Members of XLRI’s placement committee at a news meet. Pix: Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Nov. 19: The world may be grappling with market slump, but XLRI is marketing itself well. The premier B-school has bagged big offers for its summer internship programme (SIP).

The highest international stipend has been offered by a Wall Street investment bank at its trading desk in Hong Kong. Students will receive Rs 5 lakh for the duration of internship. The highest domestic stipend stood at Rs 3 lakh, offered by an investment bank at its Mumbai desk. The names of the companies have not been disclosed. Compared to previous years, the average stipend has also increased. It hovered around Rs 85,000.

Rajiv Misra, the head of the placement committee at XLRI, said the counselling for summer jobs was done for six days earlier this month. “So far, these are the best offers for SIP. It is a great achievement in the present economic condition. The companies that have been hit by the slump also made it a point to visit XLRI. That was very encouraging,” he said.

Misra said of the 74 companies, 32 picked students only from XLRI. “There were around 214 offers compared to last year’s 202. More than 20 were from international firms,” he said. The placement programme saw banking giants such as Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, ICICI and Axis Bank.

The placement committee said that the internship process this year had shown a big jump of over 75 per cent from the figure recorded last year. Over 45 students will draw a package of over Rs 1 lakh during their internship period this year. International offers have also increased due to the coming of investment and FMCG behemoths.

JPMorgan Chase, Carlyle Group, Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, TAS, Edelweiss Capital, Novartis and Alghanim Group are some of the big international players in the fray. Domestic companies include ITC, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive, Cadbury, Johnson & Johnson, Reebok, Apollo Group and Mahindra & Mahindra. The biggest recruiter this year is the Aditya Birla Group. It has roped in XLRI students for its national and international desks.

The maximum number of business management students had opted for the finance sector followed by marketing, general management and consultancy.

"We have been successful because we have been working hard from the beginning. We stepped up efforts because of the global slump and the results are showing,” said Jeevan Kumar, the secretary of the placement committee.