Global recession might have brought a number of top level corporates totheir knees but it seems to be a "good opportunity" for numeroussmall and medium companies, which can now afford to hire hot-shot executivesfrom top business schools at much "affordable" prices.

The pass-outs of the country's premier business schools like IIMs can now behired at much lower packages than they used to get when the world economieswere 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 come downto Rs 12.17 lakh from previous year's Rs 18.75 lakh," IIM-A Placement CellChairman 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."

Yashish Dahiya, CEO of Policy Bazaar.Com, said, "Usually IIMs charge arecruitment fee, which is quite high for early stage companies. This year thatwas waived, so it allowed us to participate."

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.