Xuberance 2005: The Campus Placement Programme at
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”
                                                                                                         - Abraham Lincoln

The hard work put in by the PGDM batch of 2005, bore fruit on the morning of 8^th January 2005, which was Day One of the campus placement season at XIMB. What gave the students sleepless nights this placement season was not the usual placement related tension but an unanticipated problem of having plenty of offers to choose from.

Dr. Muktikanta Mishra, the Faculty Placement Coordinator for XIMB, described the placement process as a classical economic situation wherein the demand exceeded the supply. “On account of the deluge of offers, a lot of companies had to go empty handed. The problem was of plenty,” he quoted.

Around 59 top- notch companies participated in the process, and 14 had to return empty handed. For a batch of 113 students a total of 198 offers were generated which means approximately 1.75 offers per student. This number could have been higher but some of the students had already accepted the pre-placement offers (PPOs) made by the companies where they had done their summer internships.

The laterals process started on 15^th of December and had been rolling since. A total of 40 offers were made to the 30 lateral candidates.

In terms of the salaries offered also, the figures were high and very satisfying. The highest foreign offer was for 84,000 USD by Sierra Atlantic, which broke all previous records on this campus. Amongst the Indian salaries offered, the highest was Rs. 9 lakhs from Wipro Technologies, followed by Rs. 7.45 lakhs by Marico, Rs. 7.4 lakhs by HSBC AMC and Rs. 7.03 lakhs by Godrej Industries.

This year also saw some of India’s most coveted PSUs recruit from XIMB, among which names like BPCL, State Bank of India, Power Finance Corporation stand out.

The average salary, considering only the Indian salary packages, was Rs. 5.24 lakhs compared to last year’s Rs. 4.65 lakhs.

The highest number of offers made were by Infosys Technologies (16), TCS (9), Kotak Mahindra Bank (9), Satyam (7), Polaris (6), IDBI Bank, Cavin Kare, Wipro Technologies, Ramco Systems, A V Birla Group, Citigroup, Sierra Atlantic (5 offers each).

As has been the trend the bulk of jobs offered were in the IT sector, which accounted for over 44% of the students. Among job profiles, the most popular was sales and marketing, which saw 37% of the students opting for it. The specializations preferred by companies were IT with marketing and marketing with HR.

Some of our esteemed recruiters this season were as follows:

Father E. Abraham S.J., Director, XIMB, said that Xuberance 2005 was a grand finale, underpinnings of which had been tenacity, confidence and endurance. “The pedagogy instills a passion to aim higher. The successful placement process bears testimony to it.”

Safi Hashmy, Student Placement Coordinator, 2005-06, said that the credit goes to the concerted efforts of the Placement Committee and the students of XIMB. He also highlighted the role of XIMB alumni who are scaling new heights and have returned to their alma mater to recruit more for their quest for excellence.

Some of the highlights of the placement season this year were the brand new names on campus like HSBC AMC, Pilkington, Sierra Atlantic, iGate Solutions, HP GDIC, NCDEX and CARE. Also for the first time ever J P Morgan offered both i-banking and consultancy profiles. Pilkington Glass, The UK based global player recruited their Indian operations manager. And to top that companies like Cavin Kare, J P Morgan, HP GDIC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Mphasis BFL, TCS, Wipro Technologies, made passionate individual pitches to the students they really wanted.

Sathya Jayapaul, ex-Student Placement Coordinator and the student with the highest offer (of Rs. 9 Lakhs per annum from Wipro Technologies, as software project manager) proclaimed, “We have once again proved that brand XIMB and the quality of students and faculty at XIMB is par excellence.”

Almost every student got an offer from the company they had ranked as their “dream company”. So in short this year nothing less than “dreams were fulfilled”!!!