Surviving Slowdown

It is a mid September Sunday morning when the director of one of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) receives a call from a student from last year's batch. The former student (anonymity was requested) is worried; he and a few of his batchmates have been laid off, just five months into the new job they had landed through campus interviews. This IIM is among the dozen odd that were launched during the past decade and had done well in the last placement season. The former student's predicament reveals three things. First, it could be an isolated incident and, therefore, cannot be generalised for this or other campuses. Second, no slowdown can be underestimated as it can colour recruiter sentiment in more ways than one. Third, and perhaps the most important point, is that a slowdown sentiment will hurt inadequately prepared companies the most, as with the one that laid off the young graduates. The company, a non tech player, saw its growth plans come a cropper. Students who are in business schools (B school) with the sole intent of landing a job at the end of the programme, the message