Cos not good at spotting star performers
HR-SPEAK
| Q. We have been hiring management graduates every year from various campuses including the premier ones. Most of the MBAs we hire tend to be quicker on the uptake, than, say, our engineering graduates. The other graduates in comparison take longer to train. There is just one problem: Fresh MBAs do not stick around long enough, not to forget the increasing costs that we incur in hiring such graduates. Our line managers complain about waste of their effort in grooming such graduates. We are seriously re-considering our campus MBA programme. What are your views on this? |
| Let us first understand the MBA recruitment dynamics in India. Most of the top ten MBA institutes have no problems filling up their seats, as young students rush to obtain a management degree"" reason being that companies vie with each other to hire MBAs and the compensation that fresh MBAs earn is between two and ten times more than that of a plain graduate. However, many of these students are not sure of what to look for in a company"" salary, brand, role or opportunity to grow. |
| Intellectual ability (high intelligence, strong analytical and logical abilities) is the primary calibre of MBAs in general. This is because the selection criteria used by institutes in India sanitises candidates based on intellectual ability. Further, most institutes (barring two or three) select without prior experience; experienced students are a small proportion, ranging from 5 per cent to about 35 per cent of a batch. |
| To add to the confusion, many times companies pay a disproportionate premium for the MBA brand. I know of a graduate who joined a consulting firm as an analyst with a salary of 22,000/- pm. After working with the firm for two years, he pursued a two-year full time MBA programme from a premier institute. He was hired back by the same firm on campus at two levels higher for a whopping 100,000 pm/- salary. The firm found the same graduate more polished, more confident in the MBA avatar but with the same basic qualities as before, reliable and intelligent. The firm admits that with focused training and coaching, perhaps the person would have been a suitable experienced consultant by now than having to wait for him to pursue an MBA. |
| Usually, companies are unwilling to identify such a talented profile from the working graduate population within the organisation. Various factors contribute to it. Performance and career management programmes are not sharp enough to pick high-potential candidates. The supervisors of the graduate population lack the skill and at times motivation to identify and train high-calibre talent. However, the most important issue that contributes to this is our own mindset, which values premier qualifications as evidence of high potential. Lastly, the pride of an organisation that hires MBAs from premier institutes. |
| I encourage you to question why your organisation needs a MBA. If you are really looking for bright young people for entry-level managerial positions, there are better and less expensive ways of getting them. Second, when you do hire fresh MBAs, you need to take them aboard in such a way that mutual expectations from the hires are evolved clearly. Do involve the direct supervisors in this process. |
| Third, you should largely consider MBAs for augmenting the middle management of your organisation, by hiring those who have opted for a MBA after significant work experience. |
| The author is Associate Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers. This column will appear once in four weeks, and readers may address their queries to: powerzone@business-standard.com . The answers will appear in the next instalment. |