A 100 per cent rise in the number of investment banks on campus along with a plethora of niche profiles on offer in sectors ranging from consulting to capital markets, telecom to media and real estate to conglomerates — the placements this year saw a new high, said Amit Naikdalal, chairperson of the corporate relations committee at JBIMS.

“With 92 registered companies, investment banks doubled this year with 17 per cent of the batch taking up this career path. Again, there was a strong preference among students towards the capital markets,” he said.

The highest domestic salary offered was Rs 29 lakh with the average salary peaking at Rs 13.84 lakh and each student being made 3.08 offers on average. Subsequently, the figures this year increased from last year where the highest domestic salary offered around Rs 15 lakh even as the average number of offers per student stood at 2.38.

This year also saw part-time projects or off-summer projects getting converted into offers. While one student bagged a prestigious “buy-side equity research profile” on account of the same, others got offers from companies like Nestle and L’Oreal on the basis of their performance in contests held by the companies.

While consulting continued to be an extremely sought after profile on campus, a strong focus towards careers in the country’s capital markets was reflected in this year's placements. “The highlight of this year’s placements was the separate equity research process held at the behest of the students. With leading brokerage firms such as ICICI Securities, SSKI, Principal AMC, Kotak Securities participating, the 2008 batch students are well on course to unlocking real value from Indian stock markets,” said Naikdalal.

Giving due recognition to students for relevant work experience, lateral offers saw a jump from 20 per cent (in 2007) to 46 per cent this year. Companies such as Barclays Bank, Ocwen Financial and Sun Microsystems participated for the first time. IT majors including Capgemini, Cognizant Technology Services, Genpact, IBM Consulting, Infosys Technologies, TCS and Wipro were among the few who participated in the lateral process.