Internship hiring picks up at top B-schools, stipends rise

New Delhi | Bengaluru: Recruiters are increasingly using summer internships as a key hiring channel at India’s top business schools, and are offering higher stipends to the 2026-28 batch even as they make pre-placement offers (PPOs) to more interns from the Class of 2027 than earlier batches.

Placement officials at IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode and SPJIMR told ET that internship hiring has strengthened this year, with greater recruiter participation.

The summer internship process takes place in the first year of the MBA course while PPOs are offered in the second year, right before the final placements at B-schools.

“Many recruiters view summer internships as their primary channel for full-time hiring,” said Prem Prakash Dewani, chairperson, placement, at IIM Lucknow.

The institute’s students have attracted an average monthly stipend of ₹1.72 lakh against ₹1.67 lakh last year, while the median rose to ₹1.75 lakh from ₹1.72 lakh.

“What stands out is that the median is higher than the average, indicating that strong stipends were distributed across the batch rather than concentrated among a few top offers,” Dewani said.
IIM Kozhikode reported an increase in PPO conversions. “We have one of the highest conversion rates from summer internships to PPOs,” said Ankur Jain, chairperson of the institute’s CARE (corporate access, readiness and engagement) platform.While the summer internship placement process is still underway and final year-on-year comparisons are not yet available, Jain said recruiter participation, stipend outcomes, student coverage and the relevance of internship assignments have improved significantly over last year.

At IIM Calcutta, the highest monthly stipend rose to ₹9.5 lakh this year from ₹6 lakh last year, while the average stipend increased to ₹1.93 lakh from ₹1.85 lakh. The institute onboarded 51 new recruiters, including Asian Paints, Gridlines, L.E.K. Consulting, L’Oreal, Mondelez International, Raine Group, Samara Capital and UKG.