Providing a strong indication of a positive sentiment for the economy, the final placements season at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) was closed in just five days — half the time the institute took to place students last year. The highlight of the process was that 90 students accepted offers in slot zero (generally the first day) — a 41 per cent increase over the previous year.

Slot zero is the most coveted slot given to recruiters, usually investment banks and consultancies. Over 120 companies came to IIM-B this year for a batch of 270 students. Like last year, banking and financial services companies were at the top of students' preference, with 27 per cent choosing to work with them. Consulting was the second, with 22 per cent, followed by IT & Systems (20 per cent), marketing (12 per cent) and general management (9 per cent). The rest was accounted for by private equity, healthcare, energy and public-sector units.

IT companies were the surprise package this year. About 50 students accepted offers from these companies. This is understood to be nearly double the number of acceptances last year. Wipro, HCL, MindTree, IBM and Cognizant were among the prominent recruiters. Wipro is said to have made eight offers, while HCL made 5 offers. "After a lull in the sector last year, IT companies have come back with renewed hiring requirements. They have offered good salaries to students in roles like consulting and sales and marketing," said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B.

Consulting firm Deloitte made 10 offers, the highest in IIM-B, followed by McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, who made nine offers each. Some other slot-zero recruiters this year were Bain & Co, Booz & Co, AT Kearney, Diamond Consulting, Alvarez & Marsal, Nomura and Temasek Holdings. P&G, ITC and American Express made six offers each. There were 15 new companies, including healthcare group Narayana Hrudayalaya, which offered senior level positions to six students, on the campus this year. The institute refused to comment on salaries, but it is learnt that there was an increase of 10-20 per cent in average salaries across sectors. Seventy-two students had received pre-placement offers from the companies they interned with.

Lateral placements, for which only students with over 22 months of work experience are eligible, saw a total of 66 offers, compared to 50 offers last year. There were 30 companies in the lateral placements this year.

Praveen, one of the members of the student placement committee, said nearly 10 companies that had not hired last year returned to the campus. The institute had a provision in place this year to refund fees of students who took up jobs with non-government organisations for three years, but officials said they were yet to get a confirmation on this from one or two students who were interested.