The skillsets required by the industry are evolving every day and hence business schools need to adapt to these changing scenarios to keep their students in the top league, in the eyes of the recruiter.
We recently spoke to Prof. Srinivas Cheedi, Director, Corporate Relations at IBS Hyderabad to understand how the institute is working towards providing a strong industry-academia interface to its students.
Professor, what do you think being industry ready really means in today’s world, and what characteristics are crucial for achieving this objective?
Broadly, industry-ready implies that the student has been exposed to and is ready to assume a suitable role for the actual work done in a function (Finance, Marketing, HR, Operations, etc.) in a company. A student, therefore, needs to have a good theoretical grounding in the subject, be aware of the latest developments, technologies being used, regulatory requirements & compliances and have an understanding of how various forces internal and external affect that function, having been exposed to these issues practically.
The key characteristics necessary are:
- Ability to work in a team and understand the dynamics of working with diverse people each with a different personality
- Ability to listen, understand and respond in a clear and to the point manner orally and in writing
- Ability to self-learn unknown subjects and solve problems with minimal support from others
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How has IBS worked towards building a strong industry interface for students even before summer internships?
IBS engages with industry thru various activities such as :
- Mandatory Guest Lectures by industry experts are built into the course schedule for most subject
- Student clubs arrange lectures by working professionals from various functional areas
- Institute coordinated mentoring of students by alumni. Alumni relations are handled by students
- Student clubs provide consultancy to SMEs
- Industry personnel participate in conferences organized on campus. Students coordinate this activity
Apart from the academic curriculum, how does IBS prepare the students for interviews? Is the preparation methodology customized to specific areas of interest?
Placement preparation starts from the day students join campus. The methodology is customized to different functional areas and different industries such as Banking, IT, Financial Services, etc. Some of these are:
- Soft skills courses are a part of the curriculum every semester. These are run by experienced trainers and are graded like any other subject. They focus on building the skills required to face interviewers.
- Industry experts are brought in to train students for varied industry-specific skills.
- Mock tests simulating company recruitment tests, mock GDs, and Interviews are conducted every semester. Functional Managers from industry and alumni are involved in these activities.
- Every day, after classes, special training sessions are held where fundamentals of key subjects are discussed as a “refresher”. Over the last 20 years, IBS has made a collection of “Questions Frequently Asked by Recruiters”. These are discussed in the special sessions and the connection between the relevant subject that has been taught and the recruiter questions are explained to the students. Alumni are also brought into these sessions to train the students.
- Students shortlisted by a company for an interview are given specific training for that particular role including FAQs by that company and industry in general.
- Over the last few years, IBS has incorporated into its curriculum inputs from industry, and Case Studies have been written targeting specific job roles such as Equity Research, Market Research, Social Media Marketing, etc.
What kind of academic diversity is there at IBS currently and to what extent have you noticed unconventional placements?
The students have more or less been from conventional graduation areas of engineering, commerce, etc. Students with prior work experience constitute about 30 % of the batch. Placements have also been similar over the years. One noticeable change is the requirement for tech savviness even for traditional jobs.
Which industries & domains are currently the largest recruiters at IBS?
BFSI, IT, and ITES are currently the largest recruiters.
What steps did IBS take to emerge out of the pandemic with respect to corporate relations?
Since most offices were closed and operational on WFH mode it was not possible to have physical meetings. IBS continued to engage with recruiters during the pandemic thru virtual guest lectures and webinars.
What are some of the jobs of the future for which students are now being prepared at IBS?
The pandemic has accelerated the use of technology by most companies, particularly in the areas of Digital Media, AI, and Data Science/ Analytics. We anticipate this to increase substantially as companies seem to have realized the benefit of these technologies. We have identified suitable courses and training programs in these areas and have started training our students. We are also in the process of engaging external expert organizations for enhancing our offerings in these areas. While the jobs in the immediate future will continue to be the same as now, we believe technology will very quickly take over many of the tasks done by people today. MBAs with knowledge of the core subjects and an understanding of the technologies that are emerging in such specific areas, along with its limitations and trained in managing the use of such technologies will stand to benefit.
How do you think the placement trends would change in the next two years?
The pandemic has provided recruiters with an opportunity to conduct their placement process completely online and they have done it very successfully with no problems. Large campus recruiters who travel across the country to many institutes were constrained by “placement dates” in the past. Scheduling / Rescheduling campus placements was a difficult option for both companies and institutes and many institutes lost out on account of this. In the new “Online” mode, companies could complete the process in a much shorter time. This has not only saved them costs but also allowed them to induct more interviewers from among their senior managers for the activity, which in turn allowed them to consider more students for their process compared to the usual on-campus interviews. This benefit also made the usual filtering using “Group Discussion” redundant and provided many more students the opportunity to present themselves to an interviewer. In all likelihood, companies will continue this even after the situation becomes normal.
Smaller or regional companies, who were so far confining their placement activity to local institutes will now look at recruiting from across the country. We have experienced it this year itself. Companies that were unwilling to travel to Hyderabad in earlier years citing low requirements have recruited online.
B-Schools like IBS Hyderabad are definitely working towards staying relevant with the current market demand and are evolving course experiences each year.
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About IBS:
Since 1995, IBS has been one of the leading B-Schools in the country, providing excellent academic delivery and infrastructure to its students. IBS offers innovative and globally accepted programs and a great opportunity for all-round development. Students at IBS have the advantage of developing a cross-functional knowledge base, with a good synthesis of Indian and International perspectives.
IBS, Hyderabad is accredited by AACSB. For more details click here