MBA Its all about Placements

I often come across remarks from students that campus placements happen as a result of director or faculty connections in the corporate. Honestly though I am not qualified enough to say that it’s not correct but my experience and information in the corporate world has been somewhat different.

Let me begin by sharing my own case of campus placement: My Company was the first to visit the campus to hire students from our batch. It was also the first time that they visited our campus. Immediately after placements; our placement co-coordinator took lots of credit for getting 5 guys places in admirable consulting role. Well later on joining the job; I made friends with the re sourcing (HR) person who told me how they landed up for at our campus…

Organization was looking at young talent and they believed that few good guys did exist in every batch of not so highly ranked B/T schools. These guys would not only come at a much lesser monetary package but would hang in longer due to less institutional brand support. Hence the recruitment team started searching for such institutes on Google. They came across my institute name and contacted the placement co-coordinator. They wanted to visit the campus first to they could pick the cream and were primarily interested in MS guys for their technical expertise. Later they agreed to have a look at the MBA batch which surprisingly impressed them. Ultimately they ended up hiring more of MBA guys than the MS people. Since then they have regularly visited the campus for every requirement.

 

Well this highlights that hiring is primarily driven by business need for people rather than for gratification of certain individuals. It’s a competitive world and each one has to make lots of effort to attract customer so be it a corporate recruiter for placement cell.

My humble advice to placement cell members;

Understand the need of your customer (The Corporate Recruiter) and market your-self on those points. Let me point a few…

1. Recruiters don’t have time for searching about new institutions: There are plenty available otherwise. It’s completely upon you to make yourself very visible on net, in papers, on blogs, direct marketing campaigns, etc. You need to effectively use the alumni network to spread the name of the institution. Ever wondered how much an exclusive business card case or even a car sticker for every alumni would spread the visibility and build brand.
2. Nobody has time to make effort to establish contacts: Hence that onus is upon you. Make information and contacts easily available on net. Make sure it very easy to get in touch with you people so that the smallest of the opportunity information can reach you with little effort from any person. This could be creating a global id and marketing that id… talent@xyz.ac.in
3. Organizations need skills primarily: Make profiles of students; standard, easy to read and globally access able.
4. Heard of Risk-Reward ratio: Be willing to make financial (rewards) compromises to get your first job. And do not hesitate to give short/ medium term commitments (mitigate risk for the employer). Organizations’ invest a lot on the individual in first eighteen months. And believe me, they wish to retain good people. Once you have proved yourself you will be paid premium vis-à-vis peers in the organization.
5. Organizations need people in round the year: Too many fresher (non-billable resources) in a single quarter will hit bottom line hard of the business. Hence ensure availability of people joining dates round the year.
6. Prepare a pre-joining program: Contact regular recruiters to prepare a pre-joining program. While this will give you an edge of having exposure to required skills from day one; it will be a very value adding input for curriculum design and improvement. I will suggest a crash course on excel and power point usage.
7. Corporate respects ethics; demonstrate it. Be transparent and negotiate of placement spots and not on individual salaries. Well even if a recruiter refuses to visit; still don’t lie as any misrepresentation can put students’ placement in jeopardy. I have seen a campus recruitment coordinator being verbally thrashed and relationships snapped for making factual misrepresentation.
8. Every one wants to know more about the market: Offer to study recruitment and skill sets need of you customer i.e. corporate employer. Else offer corporate surveys and studies to help them further understand their market. You will find opportunities for internships at least.

 

Lastly corporate is all about give & take. And each party wants to feel a winner out of the transaction.

 

Thanks for having the patience to read through this.

Enjoy your MBA & enjoy life…