Industry Odisha Bureau, Oct 24: Internships are fast becoming the primary way companies hire management students. Tuition waivers, housing, live projects and pre-placement offers now form part of the pitch.
Indian companies are using summer internships as a key hiring tool for management students. Firms are offering scholarships, tuition waivers, housing and leadership access to attract talent. The goal is to convert strong interns into full-time hires early, Mint reported.
Such conversions happen through pre-placement offers, made soon after internships end. Students are free to decline them. Those who accept can skip the final campus placement held months later. Summer internships at most business schools run during May and June.
The shift comes amid a sluggish job market. Employers would rather assess interns through real work than compete in final placements. Students, meanwhile, increasingly value mentorship, career growth and meaningful work over stipend size. Top schools still pay stipends of a couple of lakh rupees monthly.
Pranav Jindal of the Indian School of Business (ISB) sees a clear change. Firms now design internships that test classroom learning against real business problems, he said. Investment banks offer front-end roles, while FMCG firms involve interns in product launches. Startups offer founder’s office roles, placing students alongside co-founders during key decisions.
Adani Group runs the Adani Academic Leadership Programme (AALP), now in its second year. Selected interns receive a scholarship covering two-year MBA fees, excluding mess charges. Fees at some older Indian Institutes of Management run to ₹20-27 lakh.
Prem Prakash Dewani, placement chairperson at IIM Lucknow, said Adani earlier took part in final placements there. The group now engages students mainly through summer internships, he told Mint. IIM Lucknow said the scholarship applies to all AALP interns. It does not depend on whether they receive or accept a PPO. Adani Group did not respond to Mint’s queries.
Avendus Capital’s banking arm now fills 60% of its campus hiring through PPOs. That share stood at 38% two years ago. For the 2026-28 batch, it ran a two-hour live deal scenario. Students had to propose how they would handle the simulated case. Divya Agarwal, head of human resources at Avendus Investment Banking, explained the reason. Students saw banking as number-crunching, missing the stakeholder management involved, she said. From this year, internship interviews follow only after the deep-dive session.
IIM Indore director Himanshu Rai said stronger programmes arrange or subsidise housing and relocation. Rai said students now value industry immersion and networking as much as pay. One building materials company places interns at its plants to see production firsthand.
RPG Group has redesigned its internship around business-critical projects. Students want clarity on role, career path and conversion prospects, a spokesperson said. Internship experiences also shape how peers on campus view an employer.
Narayanan Ramaswamy of KPMG in India said short interviews no longer work well. Internships help firms spot original thinkers and problem-solvers in the AI era, he added.
The race for MBA talent now starts well before final placements.
