IIM STUDENTS ARE LAPPING UP INTERNSHIPS WITH START-UPS. UNIQUE LEARNING EXPERIENCE AND CHALLENGING JOB PROFILE ARE THE MAIN REASONS FOR IT

Big companies hiring interns from the IIMs made the headlines every year. However, with some of the biggest recruiters in the past, like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, no longer in the reckoning, start-ups have been able to attract quite a few students this year. For the first time, IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) invited start-ups to take up students for summer internships next year. Fifteen offers were made by eight start-ups that participated this year.

   So, what has brought about the change this year? Apart from the recessionary wave across major companies all over the world, students are giving more weightage to the control they have over decisions, and the flexibility to try out innovative techniques to solve a problem, says Krishna Sekhar, external relations secretary for the IIM-C. "Salaries offered by new ventures are generally low, but students opted for them because of a more challenging role and the unique learning experience," he adds. Some of the start-ups that visited the campus are Ujjivan Financial Services, RedBus (online ticketing venture), RangDe (a microfinance company) and Riverbridge Financial (a private equity firm).

At IIM Ahmedabad, too, 15 students opted for startups this year. According to Saral Mukherjee, who heads the institute's placement cell, greater opportunities to participate in shaping strategy, along with the unique experience factor, has made start-ups more attractive than last year.

   While getting internships, students are more willing to experiment and take risks because of the small tenure (10-12 weeks) of the assignment. "Security is not that much of an issue and people go to startups and emerging companies much more readily during internships than during final placements," says Vikram Sharma, now in his second year at IIM Bangalore. He, as member of the student placement committee, has seen people in his batch, and among his juniors, who are quite eager to make a mark with smaller companies. "Some of us want to be entrepreneurs after passing out, so we would cherish the experience," says Vernon Fernandez, a first-year student who is going to intern with Bain and Co next summer. 

   At IIM-B, 268 students decided where they are headed for during the summers by last Saturday. About four of them went for start-ups. "We are interested usually because we get to make a bigger difference in such companies and get exciting projects to do," says Aditya Kashyap, who is now in his second year of the post graduate programme, and a member of the placement committee that played an important role in making sure there was no dearth of internship options even with the looming recession in western economies. First-year student Parul Bajaj, who is going to intern with the Boston Consulting Group, says that some of her batchmates wanted to go a start-up and were pretty sure about it.

   Start-ups haven't been able to project a positive everywhere though. "We saw a lack of proper projects and a structured internship programme among some of them," says Sourav Mukherjee, the placement committee chairman at IIM Bangalore, who points out that this was a better time for them to make a stronger pitch because of the recession. "They could have got more candidates for sure but they were not clear on the projects they offered."

   Another reason for a weaker response to smaller companies is that the same sectors are being represented by start-ups and emerging companies every year. "Most of them are in the IT and ITeS sectors," he says.

   This makes for a lack of choice for students, some of whom who are doing an MBA after having started their own businesses. "Such people want to work in other start-ups to learn more in companies in different sectors to experience new kinds of projects," says Bajaj. And it is this variety that is missing since their prior experience of starting a company is more often than not in IT, and then they find the same sector represented prominently among the companies that come for internships.