Placements - Profiles and Campuses - The scene in 2011

Ankit

Wouldn't you agree that IIM L is quite ahead of XLRI? Mckinsey goes to Lucknow and also BCG went to Lucknow a few years before XLRI and Indore.Investment banks like Avendus capital also go to Lucknow but do not go to XLRI. Also Deutsche Bank GMC/GTB do not go to XLRI while they go to IIM L,I,K

3 May 2011, 06.21 PM

Surya

Manufacturing firms have appeared only in General Management. But there are lot of consulting companies in this sector who look for MBAs in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, projets, finance, operations, technology etc.

3 May 2011, 07.09 PM

avit

what about ISB?

3 May 2011, 08.14 PM

Ankit

@Avit - I should think it is difficult to compare ISB with any of the above mentioned institutes...they look at a completely different profile of people...they have less than 5% freshers and a lot of whom are already earning a lot before they join ISB

3 May 2011, 08.18 PM

Ashwin

@ Karan - I appreciate the way you thought of and composed the whole article. But I would like to make some points more clear. To begin with, I am a pass-out out of IIM Lucknow in 2011. First of all, any such placement related articles should be accompanied with disclaimers as many would be aspirants might read this. Firstly, it is not very apt in comparing b-schools which are more than 10-15 yrs apart age-wise. A comparision can be done once the school has matured. So, comparing A or C with L, I and K is not right. As you might very well know that placements at b-schools are very much alumni driven, so an A, B or C would have alumni in top notch positions across many organizations and they drive those companies to visit their campuses. Secondly, batch size is a major major factor in placements. So comparing an XL or FMS with an IIM doesn't make sense. Take the case of IIM Lucknow. It is on par with XL as per your scale. But the batch size (only the BM course) at XL is one-third that of L and at FMS it is one-fourth. Thirdly, I totally disagree with your scale at-least as far as L (because I can only give a fair view of L, but not of others) is concerned. Almost 55% of the batch at L (which comes to around 200 students) have a work-ex of more than 3 years. The average work ex at L is more than 3 years, which is much higher than any of above campuses in India (excluding ISB). The lateral placements at L (which it strives on and which caters to the above 50%) have been as good as A,B or C and that “as good as” is an under-statement ( I am not authorized to provide data on a public forum like this, if not I would have given you the figures). Taking forward your point "the gulf between A- and B is not as high as A+ and A-", could you please let me know the rationale behind making such a point? As a placement committee member at Indore (and I totally respect you for that) you must have been among the thick of placement related things at I, but that stops there. The best and most reliable information you can get of any campus is through the students who have or are studying there. As a student of L and as a diligent follower of the placement process (if not a PCom member) I think I am in a much better position to talk of the placement related issues/facts at L. I can very well vouch for that fact that many top-notch companies visit only A, B, C and L. And here I am not comparing A, B, C with L but I want to emphasize that L is fast catching up (even in terms of profiles offered). Continuing your point about McKinsey and BCG, they have recruited in good numbers from L and that number has been increasing year on year. Regards, Ashwin

4 May 2011, 06.04 AM

Varun Rajaram

Hi Karan, I think Ashwin has put most things in perspective. I am a PGDM student 2012 batch at IIM Lucknow. I would like to specifically stress upon comparing B schools,specifically on their placements. Although important, from a larger perspective such articles only serve to make an aspirant's image of B schools, cloudy. I would urge you to compare B schools(if you chose to do so) on the quality of their infrastructure,courses offered, course content and any other parameters of academic interest. Lastly, thought not very important, is the fact that some facts quoted for IIM Lucknow are not entirely correct. I would urge you to verify these facts before posting an article in the public domain. Regards Rajaram

4 May 2011, 01.50 PM

Team InsideIIM

We are the team behind your favourite platform.

@Varun and @Karan - We respect your point of view. We will be glad to publish your analysis or your points if you think that the picture presented above is not entirely correct. The idea was to help students to become a little more clear about things as they are. We will definitely publish your response as well if you think it can help the student community in general.

4 May 2011, 03.02 PM

Karan

@Ankit- For an Avendus Capital visiting IIML, you have a Rothschild doing XLRI. I would also think they do very well in the FMCG space with firms like Nestle, Cadbury, Biocon, Castrol frequenting the campus. Mercer and Hewitt visit XLRI unlike L. So I would probably put the two institutes in the same bracket. @Surya- You are right, the analysis is so because not too many participants from these institutes get into manufacturing.

4 May 2011, 04.07 PM

Karan Maroo

@Ashwin & Varun- Appreciate your view points, let me first make my motivation behind writing this article clear. When I was taking my decision on whether I'd like to join IIM Indore or not, the most important factor I wanted to take into account was which firms visit the campus. Now when I saw a JP Morgan and a Deutsche on the report, little did I know that the profiles which they offered in ABC were completely different from what they offered at Indore. This is to help such students. This is also to help participants studying in B schools right now. I did not want to compare anything else.. Infrastructure, faculty etc. There are enough rankings to do that, this article is purely from the placements point of view. For the question of batch size et all, I am in know way trying to belittle IIML. I just want to tell the average Joe who has got into these institutes as to what choices he has. As for why the gulf between A+ and A- is large, Ashwin- you've made the answer clear yourself- ABC are much older than L, while L is not much older than I or K. Varun, As requested on twitter as well, I'd like to know which of my facts are not correct.

4 May 2011, 04.16 PM

Sravanti

After reading this article i could only understand that Category A+ is better than category A- which is better than Category B :) As an MBA aspirant who got an offer from category B school i do not see what i could look up at the school. What is good at the Category B schools. After reading it only think that many students might as well think of re-taking the test and aiming for A schools. I wish it was more of what is good in each institute and what is the advantage with joining in these schools compared to others would have been very helpful.

4 May 2011, 06.04 PM

Amit Sinha

Fin companies do prefer freshers( ABC give less importance to workex), while IIM L has a very high average workex (>30 Months). Laterals dominate placements in IIM L. If one normalizes placements w.r.t. workex across IIM's, I am sure the gap as portrayed in the figure will be true. Also XLRI is in a complete different league as there HR Consulting firms dominate. Overall a one to one comparison is difficult as its very subjective. But a good try Karan.

4 May 2011, 07.12 PM

Ankit Doshi

Creator of InsideIIM.com

I would personally put IIM L a little above XLRI due to a lot of reasons....and XLRI only marginally better than IIM I,K &amp;FMS. I had written about placements 1 year back first during a really bad time across campuses.. here - <a href="http://www.ankit9doshi.com/dope-on-b-schools-in-india-mba-1/placements-at-b-schools-in-india" rel="nofollow">http://www.ankit9doshi.com/dope-on-b-schools-in-i...</a>

4 May 2011, 07.55 PM

Rajat

Hi Karan It is very well written article and you truly did justice to your two years experience in IIM Indore as a placement committee member. But you also opened a Pandora&rsquo;s Box as I see lot of agreement and typical MBA type polite, articulated but harsh disagreement which is apparently quite natural. At the end of day the brand equity of the college is at stake and placement is one of the vital proofs of that so called brand equity. I just want to put my view and respecting Ashwin&rsquo;s comment about disclaimer I want to state that the views expressed in my writing is strictly personal and of course not backed any sort of rigorous primary or secondary research like so called popular B school rating magazines. As A+ category B school is concerned, the biggest strength of IIM A,B,C is they have is there alumni base.C and A is 50 year old institution and B is 37 year old. So many top management of coveted day zero and day one companies are from A,B and C. Naturally they recruit in high numbers from these colleges. Now fresher vs experience debate. Looking at the batch profile of A and C weight is of course on freshers(specifically IITians ,NITians and BITs).B somehow take experience candidates but academic criteria is very stringent in B(Topper Gold medalist throughout ).Now in finance, fresher&rsquo;s are preferred due to some reason unknown to me. I have some idea about the experience profile of C. Many candidates are there who already worked in JP Morgan ,Namura,Goldman as analyst in I Banking domain(Capital market, trading etc) or they are CAs who worked in big 4 audit firms. So they have relevant experience. I have knowledge about an alumnus of C who has 7 years post CA experience as an auditor and offered VP post in Deutsche with an astronomical salary. Marketing is of course fresher dominated area with little discrimination around the campus on profile. The reason is somebody needs to sell first before they learn to market. So first two three years you learn selling. You cannot learn it B School. At present that is how industry perceives B school students aspire to become a marketer. But in B2B marketing sometime relevant experience plays a distinguishing factor. Now comes consulting.BCG ,McKenzie have some upper workex criteria(typically not more than 18 months unless you have exact match with profile).Bain does not look at all beyond A,B,C as of now and it is clearly written somewhere in their website. Now Accenture PLC gives different profiles based on colleges.AMC (Accenture Management Consulting) is coveted job with good starting package and they value experience. But IT consulting of Accenture is more or less same as CBC(Cognizant Business Consulting) but it comes under IT and ITes profile. Deloitte ,KPMG,E&amp;Y and PWC are primarily renowned as audit firm and advisory services. They recruits B school grad without much discriminating between fresher and experience. Now I have one disagreement in portraying Amazon, Google or Cisco as IT or ITes company. Google and Cisco is product based company with little service element. Amazon is in e- commerce. They offer different profiles than typical IT firms like CBC or Accenture IT consulting. So can we conclude that no company for old man (read typically frustrated and more than 2 years experienced software engineers and I am one of them)?Cruel truth is industry still perceive an MBA graduate as a fresher or 1 to 2 years experience maximum. But there are so many exceptions to this statement that it is going to be proved wrong in near future. Somebody raised an eyebrow saying that CAT aspirants are going to be misinformed by this article. Well I beg to defer. If somebody is truly convinced that he can hit the jackpot called CAT every year he or she should try. Because I believe it is better to get an MBA early rather than merely thinking that I will get A, B,C call every year. Well I am not discouraging repeated attempt but just pointing out the uncertainty factor associated with CAT and GD/PI. At the end of day conversion rate is 1 in 100 in CAT and 1 in 7 to 8 in GD PI. I guess I have written more than Karan himself and I am sorry for testing the patience of all readers (if at all they read this after scrolling down and estimating the volume). I want to finish with an example of my friend. He was a pass out of IMT Ghaziabad(Unfortunately this poor institution could not get an attention from Karan, NITIE is also missing from the list so the students ,alumni and aspirants of this colleges will be very angry with you Karan. Another disclaimer I am not a student of IMT or NITIE).He has three years of experience in software industry in manufacturing domain. He started his post MBA career in a niche consulting firm focused on SCM(Supply Chain Management).And at the end of one and half year he went to a new firm. Any godd dam guesses about the name of the firm???????? . . . . . . . . . It is BCG. Believe me there are thousands of examples like this.

5 May 2011, 02.32 AM

Varun Rajaram

@Karan,InsideIIM: I do not advocate comparison of Bschools and last of all on placements. B school choices made solely on perceived placement figures or otherwise are seldom correct. I would also request InsideIIM to refrain from floating such articles which encourage and cloud an aspirant&#039;s interest in making informed choices about bschools (sans placements). If independent writers still wish to quote placement figures, I strongly suggest that they get them verified from the college placement authorities as students are seldom party to detailed placement figures.This again at the discretion of the concerned authorities. Lastly, it is my belief that most top Bschools are at par when it comes to placements save the odd company/profile here and there that understated or overstated placement figures are a trivial debate.Courses offered, infrastructure, alumni networks and other factors are often more pivotal in deciding between bschools. Regards Varun Rajaram P.S: I happen to know Karan for a while now and am aware that he was a Placement Committee member at IIM Indore. :) I am pretty sure he would understand the dynamics of b school placements and in retrospect, believe, some comparisons were unwarranted.

5 May 2011, 03.35 AM

deepak agarwal

Hi All... It&#039;s nice to see all the views mentioned above.I agree to all of them. If we are judging The MBA from placements point of view then surely all the info is correct. But I would like to add some points here. 1.) MBA is not about placements only, its about what you want to do in life and how can you relate it with MBA and get it in easier and better way. 2.) The greatest institute of the world (Harvard/kellog etc) don&#039;t arrange so called placements just because if we get enough learning, job won&#039;t be a problem. 3.) Hardly 3000-4000 MBA grads come out from these colleges (A+,A,B) every year and as the growth India have seen in recent years specially post 2008-09 recession era requirement is increased. So don&#039;t worry for quality jobs until next recession. 4.) There are many new companies coming up and its always better to join new companies. There we can do much better than joining an I-Bank.India is becoming one of the largest centre of business development for many companies. India got the biggest market so much more is going to come in India in near future. I know we in india give preference to money but I am sure that satisfaction is more important in life and it doesn&#039;t come only with money :)

6 May 2011, 01.50 PM

Varun Saxena

@ Karan : First of all i support the view put forth by Varun Rajaram that B-Schools should not be compared only on the basis of placements as we all know how close are they to the real picture ! So, let us not project the picture before aspirants which is not the clear reflection of a B-School. Coming to your article, It is really ok with me if you did not mention NITIE anywhere :) But, when you talked about majors like Amazon visiting &#039; only A+ Schools &#039; as per you, i think you got few facts wrong here :). Amazon recruited 7 from NITIE and i dont have the liberty to disclose profile here but you can read it in our placement report! The article by you is good despite it being based on slightly incomplete information and i would be glad if you consider all other major factors as well while comparing B-Schools! Though i had few more things to say, but i don&#039;t like comparing b-schools on only placements. PS: I am the student of Management Batch of 2012 at NITIE. Cheers!

6 May 2011, 07.47 PM

Abhinav

Common guys, lets stop bashing the author, shall we? As readers, we have to allow for some oversights, separate the grain (info) from the chaff (one sided data). The idea was to clear a lot of doubts in minds of B school aspirants. All of you be rest assured, aspirants shall not choose B schools basis this article alone, it is just one of the many lights in a often dark passage for them. Thanks karan for taking time to write this down. Infact, the comments following are equally helpful and help to make this &#039;article + replies&#039; package one of the most informative pieces on the net.

9 May 2011, 12.59 AM

Ankit Doshi

Please refrain from making personal remarks about the author. You may criticize the article or may not agree but personal attacks will not be tolerated.All such comments will be deleted.

9 May 2011, 04.35 AM

Prakhar

Nice article. Wonderfully explain the different jobs after MBA, but it does not mention anything about jobs in Operation. Can someone please provide details regarding operations job. Like, What does it involve, company offering roles in operation ?? Thanks in Advance

9 May 2011, 06.11 AM

Roshan

I think the author has given a fair reflection of the placements in Indian B schools, though I do not agree with him completely. Also, the data seems to be incomplete in most regards and the author has added his own biases while rating the B schools as A, A- and B. I would definitely put FMS in the A- category at least along with JBIMS. PS: I am an XL pass out :)

9 May 2011, 09.56 AM

Roshan

Also, leaving out Nitie, IIT B and D is surprising. These are some of the best schools in India for Operations. Just because starting salaries in Operations are lower than some of the other areas DOES not mean that they are bad jobs. I request anyone reading this article to understand that it is not about the money only, it is about satisfaction as well. There were numerous people in XL who left much coveted i-banking jobs for Marketing/ Operations jobs at half the CTC because they felt they would fit in better in Marketing/Operations. I think the author conveniently looked over this fact because of his own bias.

9 May 2011, 10.03 AM

Sunny

After going through the article, I am bit puzzled. Having 6 yr of exp in product based company (router/switches). I was Aiming for a product Management/General management profile post pgp(iim-i). Do we have such profiles being offered at all for pgp. If yes, then is it offered at IIM-I as well ? Or only ISB is the place for such profiles ?

12 May 2011, 09.41 PM

Rahul Kishore Singh

Good job Karan, But I hope you have done your research well! I am not sure if you can put FMS in the same group as JBIMS,SPJain,I,K etc. Agreed FMS doesn&#039;t really have the top Consults coming to the campus but our overall performance is much better than that of the other instis you grouped it with! And I think should include colleges like MDI and NITIE

13 May 2011, 04.51 PM

blah blah

Thanks for the insight in the placement scenario...... Pls mention about the career options for people with work ex in the range 3-4 years,heard they are considered untouchables by most fin,FMCG Cos...

13 May 2011, 10.42 PM

Aravind

Good job Karan and all the people who have commented on the post. The package of &#039;Article + Comments&#039; is truly informative and in fact it will push the aspirants to do their research better before they make any decisions about joining any B school. I think it would have been much better if you could have broken the placements into lateral and final so that it would have give a much broader picture. Keep up the Good Work !!!

14 May 2011, 01.43 AM

Ankit Pandey

Well if I may ask all of you to help me make a decision : I graduated from NITK Surathkal (Computer Engineering) this year. I have job offers from : 1. Cisco Systems (TAC profile) : compensation 7.5 lpa 2. Wipro Technologies (Star Hiring Programme) : compensation 7 lpa I screwed up CAT.Got a call from IIM Indore and have converted it. Should I take this up or sit another year and prepare for ABC? Thank you

17 May 2011, 06.37 PM

Ankit Doshi

The only IIM where you are guaranteed to get a call on doing well in CAT is IIM C. All other IIMs you may or may not get a call depending on your 10th, 12th, graduation, work experience and in some cases whether you&#039;re a girl or a non-engineer etc. Also the case is different if you hail from any of the reserved categories. If you&#039;re confident you will still get a IIM ABC call you should wait for another year. Also depends which profile you&#039;re looking at post your MBA. I don&#039;t see any point in waiting if you want to say get into marketing. So a lot of these things are to be looked at before making a decision. In order that the comments section remains relevant to placements and this article in general, please do not ask any further questions on this thread. We will provide the platform for the same shortly.

17 May 2011, 06.50 PM

Ryan George

@Karan, @Ankit While the article is good &amp; manages to capture the essence of the placement scenario across B School campuses to a certain extent, I&#039;d be grateful if you could elaborate on your reasons for omitting NITIE from the analysis. I&#039;m sure you guys must have had some cogent reasons for doing so. Just curious to know them. PS - I&#039;ll be joining NITIE as a part of it&#039;s management batch of 2013.

23 May 2011, 11.09 PM

Abhishek

@Ankit I was thinking of leaving IIM A for FMS. I dont like the idea of a huge bank loan and I am not interested in finance ( Inclined towards IT laterals/Gen management and not sure about marketing ) little above average acads ..3 years IT workex So can anyone suggest me that its a huge mistake I am making or its sensible to go to a campus with lesser mortals and lesser fees ? Motivation to do MBA : Money How long does a college help in your career after your final placements ?

31 May 2011, 09.16 PM

Ankit Doshi

@Abhishek - I can only say that it will be strange decision. A PGDM from IIM A is something that will go beyond all the factors you are talking about. I don&#039;t want to elaborate on this any further. If I were in your place, I would go for IIM A @Ryan - You will receive an email from insideiim. Karan has been caught up for the last few days. I&#039;m sure he&#039;ll reply.

31 May 2011, 09.40 PM

Mayur

@Karan : I think If you are bringing non-IIM institutes into the picture, then there is no excuse to leave out SJMSOM (IIT-B), IIT-D &amp; NITIE. These institutes are esp known for good placements in domains which are otherwise not a hit in IIMs (either interest or placement-wise). No offence, but it would help students like me who may have to choose between IIT-B &amp; IIM-Indore ;) @Ankit : Read your blogs, and really liked them. Felt we may share the same view-points in many aspects... have messaged you my query in Facebook, hope you will take out time to go through it... :)

4 Jun 2011, 08.31 AM

Karan

@All- The reason I left out NITIE was a) A good majority &#039;seemed&#039; to be centered around operations b) I could not dig too much information about NITIE- for example, I tried asking a few people about the profile which Amazon offered (tried that on forums like PG as well) but did not get an answer. Hence, I don&#039;t think I&#039;m qualified enough to compare NITIE with the institutes I&#039;ve listed here.

4 Jun 2011, 09.43 PM

Arun

Guys you cannot put IIM Lucknow with XLRI I can name at least 15 good firms which visit L but not XL, some awesome names being, McK, BCG, Avendus Etc etc etc. I think other then Rothschild no other high end finance or consulting company visits XL but not L. Also somewhere its mentioned Cadbury, Nestle, Hewitt, Castrol visit XL not L, sorry bro wrong facts, they visit L as well L is beyond XL in Finance, Marketing, Consult and no Bschool compares with XL when it comes to HR

27 Nov 2011, 10.51 PM

Brendan

Very well written article..... However, an honorable mention of few other B Schools would certainly have been better...... After not everyone gets into an IIM or XL/FMS.....You surely missed out on - MDI Gurgaon - IIFT Delhi - IMT Ghaziabad - SIBM, Pune - Nitie Mumbai

30 Dec 2011, 01.29 AM

Sreekanth

@ Karan, The article is very well written. I do agree with you that the profile offered differs from A to A- to B. Infact the packages offered along with profiles also differs from A to B. But I do have one point here to mention that being in B Category B-Schools with overall performance vis CGPA, Extra curricular will fetch equally decent role and package than being in A category B - Schools with mediocre GPAs. I completely agree with you that the Top Notch Consulting McKinsey, BCG, Bain &amp; Co, doesn&#039;t recruit from B category schools, but there is always a scope to get there on to the campus. You could have mentioned about NITIE, MDI, IIFT B Schools as these attract some good profiles and packages at par with A Schools.

22 Feb 2012, 02.23 AM

Julian Robertson

Hedge funds are typically open-ended, meaning that investors can invest and withdraw money at regular, specified intervals.

20 Apr 2012, 01.01 AM

Nitesh

2012 update??

19 May 2012, 06.41 PM

hustler mowers

I visited your blog for the first time and just been your fan. Keep posting as I am gonna come to read it everyday!! It is great

20 Jun 2012, 07.44 PM

Visit website

Some are really informative some are entertaining and some are a real crack up. I&#039;ve got to admit it, great job on this blog, I&#039;ll be sure to check back from time to time

19 Jul 2012, 02.05 PM

Raghav

I do not see anything wrong in posting such articles. The author does not say that placements are the one and only criterion based upon which candidates should make their choice. He is not even saying that choose your B-School based upon the information provided here. All he has done is that he has stated some facts about placement profiles across some B-Schools. I do not understand why some people, especially from IIML, are trying to contradict the information or against publishing of such articles. IIML is a great institute, but yes it is behind ABC and marginally ahead of IK. Thats it!

19 Jul 2012, 07.05 PM

Shashank

@blah blah, @Team InsideIIM &quot;Thanks for the insight in the placement scenario...... Pls mention about the career options for people with work ex in the range 3-4 years,heard they are considered untouchables by most fin,FMCG Cos...&quot; Does this situation hold for real? I have 3.5 years experience and aspire to get into marketing &amp; branding profiles in fmcg.

17 Aug 2012, 01.55 AM

Nonsense

Dear InsideIIM, Is there any similar article coming our way for this year.

21 Aug 2012, 11.38 AM

Roy

Hi In all the talk, if we include HR too, then TISS and SCMHRD scores very well. Also, SCMHRD has shown remarkable growth in recent years with regular recruiters like P&amp;G, HUL, ITC, Reckitt Benckiser, GlaxoSmithKline-Consumer Healthcare, Philips, Mahindra have started to offer sales and marketing roles as well. And due to its relatively small batch size, it is doing pretty well. My only suggestion is, do not neglect HR altogether. TISS and SCMHRD will rank very high if that is counted.

1 May 2013, 04.12 PM

CAT Aspirant

On what basis have you decided the various categories? Your personal bias? Because as far as I have read and heard FMS ranks equal to IIM L and XLRI.

1 May 2013, 04.47 PM