Soon, IIMs may scrap Day Zero for placement

The famous 'Day Zero' at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will soon be history. IIM-Ahmedabad in a meeting held with over 30 representatives of top Indian companies on Tuesday proposed a 'cluster' system by March 2010, wherein companies would be divided as per their sectors and invited on the campus in batches over the weekends.

Day Zero was created when demand for IIM graduates had peaked and the institutes had to resort to creative mathematics to accommodate big recruiters without offending the existing ones. Falling job market has forced the B-schools to review the strategy, including placement fee revision.

"We will re-examine the placement process, including the Day Zero strategy, and work on long-term relationship with companies. So far we concentrated on a very narrow segment and pool of recruiters," Samir Barua, director of IIM-A, the most prestigious of the IIMs, told Business Standard after the 2009 placements.

Sources who were part of the meeting, which included Hindustan Unilever, Microsoft, Nokia, HSBC and Cognizant, said IIM-A would share details of the new system with other IIMs. 

"The system will give us level-playing field. Also, with the number of students increasing on the IIM campuses, it will be physically impossible for them to rate companies," an HR expert said.

According to the new system, there would be no spot offers to the students. Instead, there would be clusters like Investment banking, Consumer durables, etc. Under each cluster there would be cohorts (functions) like marketing, consulting, IT and sales, which the students would get to choose from. Currently, the students choose the company based on its size and branding, irrespective of what position it offers.

Sources said IIM-A also proposed a new placement fee, which would be charged on the basis of the compensation the company offered. If a company offered a package of Rs 18 lakh, the fee would be Rs 1 lakh per student. As the compensation reduces, so would the fee.

Earlier, the placement fee was higher on first two days, when each company had to pay participation and recruitment charges of Rs 1 lakh each. The charges dropped between Rs 80,000 and Rs 50,000 for participation and recruitment, respectively, on the subsequent days.

Saral Mukherjee, placements chairperson for IIM-A, said details of the new system would be available in a day or two. Pankaj Chandra, director of IIM-Bangalore, said, "Our policy is the same as last year's. We are looking at what changes need to be brought in our placement system. Whatever IIM-A is doing, which I am not aware of, might have its implications for other IIMs."