With domestic packages as high as Rs.32 lakhs, one student each from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) and St. Stephens were the chosen one as they broke the university's records of the highest placement ever offered to a student.

Another example is that of a student of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) bagging an all time high international offer of USD 1,50,000.

IIFT has observed an upsurge of 50% in the average salaries and 10% of all placements have been abroad.

IIFT's corporate and placement advisor, Munish Bhargava said that, "With the highest ever international offer of USD 1,50,000 from Olam International, IIFT has set a new benchmark. Along with the highest salary offer another record of 17 overseas offers were made to our students. The average salary over the past year saw a major leap of 53% at Rs.11.54 lakh."

"Students are all set to reap the benefits of the economy which is now on the path of recovery," said the Director of IIFT, K.T. Chacko.

An economics student Adit Mathur from Deutsche Bank bagged the 32-lakh package at the SRCC. The placement season in the university usually concludes by December, but this time it is still on with 27 companies, which is 10 more than the last year, visiting the college since last August.

Source: indiaedunews.net With Rs.32 lakh offers, its now official, jobs are back

LEAP YEAR A million new jobs. The best salary hikes in the Asia-Pacific region that will fatten purses of employees by 10 per cent on average. After the gloom of the slowdown, the sun appears to be shining again on India in 2010

It's the time of year when management graduates across the counry put on their best ties and head out to campus interviews. If they've been good students, they do so in been good students, they do so in expectation of salaries with as many digits as telephone numbers.

Last year was a bad year. The Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, the country's top man- agement institute, took a record nine days to place its graduating batch. Even then, salaries were down by 25 to 33 per cent compared to 2008.

This year, the smiles are back. "We cannot say the offers were through the roof, but compared to last year, the num- ber of offers and packages has increased", says Himanshu Nema, a second year student and student head of the IIM-A placement committee.

Campuses around the country expect a better show this year. IIM Calcutta's campus recruitment began yesterday.

This year, 95 companies have turned up, compared to 80 last year, and more are expected. Prafull Agnihotri, chair- man of the placement and career devel- opment cell at IIM-C, says, "According to me, salary figures will not touch the 2008 mark, but students will definite- ly bag 20 per cent more than what was offered to them last year".

With inputs from Kamayani Singh in Delhi, Prasad Nichenametla in Ahmedabad, Salil Mekaad in Bangalore and Mou Chakraborty in Kolkata

mahua.venkatesh@hindustantimes.com

Source: Hindustan Times by Mahua Venkatesh We Bring Good News  - Expect Jobs & Hikes

• WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

• Engineers and MBAs are back in demand.

• THE MACRO VIEW

• LOOK WHO'S BACK

IT major HCL registered 150 students. Its BPO offered a pay package of Rs 1.5 lakh per annum for a position in its voice process. Another company, MIE, which had visited the campus last month and shortlisted 38 students, took their final interview on Saturday.

" Aptara Corporation, HDFC Standard Life, Intelnet and Dell are some of the other companies that will meet the students next week," Seema Parihaar, chairperson of the CPC, said.

S. K. Vij, dean of the DU students' welfare cell, said: " We have lined up six corporate firms for the third placement drive. We have had a similar drive last month and it was successful.

The main endeavour of the CPC is to help in the placements of all 8,076 students who have registered with it."

PSUs have normally been the last preference on campuses. But many students had opted for them in 2009 despite the smaller pay packages because of the security they offer. With major consulting firms and investment banks staying away from campuses, students hardly had any choice. In fact, last year, the placements went on for more than a week. PSUs had also increased pay packages.

But 2010 is different. With hiring picking up, it appears the PSUs were just stepping stones, and it is time for students to move on to corporate set-ups.

For instance, Ashwin (all names changed on request), who did his major in finance in one of the IIMs, is working in the statistics department of a PSU. Now, he is keen to pursue a job in his field. ``Last year, there weren't many finance firms stepping inside campus. Since I wanted a job, I grabbed a PSU. With the economy picking up, I've got some offers now and am set to move,'' he told TOI.

`PSU job won't help in long run'
 Many IIM grads who had opted for public sector units (PSUs) during last year's sluggish recruitment scene, are now eying plum private sector jobs. Arya (all names changed on request), another IIM grad. Working in a PSU in Delhi, he was keen to pursue consulting. ``I love interacting with people and definitely want a fatter pay packet as I enjoy travelling,'' he said.

Arya too is set to quit his PSU job and will soon join a global consulting firm. ``What's more, my salary is over four times more,'' he said. For many, it is the sheer joy of working in the private sector. Armed with an engineering background and a PG in finance, Ashwin feels his stint in a PSU will not help him pursue his long-term goal.

Today, India is the third largest producer of fish in the world with an annual production of 6.90 mt and ranks second in inland production (3.70 mt).

The contribution of aquaculture sector to inland fish production is about 80 per cent with annual growth rate of over 8 per cent. India accounts for 2.4 per cent share in global fish market with annual export earnings of over Rs 8,000 crore. The fisheries sector is contributing 1.4 per cent to national GDP in general and 4.6 per cent to agricultural GDP in particular. Rich aquatic resources of the country already provide livelihood to about 14.5 million persons in this sector, directly or indirectly.

Although fish production has increased at a higher rate as compared to foodgrain, milk and egg production but consumption of fish (with 56 per cent fish-eating population) in India still remains below 10 kg per capita per annum, which is much lower than countries like China (25.8 kg) and the rest of Asia (14.3 kg). The domestic requirement of fish in the country is estimated to be 12 mt by 2020 as against the present production of 6.90 mt. Out of the total area available for aquaculture, only 30 per cent of freshwater and 10 per cent of brackish water area is being utilised at present. Hence, there is still tremendous scope for utilising these resources to achieve the target and generate more employment opportunities in the fisheries sector in the coming years.

Growth in Punjab
Punjab has recorded tremendous growth in the fisheries sector in the last three decades. Fish production has increased from 2,800 tonnes in 1980-81 to 86,697 tonnes in 2006-07. Being a landlocked state, around 70 per cent of total fish production comes from aquaculture (60,567 tonnes) and 30 per cent from capture sector (26,130 tonnes). At present, nearly 10,023-hectare area is under fish culture (6,695 ha village ponds and 3,328 ha private ponds) and aquaculture productivity of the state is 6.04 t/ha/yr, which is more than double the national productivity of 2.60 t/ha/yr. Punjab has a vast network of natural water resources, including 17,453 km of rivers, canals and drains, 23,000 ha of reservoirs/ lakes/wetlands and 7,046 ha of village ponds. These water resources have immense potential for fishery development in the state.

Source: The Tribune Fishing for success: Fisheries Sector Emerged As An Industry, With Rapid Commercial Growth

• Scope

• Eligibility

• The Road Ahead

2009 was a defining year for several professionals and the job market witnessed a return of sanity after the three year bull phase. Senior professionals chastened by the past experience of excessively focusing on compensation and thereby making short term career calls are now looking to focus on the long term. Across the board, compensation levels were either static or witnessed modest single digit increases during the year and will continue to remain so as companies may not go overboard this time around. However, we are seeing big spikes in variable compensation even across traditional sectors as companies prefer to pay more for performance and keep fixed costs under check. Stock options which had temporarily lost its sheen are seen to be back in vogue.

The financial services sector bore the brunt of the slowdown. The retail financial services and broking businesses witnessed job losses as most banks and NBFCs wound up unprofitable lines. However, the wholesale and investment banking businesses have continued to hire selectively especially in the area of debt capital markets and related areas. We expect the situation to turn around across the sector gradually by the third quarter of the year. Compensation and bonuses in the sector have come under intense scrutiny from the regulators and are unlikely to see major upheavals in the near term, though in relative terms, executives in the sector continue to be the highest paid.

Looking forward, we expect the power and heavy infrastructure sectors to continue its robust growth spurring demand for professionals in the areas of project management, especially mega projects and CFOs with big ticket fund raising expertise apart from project specific niche areas. Further, we have seen increased demand for expatriate executives and returning Indians as local expertise is lacking or non existent in new growth sectors like power, airport infrastructure and allied areas which have been opened up to the private sector. However, the commercial and residential real estate sector which witnessed steep erosion in capital values seems to be limping back to action, but the outlook still seems hazy.

By K Sudarshan,
Managing Partner-India,
EMA Partners International.

Source: Economic Times 'No scarcity of job opportunities in 2010'

"Students who already have many years of experience have got PPO packages of Rs 30-40 lakh per annum. We expect people with more work experience to get Rs 50 lakh per annum during the final placements," said one of the IIM officials. IIM students, who spoke with ET on conditions of anonymity, said the number of PPOs for the 2008-2010 batch have already reached 50-60 in most IIMs except IIM-Shillong, which has 63 students. But IIMs expect PPOs to double at the time of the final placement in March 2010.

"This year, investment banks seem to be keen on final placements too. We are clearly seeing an uptick in the market, but at the same time this is just cautious optimism," said an IIM-Ahmedabad official. "We are not taking it easy and are reaching out to more MNCs than before," he said.

Global consulting firms McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte and AT Kearney, apart from technology companies such as Huawei, Intel, Dell, Pfizer, HP and Google, have also shown interest in participating during the final placements next year.

India's premier business schools now expect a good part of their campus placements from companies such as P&G, Diageo, HUL, City Bank, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, Barclay's, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America - Merrill Lynch, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and public sector banks. Sources said such companies have already started pouring in lucrative PPOs or are in talks with the IIMs to hire.

Source: Economic Times IIM grads' pre-placement offers double as cos seek fresh talent

While Tower Research Capital, a financial services company from New York, has confirmed participation at IIT-Kanpur with the highest offer of Rs 44.5 lakh per annum so far, IBM has made an offer of Rs 14 lakh, highest so far at IIT- Roorkee.

The institutes say they see a 30 per cent salary hike over last year, when the average offers saw a 30 per cent drop to around Rs 6 lakh, due to the global recession.

"Placements this year look better than last year. We have invited around 1,200 companies on the campus against 800 last year," said a placement committee member from IIT-Roorkee, which will place around 1,200 students this year.

At IIT-Kharaghpur, the highest salary offered to the batch of 2009 remained the same as last year, at Rs 22 lakh per annum, while the average salary for students dipped to Rs 6 lakh per annum from Rs 7.44 lakh per annum last year.

IIT-Madras has sent out 800 invitations to companies, of which 100 have confirmed participation. The total number of students at IIT-Madras this year is around 1,000.

Last year, the IITs were able to achieve only around 75-80 per cent placements.

Around 120 summer placement offers were made on the first day and about 90 accepted.

Bain, McKinsey, AT Kearney, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland were among the companies that made offers on Day Zero of the summer placements. “ Bain has made five offers and McKinsey and AT Kearney have made around three offers each,” said a source who did not wish to be named.

Banks including Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland have made five to six offers each, he added.

After the fall of big banks last year in the wake of the global financial crisis, this year Bschools are witnessing a return of investment banks to the campuses. “ The revival is quite apparent as banks have indicated that they will be making five to six offers at each of the campuses this year,” said a student at IIM Calcutta.

Source: Mail Today Big firms knock at IIM- A doors again

However, experts say it is too early to say the situation has returned to ‘normalcy’.

“We see the movement across the sectors and it looks like the worst is over. The current scenario cannot be considered normal, but it is better than bad,” executive search firm GlobalHunt India professional leader Sunil Goel said.

If everything goes fine, then it will take a year to reach a normal situation, he added. In the last two quarters (January–March and April–June), hiring was almost 0–5 per cent across industries but in current quarter, average hiring has increased 5–15 per cent.

Sectors like telecom, infrastructure, life sciences and energy have witnessed a 25–30 per cent rise in hiring in the second quarter against the first quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, IT, retail, banking, consulting and FMCG have seen a 8-10 per cent rise in hiring in the September quarter, over the previous quarter. “With the economy showing signs of recovery, there is cautious optimism in the job market and going forward, the coming quarters are expected to be better,” an industry expert said.

Source: Business-standard Jobs are back as slump eases