B-school recruitments in 2012: Start-ups & first-timers take lead

As the Indian economy treads on a recovery path, new B-school recruitment strategies and patterns emerge as big players like Infosys, IBM India, Cognizant, etc ease off on aggressive hiring strategies. New players and start-ups are driving increased sentiment as first time recruiters are on a shopping spree for new talent.

A recent survey by ET revealed that IBM was the only major player which recruited more B-school students in 2012 than in 2011. While big corporates continued to be the major hirers amongst top Indian B-schools in 2012, activity levels were lower than previous years.

In IIM Bangalore the top 2 recruiters, IBM and Supermax, were first timers in the list of 10 companies that were biggest recruiters. In fact, Supermax hired 40 graduates from IIM-A and IIM-B alone. Airtel and Lodha Group too featured in this list for the first time.

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The same was witnessed in IIM Calcutta as 3 companies amongst the top 10 recruiters were first timers in that category. They were social networking portal and developer Zynga, emerging tech giant Lenovo and global manufacturing conglomerate Ingersoll Rand.

In fact, Zynga did not just stop at IIM C. It hired more than 15 top tier B-school graduates in India including ones from the mecca of all B-schools, IIM Ahmedabad.

The ET survey reported similar trends in non IIM B-school as well. Microsoft, McDonald’s, Michael Page, Flipkart and Google featured amongst first time recruiters in top B-schools including Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies Mumbai, S P Jain Institute of Management Research Mumbai and XLRI Jamshedpur.

Forgoing positions in global conglomerates and established recruiters for jobs in start-ups is not the kind of thing graduates from IIMs are used to. Students in these top tier B-schools look forward to being hired by industry giants and lured with attractive salary packages.

However as the economies and industries go through shakeups and overhauls, new opportunities have emerged. New entrants are luring students from the top B-schools by offering them diversified portfolios, increased responsibilities, attractive titles and even personalized tailor-made job profiles.

For example, fresh B-school recruits in upcoming real estate giant Lodha Group could be overseeing and managing portfolios in the range of Rs. 400 to Rs. 1,200 crore, along with a fancy title of Assistant General Manager.

Backed by a starting salary in upwards of Rs. 18 lakh along with potential for a solid career head start is an offer that even most sought after IIM-A graduates may find hard to ignore.

Online shopping portal Flipkart is also capitalizing on this wave. Ravi Vora, VP Marketing at Flipkart said "Fresh hires get to work in positions that are given in other firms to those who have been with the company for at least four years"

Mr. Vora’s take on job positions seems to be justified. Such roles and job profiles are diverse and give fresh graduates a solid foundation of working alongside top executive. They are also an unparalleled opportunity to get a micro cum macro perspective of the machinery that drives a company.

Moreover, the success of start-ups like Flipkart and MakeMyTrip also seems to have played into the psych of fresh graduates. Getting a job in start-ups and new players was once considered a step down, and in fact, an alternative to positions in established industry leaders.

But with start-ups going head to head with industry giants in short periods of time, B-school graduates may now be open to taking up significant roles within such organizations.

After all, who doesn’t want to be a part of a success story?