Things couldn’t have gotten better for Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad’s (IIM-A) class of 2008. Way ahead of the end of the term, over 79 job offers have poured into the campus already.

The young aspiring management graduates still about five months of coursework to complete before they can apply for a job, on the campus placement day. But companies are not willing to wait, they want to sign on bright young men and women at the earliest. The class of 2008 has received over 79 job offers including nine students who were given associate offers.

In a bid to extend the benefits of placement, the IIM-A board has decided to make the offers open to international students who are here on various exchange programmes.

Companies which have given pre-placement offers include McKinsey and Co, Bain and Co, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank among others.

International students are obviously happy with the decision. ‘Of course I intend to sit for placement at IIM-A because it offers great professional opportunities worldwide. The companies that come to the campus are among the world’s best and the roles that they offer are as diverse and challenging as they come,’ says Diane Gabriel, an exchange student from France.

But there are others who would rather be employers than employees. According to
Kunal Upadhyay, head, Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A the trend among students is to incubate their own entrepreneurial ventures. ‘In recent years, the focus of students has risen above PPOs, job offers etc to start their own ventures,’ says Upadhyay.

To encourage entreprise among students, IIM-A is offering them the choice of taking up a job within two years of passing out.