Important Questions That Need Answers

Is the placement a free and fair process where the role of placement committee is just to bring companies to campus and organise placements where organise means just to support the placements in terms of infrastructure requirements?

Why are students not told that IIMs provides placement only as an additional service when they fill CAT form or during IIM's entrance interview as this would give a clearer picture to the students about the institute? Also, the fees are so high, the person can himself judge better if he will be able to get placed and pay back the loan he/she takes, otherwise the loan burden on a student can be used against him/her in different ways.

If placement is just an additional activity, why do IIMs takes fees from companies participating in the placements? Since it is an educational institute and the fees is already so high, shouldn't the fees from companies be given back to students in terms of fee reduction?

Are the students who sign out of placements under any type of threat or pressure from any faculty or members of the placement committee or student's placement committee?

Is the amount of fine that is imposed on the students even legitimate, given the mistakes, if any, they make? And is that fine even accounted by the finance department or is it black money which is used by placement committee for organising parties? Also, why is no receipt provided when such fine is paid? And why does the mail regarding fines say that you cannot appeal against the fine? This is clearly a case of denial of justice where the other party is not even heard.

Is the placement committee aware of the amount of pressure that is built on students during placements due to the placement process being very fast as the institute wants to get the students placed in very less time? This is evident from the fact that a lot of people cry during the placements. Why can't the placements be conducted over a longer duration such as during holidays or during evening hours when there are no classes?

Why is attendance mandatory for students for pre-placement talks? Only students who are interested in a particular company should participate that company's pre-placement talk. Even people who have no interest are made to sit down and shouted at.

The language used in emails sent by either placement committee or students' placement committee is very threatening to students who have a huge burden of loan over them. Why is it that the placement committee or student's placement committee cannot talk in a polite way?

Is there a conflict of interest between students and the institute where the institute manipulates the placements to get all students placed at the cost of a fair process?

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Comments

Miti Vaidya

Miti Vaidya is an alumnus of XLRI School of Business (Batch of 2011). She is currently loving her job as Product Manager of Konversations.com and is part of the leadership team at InsideIIM-Konversations. Prior to this, Miti spent 5 years with the Tata Group as part of the prestigious TAS programme. A graduate from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce & Economics (Batch of 2007), Miti has also completed her C.A.

Uncomfortable, but nevertheless relevant questions.

24 Apr 2017, 02.54 AM

Mohammad Kashif

1. Target - To get everyone placed 2. Violent shouting, haven't faced that. It does feel sometimes that they are bit pushy but then they have a tough job. 3. Free and fair to a great extent yes. There are times when they do favor someone but come placement week be rest assured these people would push for you in companies where you were not even shortlisted (you wont consider that unfair would you? ) 4. To be honest this question reeks of hypocrisy now. Main purpose of any educational institution is to impart education. Jobs are a fringe benefits. You must try studying in US colleges where they don't provide this "service". Also getting placed factors in multiple things some external and some internal. If the GDP tanks in a year then companies wont come for recruitment. What will you do then? wait for college to get you placed or try your luck. Also once you do get out of these colleges you are in a better position to leverage your degree (actually diploma) with recruiters. As for the comment on high fees, you want to enjoy excellent infrastructure and not pay for it? Government does not subsidize IIM's thus the high fees. This decision is taken by IIM's so that government does not dictate them. 5. Institution asking companies to pay for placement. This is a tricky one, I would try to simplify the answer. Think of IIM's as a platform business model where they are connecting Students with the companies. Now by doing this they are reducing the search cost for the companies and providing them "supposedly" good managers. For students they are getting a plethora of companies to choose from. Now this is essentially a discovery platform and they are changing the companies because they are willing to pay. Also this fee goes into improvement and upkeeping of the college. 6. Student who opt out of process are under no threat. Obviously there might be cases where a student was not placed and institute to keep its image would say that they opted out. But in such scenarios I have seen and heard placement committee members trying extra hard for that guy and arrange companies for him after the placement week. But there are many people who have their own startups or use their personal connections to secure a job and sign out of the process to make it easier for others. 7. Well IIM B has an audit committee and they look into it. I would be honest and say that I too have no information on this topic. But I believe in the audit committee's work. 8. An interesting question, I think (I might be wrong on this one) it is because if you extend it then students will not study and yes placement committee is aware of the stress that student go through (it is a student body committee why wont they know??) Incidentally, you yourself have stated that it is an add on benefit so it is upon the administration to have a stance and stick to it. Also there are 2 separate placement processes, laterals where people with experience (in IIM B thats 22 months for our batch) would appear for and it starts in January and continues till the final placement, for freshers there is only final placement. Be rest assured people in laterals feel very tired of the process and there have been cases where a student has appeared for more then 15 companies in lateral and not been selected. Selection process in lateral is also very long (for finals also) there are GD then activities and then interviews. It can take a whole day, so what essentially IIM's are doing is saving you time and you get to give all GD's and interviews in a single day. Is it the best way, I doubt it but I am against it being stretched. 9. Attendance in preplacement talk - well study Game theory, you are doing it for the greater good. Be honest with me, name the companies that you know? There are many good companies which people havent even heard about. We all think we know everything but honestly we are an ignorant lot. Coming back to the question say a company whose name you havent heard of comes, will you attend its ppt or complete that pending assignment? Now from perspective of the company, if students are not interested in coming to their ppt's why should they recruit. So there goes 3-4 job offers. Now this scenario will play repeatedly and you will have bumper audience in Bain, BCG, Mckinsey, Pepsico, P&G and co. 10. Well they should be polite, I am with you on this one. 11. You are pretty enchanted by fair process. Think of it in this way, if you believe that market can allocate the resources fairly then the process is fair, cause what IIM's do is create a market for its students. Companies value the product of IIMs and buy them (quite literally :P), there may be some information asymmetry but being a market it would try to return to an equilibrium and thus "try" to become fair. It is not completely fair and one may feel cheated, but it is quite close to it.

24 Apr 2017, 08.29 AM

+Read Replies (1)

Vikas Srivastava

Aptly put. This whole article just reeks of hypocrisy, frustration and ignorance.

26 Apr 2017, 08.24 AM |

1. Target - To get everyone placed
2. Violent shouting, haven't faced that. It does feel sometimes that they are bit pushy but then they have a tough job.
3. Free and fair to a great extent yes. There are times when they do favor someone but come placement week be rest assured these people would push for you in companies where you were not even shortlisted (you wont consider that unfair would you? )
4. To be honest this question reeks of hypocrisy now. Main purpose of any educational institution is to impart education. Jobs are a fringe benefits. You must try studying in US colleges where they don't provide this "service". Also getting placed factors in multiple things some external and some internal. If the GDP tanks in a year then companies wont come for recruitment. What will you do then? wait for college to get you placed or try your luck. Also once you do get out of these colleges you are in a better position to leverage your degree (actually diploma) with recruiters.
As for the comment on high fees, you want to enjoy excellent infrastructure and not pay for it? Government does not subsidize IIM's thus the high fees. This decision is taken by IIM's so that government does not dictate them.
5. Institution asking companies to pay for placement. This is a tricky one, I would try to simplify the answer. Think of IIM's as a platform business model where they are connecting Students with the companies. Now by doing this they are reducing the search cost for the companies and providing them "supposedly" good managers. For students they are getting a plethora of companies to choose from. Now this is essentially a discovery platform and they are changing the companies because they are willing to pay. Also this fee goes into improvement and upkeeping of the college. 
6. Student who opt out of process are under no threat. Obviously there might be cases where a student was not placed and institute to keep its image would say that they opted out. But in such scenarios I have seen and heard placement committee members trying extra hard for that guy and arrange companies for him after the placement week. But there are many people who have their own startups or use their personal connections to secure a job and sign out of the process to make it easier for others.
7. Well IIM B has an audit committee and they look into it. I would be honest and say that I too have no information on this topic. But I believe in the audit committee's work.
8. An interesting question, I think (I might be wrong on this one) it is because if you extend it then students will not study and yes placement committee is aware of the stress that student go through (it is a student body committee why wont they know??)
Incidentally, you yourself have stated that it is an add on benefit so it is upon the administration to have a stance and stick to it. Also there are 2 separate placement processes, laterals where people with experience (in IIM B thats 22 months for our batch) would appear for and it starts in January and continues till the final placement, for freshers there is only final placement. Be rest assured people in laterals feel very tired of the process and there have been cases where a  student has appeared for more then 15 companies in lateral and not been selected. Selection process in lateral is also very long (for finals also) there are GD then activities and then interviews. It can take a whole day, so what essentially IIM's are doing is saving you time and you get to give all GD's and interviews in a single day. Is it the best way, I doubt it but I am against it being stretched.
9. Attendance in preplacement talk - well study Game theory, you are doing it for the greater good. Be honest with me, name the companies that you know? There are many good companies which people havent even heard about. We all think we know everything but honestly we are an ignorant lot. Coming back to the question say a company whose name you havent heard of comes, will you attend its ppt or complete that pending assignment? Now from perspective of the company, if students are not interested in coming to their ppt's why should they recruit. So there goes 3-4 job offers. Now this scenario will  play repeatedly and you will have bumper audience in Bain, BCG, Mckinsey, Pepsico, P&amp;G and  co.
10. Well they should be polite, I am with you on this one.
11. You are pretty enchanted by fair process. Think of it in this way, if you believe that market can allocate the resources fairly then the process is fair, cause what IIM's do is create a market for its students. Companies value the product of IIMs and buy them (quite literally :P), there may be some information asymmetry but being a market it would try to return to an equilibrium and thus "try" to become fair. It is not completely fair and one may feel cheated, but it is quite close to it.