BENGALURU: The Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore - the premier B-school - could complete only 80% of the summer placements within the designated period, leaving 110 students still in the process of getting placed.

They are likely to get placements by the first week of December.The first-year MBA students are mandated to undergo an internship in April-May, for which the placements are generally held in the first or second week of November.

This year, the placement drive was held from November 9 to 11, when 490 students were placed.

The batch size is 600, the highest among all IIMs.

Summer internships are part of the student-learning interventions, scheduled between the first and second years of the programme.

“For convenience and to avoid clashes with the academic schedule, we try to complete the summer internship selection process well in advance within a designated week.

This year, over 80% of the batch got summer internship offers within the designated week.

Due to some factors outside our control (tight job market, proximity to Diwali), we had to extend the summer selection process beyond the designated week.

The institute has 600 students against 525 in the previous year.

It is also the largest among all the top IIMs,” said Debolina Dutta, chairperson of career development cell, IIM-B.“There was a Diwali break and many companies said they would resume it after the festival because interview panels were unavailable.

While we do not deny that job market activity is low key everywhere, we do not see a need for alarm.

We saw 160 companies in the first three days making offers to 490 students.

While IT and ITeS companies visited the campus, there was no volume hiring done by many.

Our students’ capability in the market’s eyes remains as strong as ever, even in the face of aperceived slump in the global market.

The placement process has now resumed with marquee companies offering high-quality internship offers to our students.

By the first week of December, we should be able to complete the process,” she said.“There is a robust process in place.

It will also mean we can’t be oblivious to the outside world...,” she added.“While the IT industry is affected by the global headwinds, other industries will get into a wait-and-watch mode.

No doubt that IIM graduates come with great value, but the firms would want to wait to understand whether they can make this investment now or after a few quarters,” said Neeti Sharma, president and co-founder, Teamlease EdTech Ltd.

TOI had reported on Wednesday that engineering college campuses were affected as bulk recruitments have been absent this time.