer internship placement season at IIM Kozhikode attracted participation from 122 recruiters offering internships to 541 students across many roles in consulting, finance, general management, IT & analytics, sales & marketing, and operations & retail e-commerce with top recruiters from across the globe. Around 26 per cent of the offers were rolled out by the consulting cluster this season at IIM-Kozhikode, including those from Accenture Strategy, Bain & Company, BCG, Deloitte, Everest Group, EY, EY-Parthenon, GEP, KPMG, PwC, and Synergy Consulting.

Sales & marketing witnessed 24 per cent offers with an increase of 39 per cent in the average stipend from major recruiters, such as Asian Paints, Astrazeneca, Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Consumer Care, BP Castrol, Coca Cola, Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, HUL, ITC, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, PepsiCo, Pidilite, Reckitt, RPG, ReNew Power, Samsung, Tata Consumer Products, Tata Play, and Tata Steel.

This was followed by IT & analytics (13 per cent of total offers), and general management & operations (12 per cent).

IIM-Kozhikode Director Debashis Chatterjee said: “The key highlight of this placement season was the participation from private equity and fund management firms. The results reinforce our recruiters’ faith in the academic capabilities, diverse student community, and IIM-Kozhikode’s commitment towards pursuing excellence in all fields of engagement.”

Private equity and fund management firms British International Investments, GEF Capital Partners, Piramal Alternative, and The Rohatyn Group were among those that participated in the process. The placement season also provided international opportunities with the participation of Suzuki Japan and start-ups like I’m Beside You. Other major highlights include the participation of leading companies like Disney Hotstar, Mercedes-Benz, and Sony Pictures Network India for multiple roles in strategy, product management, and marketing.

The summer internship placement drive at IIM-Lucknow was successful with more than 185 recruiters participating in the process “despite the current state of the economy”, said Prem Prakash Dewani, chairman, student affairs and placement, PGP at the B-school.