Even before the final placement (scheduled in early March), about a fifth of the 250-odd students of the 2006 batch of IIM-Bangalore, who would be graduating this year, have managed to secure job offers in lateral placements concluded this month.

While consulting firms and investment bankers preferred not to participate in the lateral placements as usual, sources say that companies such as KPMG, Aditya Birla Group, Barclays Bank, Microsoft, Infosys [Get Quote] and Capgemini have issued the maximum number of offers.

However, sources among the graduating students said that most of them, who have bagged the offers, prefer to wait for the final placement on March 4.

"Lateral placements don't account for much at this point of time since students wait for the final placement before accepting the offers," said Sourav Mukherji, chairperson, placement, IIM-B.

In the present batch, about 110 students are also sitting on pre-placement offers based on their summer internships. Sources in the placement office say that in spite of the fear of a global slowdown, a number of new recruiters have agreed to join this year's final placements at the institute.

A number of consulting companies including Oliver Wyman have also agreed to come for the campus interview for the first time.

"Many new companies, including consulting firms and investment bankers, have agreed to participate in this year's final placement," concurred G K Nagaraj, placement officer, IIM-B.

The placement office also feels that the compensation package may be the best among peers due to the experience level of the graduating students.

About 69 per cent of the post graduate programme in management students have work experience ranging from 12 months to more than 36 months, as against 55 per cent for the 2005 batch, who graduated last year.

Among the students who would be graduating in 2008, 91 per cent have engineering background, followed by four per cent from commerce and two per cent from humanities background. Age wise, 60 per cent of the students are in the age group of 22-24, and 26 per cent in the above-25 years group.

In the previous batch, while approximately 77 per cent students were in the age group of 22-24 years, 45 per cent of them did not have any industry experience before attending the placement interviews.

"We expect that the compensation package, to be offered during the final placement, might be higher compared to previous year, looking at the profile of the present batch," said a final year student, who is preparing for the final placement interviews.

During the final placement in 2007, consulting firms were the major recruiters offering 31 per cent of the total offers made, followed by financial houses at 22 per cent and investment banks at 21 per cent. Marketing firms recruited 16 per cent of the total students, followed by IT & systems at 5 per cent.