COVID-19 Impact on Campus Placement Offers in Management Colleges

Covid-19 is not only a health crisis but is a bigger economic crisis too. India’s professional colleges, including engineering and B-Schools, brace for a tough year as their campus recruitment process may get hampered with COVID-19 pandemic hitting businesses and global economies staring at a recession. The pandemic is certainly impacting educational institutions adversely. 2020 is going to be a tough year from the campus recruitment point of view at schools including IIMs. If the summer placement gets hit, the pre-placement offers will also get impacted along with not only jobs but the number of offers made, the salary offered will also be impacted. Keeping in view the current pandemic situation, the human resource development ministry (MHRD) has asked the IIMs to arrange for a special recruitment drive for those students who may have lost or may lose their jobs due to the pandemic. This will be tentatively scheduled for August this year in the top management colleges in Kolkata like IEM. Visit the website for getting a complete picture of the campus placement percentage of the college. Apply now for enrollment in the course. A decline is also seen in general or non-campus hiring post-COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic has hit all sectors, institutions will have to reassess the situation once the lockdown is over, whenever the situation improves.

Across institutions, across specialization areas, the impact will be felt. The foreign recruiters will give a miss. Top B-Schools get good recruiters from Europe, the US, and the middle-east Asia. All these regions are battered by the coronavirus outbreak, hence the impact will be huge. Companies like Microsoft sees nearly 46 percent drop in the hiring activity in the ongoing year. In the light of rising concerns about the COVID-19 spread, many companies have put a hold on their placement process. Colleges in India are likely to face a tough year ahead with disruptions in their campus recruitments as the pandemic affects businesses worldwide. Generally, most business and engineering schools conduct campus placements between December and April every year. While many students have been placed already, some still struggle to find a good job offer. However, due to the prolonged lockdown to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, few companies are deferring the offers made, while some have withdrawn offers made already. Still, there are companies also that are honoring the offers made to students and will not cut any salary. Let’s see the behavior of different companies in COVID 19 and its impact on campus placement offers:

Companies Honoring Offers Made to Students: Many large companies including technology giants such as TCS, Google, Wipro, Capgemini are honoring their job offers made to campus hires despite weak revenue outlook caused by the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.FMCG majors like Godrej, Pepsi-Co, Biocon, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), consultancy firms Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Company, and McKinsey, and banks like ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Citi and Axis Bank are also honoring their job offers. Cognizant will bring on-board 20,000 freshers this fiscal. Companies like Flipkart have assured its employees that it will not slash salaries and honor all the job offers extended, including those for internships, even as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted businesses worldwide. Some global companies with a large presence in India like SAP, Morgan Stanley, Salesforce, Palo Alto Networks, PayPal, Citigroup, JP Morgan, etc have assured employees that there would be no or insignificant layoffs while the lockdown continues.

Companies Delaying Offers Made to Students: Sectors including banking, financial services, and insurance, retail, logistics where a lot of frontline-hiring takes place are likely to witness delays in offers made to graduates. More companies will now depend on technology as an alternate channel to continue with the same pace of productivity. Many companies that offered a job through campus placements have delayed the joining indefinitely due to the rising concerns of COVID-19.

Companies Withdrawing Offers Made to Students: With countries closing borders and entering into lockdowns, recruiters, especially MNCs, are revisiting their hiring plans and are either revoking offers or delaying the joining. A leading US-based consultancy rescinded its offer to students across IITs and IIMs due to coronavirus outbreak. The lockdown and the looming economic distress could force many more companies to rethink their placement offers, raising fear for IIMs.