Article: How B-Schools attract employers? - Part II

Campus Recruitment

How B-Schools attract employers? - Part II

What, according to the academia, are the key aspects of a B-School that attracts recruiters? Let's find out..
How B-Schools attract employers? - Part II

In the Part-I of this story, we tried to understand what recruiters seek in a B-School, before adding it to their list of colleges they intend to visit for campus hiring. Their selection criteria list is pretty long! The academia also needs to make sure that they are on the same page as the recruiters, in order to attract them and ensure a healthy placement session. So, what is the academia’s perspective on being shortlisted and assessed by the recruiters? What, according to them, are the key aspects of a B-School that attracts recruiters? Let’s find out..

Highlighting the viewpoint of the academia, Dr Rajan Saxena, Vice Chancellor, NMIMS, opined that program quality and relevance is crucial for the success of any B-school. “It is necessary to examine the frequency at which the program contents have been reviewed. The content review process has to be carefully scrutinized in order to maintain the quality standards and make the content more relevant to the needs of the industry and society. The program quality has to be assessed by the user (industry) feedback on the graduate quality.”

“An outstanding B-School is the one where the leadership focus is not just on visioning and strategizing but also on micro aspects of the institution,” he added.

Highlighting the importance of campus hiring and the need to seek out the best, M Hussain of Fore School of Management, stated, “Campus recruitment is a critical part of an organization’s talent strategy. With talent being scarce, MBA students are generally hired with a plan to be trained and fast tracked into leadership positions. With such high stakes, companies need to ensure that they not only get the best, but also the ones who will be the right fit for the company and will stay for a longer term.”

He believes that besides rankings, there are other factors which impact companies’ hiring sources; such as the availability of required skill sets in a particular b-school and performance of alumni working with the company. “Companies prefer schools where they enjoy a higher profile on campus and where they fare better vis-à-vis other employers and are able to attract the best students,” he added.

Academicians believe that the quality of students is a key factor on which B-schools are assessed. Students make the raw material of any B-school, and if students are really good, even if the other factors are not at the same class, the schools would still fare well, as is borne out by the experiences of IITs and IIMs, believes Prof S. Sriram, CEO & Executive Director, Great Lakes Institute of Management. Seema Bangia, Head - HR at Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd, also believes that apart from content, curriculum, student-teacher ratio, infrastructure and exposure, students quality and discipline also plays a very crucial role in attracting recruiters.

The profile of the enrolled students, different learning opportunities; such as guest lectures and seminars, the quality of faculties, exposure enablers (industrial visits and projects) and course content are key aspects on which B-schools are assessed, stated, B Valiappan of Great Lakes Institute of Management.

Sunitha Ravi of Institute of Finance and International Management believes that infrastructure is a crucial element on which B-Schools are assessed. The physical learning environment is important for the assimilation of learning; an environment to pursue learning, hobbies and passion.

According to Dr. Jitendra K Das, Director, FORE School of Management, the important factors for effective assessment of a B-School are:

  1. Innovative leadership style
  2. Well laid-down systems
  3. Procedures leading to the growth of a faculty
  4. Degree of exposure to various business situations beyond class rooms
  5. A sense of discipline among students, spirit of values and ethos imbibed
  6. Type of learning environment created by individual B-School
  7. Extent of professional and industry expertise a B-School is able to attract

”Once these are achieved in true spirit, a student turns out a manager and a professional in real sense; what a corporate looks for in the present scenario,” he added.

Read full story

Topics: Campus Recruitment

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?