The hiring outlook holds steady this year with 72 per cent of employers expecting to hire MBAs in 2015, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council's (GMAC) year -end poll of employers. Last year, the percentage was 69 per cent.
Also, around nine out of 10 employers, who are planning to hire business school graduates, expect to maintain or increase the number of job openings for these hires compared with 2014, says the survey.
For instance, Vodafone India has ramped-up hiring considerably this year and will be hiring management graduates more than four times in number compared to the last year.
“This year, we shall onboard more than 130 trainees from the top 15 business schools and 40 from IITs,” said Ashok Ramchandran, Director, Human Resources, Vodafone India. “We also intend to offer a package that would be approximately 15 per cent more than last year at business schools.”
In 2014, the company had hired more than 30 students from the IIMs and a similar number from the IITs. The telecom service provider has already made 29 pre-placement offers (PPOs) this year.
Vodafone has hired 292 management trainees since 2010 for its management training programme called Discover from various top B-schools including the IIMs, XLRI, MDI, SIBM, IIFT, JBIMS, SP Jain, FMS and NMIMS. These management trainees are offered challenging roles across pan-India operations that include functions like technology, sales and marketing, supply chain management, human resources, legal and finance.
Another top recruiter at Indian business schools, the Godrej conglomerate, also plans to hire 10-12 per cent more management graduates in 2015, as compared to last year. The company expects rapid growth in the coming years and is poised to enrich a strong leadership/talent pipeline across levels. “A significant increase of almost 100 per cent in campus recruitment particularly for Godrej Properties validates our vision,” said Sumit Mitra, Head, Group Human Resources and Corporate Services, Godrej Industries Ltd and Associate Companies.
Over the past two years, Godrej has increasingly focused on awarding PPOs to successful summer interns. “In 2014, 70 per cent of our management trainees were recruited through internships, while in 2015, close to 100 per cent of the batch will comprise PPO holders,” said Mitra.
Godrej recruits from top Indian B-schools for roles in sales and marketing, supply chain, and human resources. The company is also looking at offering unique roles in digital marketing and design this year.
The employers’ survey by GMAC also revealed 96 per cent of employers worldwide concurred that MBA-hires create value for their companies. “The solid job prospects for B-school talent seen over the past several years, gives prospective students good reason to consider pursuing these degrees as part of a strategy to drive their career goals,” said Rebecca Estrada Worthington, GMAC's Survey Research Manager in a press note.
The survey was conducted in late 2014 on 169 employers in 33 countries.