Guwahati, March 8: Marina Panggeng loves being her own boss and to spend time her own way.

Hence Marina, an MBA from IIM Shillong, has dropped from the placement process so that she can choose her own way of life.

"I cherish my freedom to choose how I spend my time. I decided to opt out of placement as I love being my own boss and following my deadlines," she told The Telegraph.

Marina, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh, was the only student in the 2014-16 batch of IIM Shillong to have dropped out from the placement process. The placement report for the 2014-16 batch, which was released today, stated that of 138 students, one student had opted out.

"I am looking for holistic solutions to business and societal problems. Being trained in the power business, I am definitely looking at opportunities in this sector. However, my USP lies in 360 degree solutions, so my entrepreneurial endeavours would look at the entire value chain and not be domain specific," Marina, a resident of Itanagar, said.

Marina is an MBA in power management from the National Power Training Institute and has a BE degree in computer science from Mysore University. The placement brochure says she has worked for Magnanimous Endeavours Group and SCS Financial and Risk Solutions.

The 2014-16 batch received 142 offers from 41 recruiters who participated in the recruitment drive. Pre-placement offers were accepted by 15 per cent of the batch.

The best offer of Rs 25 lakh came from Al Babtain Group from the UAE in the sales and marketing domain.

"Despite a 16 percent increase in batch size from last year, the season was completed in record time and saw an increase in average CTC (cost to company) offered on campus from 12.59 lakh per annum last year to 14 lakh per annum," the placement report said.

The report, quoting Sharad Nath Bhattacharya, chairperson, student affairs, public relations and placement, said: "IIM Shillong has once again fortified its position as a premier B-school with the successful completion of the placement season for the class of 2016. The growing list of prominent recruiters and the continued faith of our regular recruiters is testimony to the ever-increasing confidence of the industry in the talent pool of IIM Shillong".

The highlight of this year's placement process was that more than 45 per cent of the batch were made offers by the top five recruiters on the campus. They offered jobs in fields ranging from consulting, finance, sales & marketing, IT/analytics, e-commerce and operations.

"This shows the diversity in the academic and professional background of the students as well as the continued confidence of our recruiters on the quality of our participants," the placement report said.

In addition to the regular recruiters, there were several first-time recruiters, comprising Kohler India, ZS Associates, Future Group, Berger Paints, Voonik, HDFC AMC Ltd, JPMC and Thomson Reuters.

Sales and marketing was the most sought after domain in this year's recruitment season and accounted for 31 per cent of the total offers.

In accordance with the countrywide trend, the recruitment process also witnessed a surge in the preference for start-ups.