Letters: On the job

Apropos Indrajit Gupta's column "Placements, statistics and damned lies" (Strategic Intent, January 23), recruiting companies should also take the blame for early MBA turnover. In their zeal to attract fresh MBAs, many of them paint a rosy picture of their organisation. They promise challenging jobs and assure free thinking only to confront the charmed recruit with the reality and a gnawing feeling of being conned.

Besides, a weak socialisation process, of which orientation training is a key element, fails to integrate the MBA with the organisation. Many studies have revealed that a well-designed orientation training programme can reduce premature separations substantially.

Recruiters utilise a lot of time and resources in using psychometric tests and personality inventory to correlate the candidate's ability and personality attributes with the job requirement, but not so much to judge whether they would fit into the organisational culture. MBAs who are taught to develop creativity would feel ill at ease in conservative set-ups where past experience and status-quoism dominate.

The leadership style and interpersonal behaviour of the immediate boss can also make a difference. With their high sense of individual dignity, MBAs would cringe to have a fault-finding, arrogant and ill-mannered boss. This is one the major causes of early resignations.

The moot point is that while MBA students are trained to give their best to the organisation, some managers should also learn as to how to get the best out of them.

Y G Chouksey Pune

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