What to do if you do not get placed after completing your MBA?

It was none other than the IISWBM (Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management) hailing from the City of Joy, which happened to be the first Indian business school to start an MBA degree program, and was founded with the Calcutta University. This undervalued management institution was once mentored the highly coveted IIM Calcutta.

IISWBM was set up when the idea of management education was literally alien to then education fraternity. Since then; many decades faded into the dungeon of time, and the lure of a prestigious MBA degree to supercharge one’s professional career, continued to increase among the Indians with every passing year.

Curriculum

Be it the Stanford or Harvard in the US or the good old IIMs in the subcontinent, the fundamental concepts related to business and major MBA topics covered in classroom study do not change.

The subjects for a typical MBA course will look pretty much identical; with marketing, finance, operations management, human resource management, economics, and strategy make up the core areas of learning. These primary subjects are taught in the first year and offer ample opportunity and time for the students to develop a sound foundation of business theories.

The MBA candidates are required to opt for specializations, popularly known as electives, during their second year of study. The nature and number of the electives can vary from one MBA degree program to another, and in many cases, contemporary topics are incorporated in the present syllabus as per the demand of the economy as well as the national and the global market. For instance, during the dot-com bubble, the North American MBA programs invariably included all the subjects related to venture capital finance and startups.

A large number of the subjects in a regular MBA are taught with the help of the Case Study approach, which is a considerably more hands-on as well as equally experimental method of learning.

Admission Process

Admission notifications start to appear in major newspapers about top business schools from early March every year. On receipt of properly filled application forms, they issue admit cards required for the MBA entrance examination, usually held pan-India. Final selection is made on performance in written test and GD-PI. Also, additional points are rewarded for possessing full-time and relevant work experience excluding any article-ship.

• Written Test: The major MBA entrance tests listed below grill the students on reading comprehension, verbal ability, business data interpretation, and quantitative aptitude.
  • Common Admission Test (CAT)
  • Common Entrance Test (CET)
  • Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET)
  • Management Aptitude Test (MAT)
  • Xavier Admission Test (XAT)
  • AIMS (Association of Indian Management Schools) Test for Management Admissions (ATMA)

• Group Discussion & Personal Interview: GD-PI is conducted to assess the leadership capabilities, grasping abilities, analytical thought process, and communication skills of the candidates.

Career pathways and job portfolios

The graduating MBA students are typically employed in the following industries.

• Telecom
• Information technology
• IT-enabled services
• Electronic commerce
• Banking and financial services
• Investment banking
• Management consulting
• Insurance
• Wealth management
• Asset finance
• Hedge fund management
• Retail
• Hospitality
• Media
• Fast moving consumer goods

Standard job profiles for MBA graduates are listed below.

•  Marketing
  • Brand manager
  • Sales manager
  • Marketing manager
  • Product manager
  • Market research analyst
  • Media planner
  • Internet marketing manager
• Finance
  • Financial manager
  • Credit analyst,
  • Accounting manager,
  • Risk and insurance analyst
  • Treasurer
  • Cash manager
  • Chief financial officer
  • VP-finance
  • Finance director
• Operations
  • Supply chain manager
  • Logistics manager
  • Inventory control manager
  • Project managers
  • Operations manager
• Technology
  • Project manager
  • Business development manager
  • Product manager, marketing manager
  • Analytics manager
  • System manager
  • Data processing manager
  • Business analyst
  • IT consultant

Typical Job Profile

• Marketing: To device marketing strategy and also concentrate on sustaining the present customer base.
• Finance: To study and predict economic trends, analyze company reports for suggesting improvements, balance profitability, and risk, maximize stock value, applying theories related to financial risk management, optimizing/managing/hedging investment funds, etc.
• Operations: To ensure the uninterrupted flow of business processes and implement projects without any errors.
• Technology: To keep up with rapidly evolving technical innovations and developments as well as anticipate market demands.

Prospective career opportunities for those who did not get a placement

PSU and government jobs are very much popular in the subcontinent. After the seventh pay commission is declared, the salary of the government employees is on par with that of the top private corporations.

There is a growing trend among the Indian MBA pass-outs to apply for the jobs available in the state, central, and government undertakings. Landing on a secure government job is a dream to many Indians with MBA qualifications, and if someone is hardworking and determined, securing employment in the public sector will not be much of an issue for that person.

One can opt for the following public sector jobs.

• Management trainee
• General manager
• Specialist officer
• Chief executive officer
• Junior executive
• Senior executive
• Marketing officer
• Personnel officer
• Additional program officer

Scope of Government & Private Sector

The present decade is witnessing a rekindled interest for government jobs among the graduating MBA students in India.

Some of the salient observations are summarized below to analyze this particular trend.

•  The number of seats in the Indian business schools rose sharply during 2011 to 2016, and more than five lac MBA seats were available in 2015-16 as compared to about three and a half lac in 2011-12
• Students typically shell out any amount between three to five lacs for a two-year, full-time, on-campus MBA program; when the present annual CTC (cost to company) for entry-level management jobs is at a meager one LPA (lacs per annum) or perhaps, a little more
• The minimum salary for central government jobs increased to over two LPA after a pay revision in 2016, and to put things into perspective; a government driver earns about three LPA
• An engineered employed in the public sector earns over half a million Indian rupees annually, whereas a private worker takes home a paltry sum of three LPA on an average
• 45% Drop was recorded in campus placements from 2014-16

Pay Package Trends

A selective illustration of the final placement process that took place in early 2018 at the premier league of Indian business schools is presented below.

(All CTC figures are in Indian rupees and expressed in LPA or lacs per annum)

• IIFT
  • Highest international: 100
  • Highest domestic: 29
  • Average domestic: 18.27
• IIM Indore
  • Highest domestic: 33.04
  • Average domestic: 18.17
  • Highest international: 63.45
• IIM-C
  • Highest: 75
  • Average: 24.2
  • Median: 22

(Note: Both international and domestic compensation packages are taken together for all the above three cases.)

Top Recruiters

• J.P. Morgan & Co.
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Morgan Stanley
• Bessemer Venture Partners
• CitiBank
• Credit Suisse
• Olam
• TGI
• AluZinc
• Phoenix Commodities
• CP Group
• British Telecom
• DBS
• ADM