India's tier-II management schools are casting their net wider this year for the approaching campus placement season, as the economic slowdown makes it harder for even top business schools to lure high-profile companies. Second-rung schools are aggressively tapping alumni and inviting more companies from so-called stable sectors like manufacturing, besides approaching unusual recruiters such as non-government organisations (NGOs).
The tier-II institutes adopting such tactics, include Jamshedpur's XLRI, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIM-B); Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) in Mumbai; and IMT Ghaziabad. The economic slowdown has forced lay-offs across several industry sectors in the past few months, dampening the prospect of companies scouting for talent even in top B-Schools and leaving tier-II institutes under greater pressure. JBIMS, which clocked an average salary of INR 13.84 lakh during 2008 and the highest offer of INR 29 lakh, expects that firms looking for talent in areas such as credit risk management may come to their campus this year, as the market collapse and the crisis gripping the banking system in the West puts risk into sharp focus.
