XLRI’s outgoing batch of 2018-20 has done it proud in placements, bucking the bearish job market.

Not only has the B-school achieved cent per cent placement in postgraduate diploma in business management and human resource management, with all 359 candidates securing offers through the final recruitment process within two days, higher salaries have cocked a snook at the slowdown.

The median salary offered to the batch saw an increase — Rs 23 lakh per annum from Rs 21 lakh per annum in 2019.

The average salary saw an increase too, Rs 24.30 lakh per annum from 22.35 lakh per annum in 2019. The highest offer stood at Rs 58.5 lakh per annum, way higher than Rs 50 lakh per annum that was the top offer last year.

Median and average salaries are both measures of the “middle of the market” regarding compensation. But industry watchers generally prefer benchmarking against the median salary, as it is considered more neutral than the average. As an instance, an average salary that is much higher than the median salary indicates that there are some employees in the organisation who earn significantly more than the overall group.

This year, the final recruitment process in XLRI saw the participation of 108 head-hunters, including 24 new final recruiters.

There were as many as 362 domestic and international offers.

Forty-three per cent of the batch received the highest number of offers made through pre-placement offers, considered prestigious.

The top offers came from consulting, sales and marketing and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) segments.

The Tolaram Group, headquartered in Singapore, made the top offer of Rs 58.5 lakh.

Father J. Christie, who is the director of XLRI, said they were delighted at the turn of events.

“This year’s placement season has once again witnessed remarkable success in spite of the longish economic slowdown. Interest in XLRI students has been tremendous in the industry, with top companies coming to us for recruitment. We attribute the excellent placements this year as an affirmation by the industry of the high standards of management-centric education that we strive to deliver to our students,” said the XLRI director.

KPMG and Pricewaterhouse Coopers made the highest number of offers.

Other regular recruiters were the The Boston Consulting Group, Accenture Strategy, Microsoft, Amazon, P&G, Aditya Birla Group, ITC, Avendus Capital, Standard Chartered, Capgemini ELITE and Hindustan Unilever.

There were 24 new recruiters, including Arga Investment Management, Tolaram Group, MH Alshaya, Myntra, Power Finance Corporation, Delhivery, JCB, Thoucentric, Welspun, Diageo, Varroc, CK Birla, among others.

XLRI is widely regarded as the best institution in the country for human resource managers. HR roles were offered by firms spanning the spectrum of domains such as P&G, ITC, JP Morgan and Chase, Colgate Palmolive, Myntra, Ola, Power Finance Corporation, Samsung, CK Birla, to name some. For the first time, assistant vice-president roles were offered by Genpact to students on campus. MH Alshaya, headquartered in Kuwait, offered international roles in the HR domain.

Founded in 1949, XLRI features among the top 30 global B-schools in Positive Impact Rating 2020 launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos.