Other side of the placement hype

Most management grads sign up for jobs paying Rs 1 lakh/year

First, the good news. Finding jobs for Indian business school graduates seems to be a cinch these days. Almost all schools, which have reported their placements so far this year, say the process was over on Day Zero, and even the smallest company is willing to pay a premium to hire a B-school graduate.

But some of India's top HR managers feel companies are going overboard in throwing gobs of cash at the B-school grads this year. Management consultants tracking executive compensation attribute it to the "hype" created by the schools.

It's as if B-schools are simply hanging out their shingles and, like magic, employers are showing up. But the reality is far from it, they say.

Consultants say the hype over the sharp rise in recruitment overlooks one basic fact: the average annual salary at the huge number of schools in the bottom rung is a hopeless Rs 1 lakh (Rs 90,000 last year).

Most HR chiefs say a 10-15 per cent increase in the salary levels is understandable given that the economy is on an upswing, but "anything more than that may not be sustainable as there is still room for cutting costs in most companies". They also say that their company managements are wary of repeating the mistakes committed during the dotcom boom in 2000.

Adil Malia, Coca-Cola India's Vice-President (HR), says his company recruits 25-30 management graduates every year and the number will remain the same this year.

Coke pays an average salary of Rs 6.2 lakh per annum to its management trainees. "We have no plans to increase the pay packet, barring the routine annual increase all our employees get," he says.

Agrees Visty Banaji, Godrej's executive director-HR: "We always take a measured view. I see no reason for a sharp increase in my recruitment or salaries this year." Godrej has recruited its usual annual quota from institutes like FMS Delhi and XLRI Jamshedpur at a "marginally higher" salary than last year.

Banaji says companies that go on a recruitment overdrive suddenly often lack proper manpower planning.

So what explains the brouhaha over B-school placements this year? One reason is savvy marketing. Saya R Sankar, country head of Mercer, "B-schools have learnt the tricks of the trade: how to create the aura and the buzz."

Sankar, however, feels companies are indeed paying more and recruiting more this year because of the general economic boom.

Some HR heads pooh-pooh all this talk about placements getting over on Day Zero. The same companies that used to recruit over three to four days earlier are now being asked to come on the same day.

At the end of the day, everyone is happy: companies, especially those which earlier resented not being called on the first day; students who do not have to go through the torture of being left out at the end of the first day; and the B-schools themselves as they can now claim that placements were over on Day Zero instead of Day Three or Four, last year.

Also, some institutes have become extremely techno-savvy. XLRI, for example, conducted its placement process online this year. Students were able to apply to companies online and view their status in the recruitment process, and companies were able to search and view student profiles and job applications online before coming to campus.

Management institutes say the main reason for the growth in recruitment is the huge manpower requirement of software and BPO companies. The top five software service companies -- TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and HCL Technologies -- are projected to recruit 50,000 people over the next 18 months. At XLRI, the IT sector alone (Wipro was the highest with 10) recruited 47 of the 124 candidates this year.

While all the top IT services are growing at a rapid pace, the BPO companies are growing even faster. Third-party service providers like Accenture, IBM Global Services and Cap Gemini are expected to recruit more than 25,000 people in the next two years.

While this is bound to result in a healthy growth in the number of jobs and salaries at B-schools, management consultants say the "unnecessary hype" has ensured that students will start expecting an offer as a sign of an immediate return on the sky-high tuition fees.

"The hype is alright, but the B-schools must hammer the job-market reality home to their students," he says.