IIT IIM students more cautious ditch internship option

Posted on November 7, 2016

Business graduates (from IIT and IIM) are now more cautious than ever. They have discarded entrepreneurship and summer internship options due to popular startups like PepperTap, AskMe and Tiny Owl shutting operations last year. According to a survey conducted by the US – headquartered human resource consulting firm, ManpowerGroup, 94% of the millennials surveyed said they would prefer job security while making career choices. Millennials are those born between 1980 and 1995. Startups are no longer invited for campus placements at S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR)! “Now, there is little proclivity towards startups and it is only decreasing over the past couple of years. Earlier, we use to invite startups, but they are no more part of our placement portfolio as students want to play safe”, said Ankur Bansal, the student placement committee head at SPJIMR. “This year, there is a sense of careful approach among students due to a few latest incidents at startups”, agrees Vishal Goyal, group head at IMT Ghaziabad and Dubai.

Last year, at Xavier School of Management (XLRI) Jamshedpur, about 8% of placement offers came from e-commerce firms. This year, the number has halved! This year, around eighteen startups, including popular ones like Fashionara, Intelligent Interfaces and Delivree King have shut down. This is in stark contrast to the previous year where three to four startups were launched in a day, placing India among the top three nations globally, in terms of the number of startups. “In the wake of recent events where some respected first-generation startups erred in on-boarding and honoring their commitments made during campus recruitments, the student body at large has been sensible enough to take a cautious approach”, says Goyal, a student at IMT. Read more on closures

This year in May, Flipkart deferred the joining dates of its IIT and IIM campus recruits. This move by Flipkart drew heavy flak from the top managements of IIT and IIM. They responded with a strongly worded email to Flipkart, tagging other major institutes like IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow in the email. Uber, Shopclues, Amazon and Cloudtail were among the popular companies at IIT and IIM campuses this year, but consumer goods firms and consultancies became students’ favorites due to their hefty packages, overseas postings and other lucrative offers. The average stipend shot up by around 7%, compared to the same period last year. Since entrepreneual loans and funding are becoming increasingly difficult to get, students at various business institutions in India had discarded their entrepreneurial ambitions during the last placement season. Colleges, too, have noticed a dip in number of students choosing entrepreneurship between years 2013 to 2016.

Loans and investments are two of the most important sources of funding for any startup. They require money to grow and expand. It is disturbing to see that loans and investments are becoming increasingly difficult for startups to get. Moreover the Indian startup ecosystem does not have adequate infrastructure to enable startups to get enough and easily – accessible technical know hows, which is crucial in their seeding stage. This has caused many startups in various sectors across India to shut down operations in their early stages of development. They are unable to scale up and provide long term employment. The government of India must launch various schemes and organizations to fund, promote and incubate startups. Otherwise, India will lose its place, among the top three nations globally, in terms of the number of startups launched each year, very soon. Read more on Startup News