Bhubaneswar, March 25: Placements at the Xavier Institute of Management, the state's premier B-school, this year suggests that consultancy services remains the biggest employer.

Despite increasing competition and an unstable job market scenario, the institute has achieved 100 per cent placements for the batches of MBA students of business management, human resource management and rural management.

While 30 per cent students forayed into consultancy services, 27 per cent took up marketing jobs and 20 per cent of the students got placed in the IT sector. Besides, students were also offered jobs in industrial relations and corporate human resources.

"It has been noticed that more companies, including those in the government sector, are venturing into outsourcing - which actually creates a demand for efficient managers in the consultancy sector," said senior professor Niraj Kumar.

In business management, as many as 229 candidates took part in the placement drive that saw 58 companies, including 23 new recruiters, turning up to recruit.

While the highest domestic salary offered was Rs 20.5 lakh per annum, the highest international salary stood at $34,733 per annum offered by a leading market research firm based out of Indonesia.

The students were also offered jobs in risk management, strategic consulting, corporate finance, equity research, investment banking, marketing and distribution, supply chain management,IT consulting and business development.Twenty-six companies also hired fifty-six rural management students. In this category, the highest salary stood at Rs 12.44 lakh. Here again, the most number of jobs were offered in the consultancy sector, apart from financial and manufacturing services. The students also got placed in sales and marketing jobs.

Similarly, in human resource management, 56 students got placed by 36 companies with an average salary of Rs 11.39 lakh and highest domestic salary of Rs 20.5 lakh per annum.

University director Father Paul Fernandes, S.J., announced two new programmes on the occasion.

The MS (finance) will be a dual-track finance programme that will be offered in association with the Fordham University, New York. The successful completion of this track would fetch the student an MS in global finance from Fordham University and an MBA degree (finance) from XUB," he said.

This will be a first-of-its-kind programme in the country, said Father Paul.He also announced the programmes in MA (mass communication), PG diploma in film & TV production, apart from BA (mass communication) under the Xavier School of Communications from June 2015 at Xavier University, Bhubaneswar.