The top B-schools in Mumbai, which once prided themselves on eye-popping placement packages, are struggling to find jobs for all their students and maintaining the past salary figures amid the global market slowdown.
The 2023-24 placement season was stretched by several weeks at some of the city's most sought-after management colleges, as the usually bankable recruiters hired fewer MBA graduates than in previous years. The situation isn't too different from the placement scenarios at other B-schools around the country, including the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). As the companies seek to course correct following the over-hiring during Covid-19 pandemic period, the colleges are scrambling to find similar opportunities for their students elsewhere, including tapping into their alumni network.
Colleges & The Situation They Are In
The Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) at Churchgate, which usually gets all its final-year students placed during the placement week in December, was left with around two dozen students without a job, though many of them managed to find offers in subsequent months. KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies (KJIMS) at Vidyavihar had to extend the placement season by a month from its regular deadline of April 30. But even then as many as 27 out of 658 (3%) who participated in the campus recruitment drive couldn't find offers - the college had achieved an almost 99% placement last year.
Salary Growth Comes To A Standstill
The salary growth also came to a standstill at the top institutes. The median salaries remained largely stagnant at most of the institutes, with some students left without an offer at the end of the academic session. After consistently climbing up from Rs 11.8 lakh in 2013 to Rs 28.8 in 2023, the average annual compensation (cost to company; CTC) graph at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay's (IITB) Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM) reversed its course for the first time in over a decade as it dipped to Rs 28.01 lakh in 2024. There was a slight increase, though, in the median salary from last year's Rs 26.64 lakh to Rs 26.73 lakh.
NMIMS's School of Business Management and JBIMS also saw their average salaries drop by Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 1.8 lakh, respectively. While the management school of BITS Pilani, BITSOM’s, average package size shrunk marginally by Rs 0.04, its median salary swelled by Rs 1 lakh. At SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), the median salary dropped by Rs 1 lakh, even as the average salary remained static at Rs 33 lakh.
Not A Rosy Picture Anymore
The picture of placements and salary growth at top business schools isn’t as rosy as a few years ago. While more and more students are finding themselves without jobs during placement camps, the salary packages offered have either come to a standstill or have dropped marginally. Experts attributed fewer placements to rationalisation after over-hiring or delay in MBA admissions. The changing dynamics of the workplace and recruitment approach have also resulted in management grads feeling the squeeze.
While two dozen students at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Churchgate, found no jobs during the placement camps, 27 at KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies (KJIMS) couldn’t find any offers. Nine out of 131 students in the 2022-24 batch of BITSOM, the management school of BITS Pilani, couldn’t secure any jobs. In comparison, only two graduates from its 2021-23 cohort were unplaced.
Earlier, BITSOM functioned from a building in Powai and recently opened its campus in Kalyan city. However, at the National Institute of Training and Industrial Engineering (NITIE), which was renamed IIM Mumbai this year, the entire batch of 446 students got placed on campus but also saw the average salary go up by Rs 1 lakh. Seven graduates got international offers, up from the last year's five. Many colleges particularly noted fewer offers from highpaying consulting and information technology (IT) and IT-enabled service companies.
Statement Of Anjali Chopra
Anjali Chopra, the marketing chairperson (professional development and placements) at KJIMS, said, “The BFSI [Banking, Financial Services and Insurance] has emerged as the top sector, accounting for 44% of the placements, but there was a slight decline in IT and consultancy.”
Chopra said Ernst & Young didn’t visit their campus this year. “These sectors overhired during the pandemic but the profits didn’t come through; so they are now rationalising. While BFSI companies hired in the months of May and June, consulting firms deferred the joining process till July and September,” she said.
In addition to tougher market conditions, the experts point out other factors responsible for the less-thanideal placements. Sudhakar Gaonkar, placement officer at JBIMS, suggested that delay in the state’s MBA admission process put the institute at a disadvantage, even as he insisted that the slowdown had little impact on hiring.
Statement Of Sudhakar Gaonkar
Gaonkar said, “We are losing students as the admission to IIMs and other institutes concluded much before ours. This has been the situation since Covid. The delay affects the academic session as well as internship opportunities for students. We are lucky to have achieved more than expected in the placements.”
While JBIMS, a government-supported institute under the University of Mumbai (MU), has been pushing to have its own independent admission process, the state authorities have ruled that the institute can admit the students only through centralised admission process (CAP). Kalim Khan, a city-based management consultant and educator, believes that the deteriorating quality of management education in the city institutes is the primary reason for sub-par placements.
“The colleges are losing their individual identity as evident by the pool campus placements,” he said.
What Are Pool Placements?
Pool placements refer to a practice by employers to run a common recruitment drive for students from multiple institutes. Mindful of all challenges, college officials are looking to rethink the traditional approach to placements. For example, KJIMS is encouraging its students to take up ‘capstones’ or part-time work projects during their course beyond the usual two-monthlong summer internships. In the last academic year, around 200 students at the institute were involved in various forms of capstones, extending anywhere between four and eight months. They are also counselling students to prioritise their passion and expertise while choosing a job instead of getting swayed by large package sizes. The graduates are also being nudged towards entrepreneurship and starting their own ventures.
Finally, after years of aggressively touting hiring figures as the centre-piece attraction to management aspirants, B-schools are now playing down the place of campus placements in their offerings – the head of an institute termed it as a mere “value addition”. They are also trying to tone down their students’ expectations, instead of feeding them with the vision of acquiring a “dream job” after their course.
“In our recent orientation session for the fresh batch, I told the students that they need to prepare as if the Indian cricket team is getting ready to face Australia,” said Gaonkar.
