Global recession mighthave brought a number of top level corporates to their knees but it seems to bea "good opportunity" for numerous small and medium companies, whichcan now afford to hire hot-shot executives from top business schools at much"affordable" prices.

The pass-outs of the country's premierbusiness schools like IIMs can now be hired at much lower packages than theyused to get when the world economies were booming.

Analysts say, the placement scene at most of the IIMs this year is not muchencouraging as compared to previous years. This year, number of big companiesas well as number of international companies coming for campus placements hasdecreased.

"There is more than 30 per cent dip in the average salary offered to freshIIM graduates. In IIM-A, this year's average domestic salary offer has comedown to Rs 12.17 lakh from previous year's Rs 18.75 lakh," IIM-A PlacementCell Chairman Dr Saral Mukherjee told PTI.

He said the number of offers per students has also gone down as the recruitmentprocess in most of the companies has come to an halt in view of economic slowdown.

Similarly, the domestic average salary offered this year at IIM Calcutta hasbeen Rs 12.70 lakhs with the highest offer at Rs 60 lakh per annum. While theaverage figure for last year was Rs 16.40 lakh.

Sandeep Manudhane, Chairman PT Universe, which runs a national chain ofprofessional coaching institutes said, "We have given entrepreneurialopportunity to number of pass-outs from top B schools including IIMs. We are inprocess of hiring more people and are visiting many campuses."

Sapna Gupta, Director AHA Air Hostess Academy, said "The current globaleconomic scenario has given us an opportunity to choose from a pool ofbrightest talents, unlike past several years when best students went to thehigh profile preferred sectors.

"Further, in the absence of big companies making hefty offers to IIMgraduates, companies like that of us will have to shell out relatively lessthis year to hire them," she added.