Hyderabad B-school beats IIM

While IIM alumni are talking in lakhs, students of a five-year-old B-school in Hyderabad are getting ready to count crores.

A graduate of the Indian School of Business has got a never-before offer of $233,800 (Rs 1.04 crore) a year.

While ISB dean M Rammohan Rao was cagey about announcing the student's name or the organisation that made the offer — "it is infringement on privacy," he said — he let on that three others had got Rs 1 crore-plus offers.

Thankfully, there is gender parity in the overload of greenbacks, with two of the four who got over Rs 1 crore being women.

The Class of 2006 is one happy batch. The highest domestic salary was Rs 30.33 lakh and the average an Indian company offered was Rs 11.77 lakh, an increase of 18 per cent over last year. The average in ternational offer saw a jump of 21 per cent over 2005.

There are more companies queuing up on the Hyderabad campus. This year, 142 companies came hunting for whiz kids. US-based realty firm Tishman Speyer made its first foray into India by parking at ISB.

It is not just the money, say students, some of whom chose Indian companies over pay cheques in dollars. "I was offered a very interesting job by a US-based tech company but I wanted to be closer home," says Yashraj Erande.

"So I took a job offer which would help me work in India's business environment."

In a new drift, several ISB students opted for jobs with various media companies, including RPG Saregama.

Kartik Ramakrishnan always wanted to be a consultant and he got the offer he wanted. Then came another offer — to set up an FM radio station. And he opted for this new challenge.