The campus has recently seen experts visiting from big consultancy firms both in IT and non-IT segments. While Boston Consulting Group, KPMG, Accenture, McKinsey, PricewaterhouseCooper, CapGemini, Tata Strategic Management Group and Arther Anderson are major consultancy firms visiting the campus, i2Technologies, Sapient, Xchange21, Cognigent, Seranova, Aditi and HCL Technology are IT consultancy majors taking interest in IIML.

"Earlier, placements were largely dominated by core IT firms and FMCG companies. Now students are showing keen interest in management consultancies, both in IT as well as brick-and-mortar areas," says Mr Akshat Saxena, first year post-graduate programme (PGP1) student at IIM Lucknow."No doubt, IT companies are paying very well. But money is not the sole factor for taking a career decision-after all one needs job satisfaction also," he adds. Mr Saxena is also a member of the committee.

"Genesis of the committee lies in the fact that consultancy was not a focus area, both for IIML students as well as companies sourcing talents from the campus. But there was a latent desire among students, which needed an expression. We realised it, and thus Consultancy Committee was formed," says Mr Rohit Sood, the founding member of the club and a PGP2 student.

The club has undertaken many projects related to consultancy, be it IT consultancy or reviving a sick brick-and-mortar company. "Students chalked out the project and experts from leading consultancy services evaluated it. The satisfaction in the exercise is great," adds another member of the club, Mr Shikhar Mishra, a PGP2 student.

IIML has recently bagged a consultancy project from the Uttar Pradesh government for e-governance. It was not that students never opted for consultancy as a career. But in the last couple of years students are more focused. A significant number of them are determined to join consultancy services right from the very beginning, says Mr Sood.

Besides consultancy services, investment banking is another major area of interest for students, says the student co-ordinator-placement, Mr Pijush Sinha adding that some of these companies visiting the campus are Lehman Brothers, Dresdner Klienwort, Bank of America, ICICI and SBI Cap. Campus recruitment for PGP2 students of IIML students are scheduled to be held in mid-February. In the summer placement in October 2000, major companies which visited the campus included Citi bank, ICICI, Standard Chartered and ABN Amro.