The Hindu Business Line : B-schools begin fire-fighting to minimise impact

It appears that the global economic slowdown has finally touched employment prospects of management graduates in India, if the perception of premier management schools is any indication.

Expecting a significant decrease in number of campus placements for the students who will be graduating early next year, some B-schools have already started fire-fighting exercises to minimise the impact.

“It is logical to expect a downward trend in corporate recruitments, both overseas and domestic. To minimise the loss, we are in the process of inviting more companies to campus recruitments this year. The idea is to offset the decrease in placement offers from individual companies by having more recruiters,” Mr M. Rammohan Rao, Dean, Indian School of Business (ISB), told Business Line.

Last year, over 230 global and domestic majors participated in campus placements at ISB.

While there is a general opinion that multinationals from the US (especially in BFSI segment) would desist from aggressive hiring, some experts reassure that the domestic recruitment could survive with little negative impact.

“We are also expecting a dip in placement offers by global majors for next one/two years at least. However, going by domestic economic growth, there should be no worries about hiring by domestic companies,” Dr Premchand Purwar, Director (officiating), IIM-Lucknow, said over phone from Lucknow.

Pay packages

Further, the fat remuneration packages offered to the management graduates till last year may also be a thing of the past, feel experts.

“Already, leading IT companies, private banks and consulting firms are cautious on hikes. This is likely to be reflected in the hiring process as well,” said an official of a Chennai-based recruitment firm.

Students’ awareness

The adverse impact of all this will be felt more by the students of not-so popular business schools who are generally out of the radar of big corporates, he added.

The students, on their part, are taking note of the development and trying to put up a brave face.

“At a macro level, the global economic slowdown will have some effect.

“But there are lot of sectors like infrastructure, retail, telecom, pharma and healthcare that are growing rapidly in Asia and particularly in India,” observed Mr Nirav Rawell, a student of ISB.

“So, more number of companies from these sectors are expected to recruit candidates this year, and this will more than offset any negative repercussions that the slowdown may have,” he hoped.

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