Executive education sees poor response, lower salary offers

Executive education, where organisations rather than individual students generally foot the bill, has been hit hard as corporate budgets come under ever tighter scrutiny. However, while number of students being sponsored by a company for management education has seen a drop of nearly 20 per cent, placements for these executives is still better off compared to the two-year post graduate programme (PGP) students.

Consider this. At IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), while the PGP students saw a 23 per cent drop in average domestic salaries this year, executive education students saw a 11 per cent drop -- Rs 18 lakh this year, down from Rs 20 lakh last year. Industry analysts peg this to the executives’ ability to leverage work experience (10 years work experience, on an average) as well as optimum use of their contacts while looking for jobs after completing management education.

The highest domestic salary, however, saw a steeper drop — falling to Rs 35 lakh from Rs 45 lakh last year. Almost 60 per cent of the graduating batch was from the IT-ITeS sector. “This suggests that job offerings in PGPEX placements allowed students to leverage their past work experience and stay within the same sector or leverage the PGPEX programme to switch out of sectors they were in,” said Praful Agnihotri, placements chairman of IIM-C. On the other hand, the two-year PGP students at IIM-C saw around 23 per cent drop in its average domestic salaries, compared with last year. The domestic average salary this year was Rs 12.7 lakh per annum, while the highest offer was Rs 60 lakh per annum.

Interestingly, IIM-C is one of the very few premier institutes which has managed to complete its placement process for executives. At IIM-Lucknow (IIM-L), IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), and XLRI Jamshedpur, the placement season has been extended and is still continuing, according to sources familiar with the placement process.

As of now, half of the first batch of the International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX), the one-year residential executive programme at IIM-L, has been placed so far. Around 70 companies have visited the batch of 45 students at its Noida campus for its ongoing final placements, informed Ajay Singh, placements chairman for IPMX at IIM-L’s Noida campus.

E Abraham, Director, XLRI Jamshedpur, says: “The placement scenario has been difficult this year. While PGP students saw only a marginal drop in average salaries, for the executive education programme, it is more difficult this year particularly because companies are not recruiting people with many years of experience.”

This year, the highest salary offered for the PGP students at XLRI was Rs 22 lakh, while the highest international offer this year was $110,000. The the average domestic salary package offered this year was Rs 12.12 lakh per annum. Last year, the average domestic offer at XLRI was Rs 14.75 lakh and the highest domestic offer was Rs 28 lakh, while international offers averaged $90,000, with the highest at $100,000.