Are b schools redundant? Take a look at the latest on the IIT placement front.
Business Standard reports:
With the IITs just a week into their placements' process, the number of companies making placement offers this year has increased, almost doubling in a few cases. Moreover, these companies have already made huge offers to the students.
Besides, while the highest international offer has seen a 11 per cent increase this year, domestic offers have risen anywhere between 20-100 per cent.
For instance, at IIT Delhi an overseas offer of $100,000 (around Rs 45.50 lakh) was made by a US-based speciality fixed income manager Pimco. At IIT Bombay, the highest salary package offered so far is $92000 (around Rs 42 lakh) by Mercer Oliver Wyman - a Boston-based financial consulting firm.
The new logic seems to be: Why run after guys at IIMs/ other Bschools when guys from IITs can do pretty much the same job? The premise being that what you learn in a bschool isn't that important anyways... it's the raw material that gets in which is the key thing.
Since IITians constitute a healthy chunk of that raw material may as well go directly to IIT and pick 'em up two years earlier. Makes sense from a company point of view.
The question is: is this just a temporary demand-supply blip? ie Are companies adopting novel strategies in a year when demand for workers with certain kinds of skills has gone through the roof? Or, is this a trend for the long term.
First, we had Indian software companies which hire any old engineer (not just computer science/ IT) because all of them are numerical-minded, and beyond that, well they are malleable. Now you have funds and investment banks thinking the same way.
Of course, no one from IIT will join an Indian software company today because the 'quality of work' sucks. Wonder whether that sentiment would apply to the work they will get in these funds and i-banks, given the pay packets...
Putting things in perspective, today, we're only talking of a handful of students going the Pimco way. (The media needs to be careful about reporting the facts. As far as I know this is NOT the first time McKinsey is visiting the IIT B campus!).
In years to come, the numbers may swell. Much depends on how the first few batches of recruits shape up.
Interestingly, G Sinha, Professor in-charge, training and placement at IIT Kharagpur remarked to BS,"The institute does not have international placements as it is dedicated itself to the service of the nation."
Which is rummy and all that, but companies like Barclays Capital, Bain and Company, Opera Solutions and Lehman Brothers come to recruit students at IIT KGP. Just because they don't send them abroad from day 1 does not mean their job profile is closer to the objective of 'service of the nation'!
So honestly, I sense that IITs themselves are confused about what to do with this ardent courtship of its students by the free market. At the back of their mind lies the question, what about the 'T' in IIT. A question which surfaces every now and then, but is never satisfactorily answered...
Also read: Placement, as seen through the eyes of an IIT Madras student.
i had written something similar some time back I-Banks starting to move to undergrad colleges
ReplyDeleteI personally think this will get some sanity into the MBA entrance process. If the IITian works for McKinsey or Goldman sachs the motivation for doing an MBA changes. The focus will move from placements to learning more :-)
McKinsey has been visiting the IIT B campus for a long time now. Your information is correct. Kalpana Pathak from rediff has it wrong.
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What is wrong with the relationship between 'T' in IIT and I-Banks?
ReplyDeleteMost IITians that are recruited by IB houses are not for their Investment Banking Division they are mostly recruited for divisions where more number-crunching/modeling n simulations/coding/data mining stuff is required...which I belive they can handle at par with MBA grads (infact such jobs will be better performed by IITians or engineers than an MBA!)
MBAs are still the top choices for Investment Banking divisions and I doubt if IITians or just a technical degree is much of a help there...So this move of fund/i-bs ain't surprising...
For the "K"POs which are placing them in their Indian offices I DON'T really doubt the quality of work, which should be pretty much similar to their counterparts in NY/London/TK offices...But future prospects do look bleak in these outlets!!
And yes, Mckinsey has been visiting campus for quite some time, it was 3rd year for BCG and 2nd year for UBS...Media should really be careful...
ReplyDelete"Of course, no one from IIT will join an Indian software company today because the 'quality of work' sucks" ---- here 'no one' seems quite a bold statement i don't think corporates minus the 'Indian software companies where quality of work sucks' can bear the burden of hiring 800 odd students from each IIT ..... it is all about supply and demand .... and not all IITians are worth recruiting ... my friend has a been a part of such recruitment process where there not capable enough students to hire .... am just trying to put my perspective
ReplyDeletewhen someone asked me if I was leaving to the US because I was fed up of the job scene in India during 99-2000, I said..
ReplyDelete"All I need is a plea to make more money " :)
jokes apart, why should a political boundary be viewed as a barrier to seek opportunities that one likes ?
ReplyDeleteTo me, a nation is not all the people that live in it but all the people that I CAN/DO TOUCH that live in it, regardless of where I am and what I do.
An IITian working abroad simply cannot be stopped from contributing to the economy, thanks to Manmohan Singh.
And if I read it right, people loved to see him become the PM precisely because of what he did in the 90s to the Indian economy.
thanks for linking my post :)
ReplyDeletecouple of things i would like to add... as far as i have observed, if you are not in computer science or electricals and you are among the top in class, it very difficult to get jobs initially. it is well known fact in iit madras atleast that topper go abroad for higher studies no matter how much the salary is. so companies don't hire them.
only people interested in tech. remain in tech. Only those unsure of what to do end up in i banking or financial job as it offers huge money. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general trend in iit madras, the best usually opt for higher studies in engineering itself.
I think the positions being offered to the IIT grads are "analyst" roles. These are number crunching position and involves some research. The MBA grads are offered the "Associate" position that has more of client interaction. So, picking the engg grads with superior quant skills makes sense.
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ReplyDeleteI am a final year IIT student and believe a couple of clarifications are in order, first Rashmi's entry - IIT Kharagpur is the exception more than the rule, it is strangely the only IIT to follow such a dictat, all the other IIT's have never had a problem with foreign recruiters.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the comments, starting with Indian Blogger, yes the roles IITians are recruited for are "analyst" but former IITians working in those roles tell me that the work that they do is typically no different from that of an "associate", and as far as quant intensive roles are concerned - much of the recruiting model is like that at the IIM's that is only selected students are selected into these positions, the rest are hired for sales, trading and structuring.
@shankar, II Delhi apparently plaed a 180 students in its forst four days of placemenst (and they clearly werent all cmp sc/elec engg grads or even toppers!) But yes, Comp Sc and Elec engg students are favoured simply because they are invariably the ones who came into IIT with higher JEE ranks. And atleast in IIT Bbbay and Delhi, the top students from whatever fields are getting great job offers as long as they fulfill other company criterias (comm skills etc.) Infact these students are made the strongest of pitches!
And yes IITians distaste for software companies is not a myth. Good students need good work and most of the work in the softwarew sector in India is still back office, low intelligence work. Some of my classmates simply refused to even interview for Microsoft India saying that the work succked, if MS wanted them it should offer them work at redmond!
@Akshat: The foreign placements at ibanks are across divisions, infact most of the studenst hired are fr their iBanking profiles- sales, trading and structuring I am a final year IIT student and believe a couple of clarifications are in order, first Rashmi's entry - IIT Kharagpur is the exception more than the rule, it is strangely the only IIT to follow such a dictat, all the other IIT's have never had a problem with foreign recruiters.
Regarding the comments, starting with Indian Blogger, yes the roles IITians are recruited for are "analyst" but former IITians working in those roles tell me that the work that they do is typically no different from that of an "associate", and as far as quant intensive roles are concerned - much of the recruiting model is like that at the IIM's that is only selected students are selected into these positions, the rest are hired for sales, trading and structuring.
@shankar, IIT Delhi apparently placed a 180 students in its first four days of placements (and they clearly weren't all cmp sc/elec engg grads or even toppers!) But yes, Comp Sc and Elec engg students are favoured simply because they are invariably the ones who came into IIT with higher JEE ranks. And atleast in IIT Bbbay and Delhi, the top students from whatever fields are getting great job offers as long as they fulfill other company criterias (comm skills etc.) Infact these students are made the strongest of pitches!
And yes IITians distaste for software companies is not a myth. Good students need good work and most of the work in the softwarew sector in India is still back office, low intelligence work. Some of my classmates simply refused to even interview for Microsoft India saying that the work succked, if MS wanted them it should offer them work at redmond!
@Akshat: The foreign placements at ibanks are across divisions, infact most of the studenst hired are fr their iBanking profiles- sales, trading and structuring
"No one from IIT's will join an Indian Software Company" is too bold a statement. When you say Indian Software Company - what are you referring to? "Indian" S/W co's like Infosys, TCS, WIPRO..or any S/W company in India? If former is the case, you could be right.. but I still doubt if "no one" would still be the right term to use..but if latter is the case, I will need to correct you here. This year alone, my employer has recruited 40+ IIT grads (who are currently in their final year). Lasy year too, the numbers were similar and about 30 of them joined. I have about 6 of them in my own team.
ReplyDeleteAnd on a different note.. why should I have an account with blogger to put comments here? Why can't you open it for everyone?
I think Prof. G Sinha from IIT Kharagpur has been misrepresented by the media. From what I know (being an alum, and from my personal conversations with Prof. Gautam Sinha) the reason that the Training and Placement cell at IIT Kharagpur doesn't actively pursue foreign placements is exactly what you pointed out earlier. If a person wants to go abroad for work, they will do so anyway, the number of days they have to stay in India before being finally posted abroad is immaterial. The T&P Section is more concerned about placing ALL of the 1000 students who appear for placements every year. And that entails that they have to liason more with the Infosys and the IBMs even though people might feel that the IT Industry Job sucks (foreign job offers are anyway limited to a handful students anywhere)! I think if you go through the consolidated placement figures of the IITs, over the last couple of years IIT Kharagpur has been suprisingly successful at placing its students compared to even the other IITs.
ReplyDeleteEven if you look at teaching, most teachers would teach for the majority of the class. The really bright ones will always figure things out by themselves, and in most cases, trying to address the concerns of the laggards in a classroom setting doesn't help since the other students would then get bored -- they are better dealt with more personal attention. It is really the middle 90% of the class which has to be targeted.
Another reason of course is that Kharagpur has a locational disadvantage and arranging the logistics of the recruiters would be a daunting task and so I guess it has not been arranged traditionally.
As for the comment about the IT Industry job not being worthwhile, I am not sure how much I-bank jobs are better. Rather, lately there has been a phenomenal growth in the kind of opportunitites available to students who want to continue working in the technical sector with GM, Microsoft Research, Google, Philips, -- you name it -- setting up labs and advanced development centres in India. They do bleeding edge work in their India labs and provide graduating students an opportunity to do world class technical work while at the same time being able to earn a great living -- the perfect recipe!
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I personally know many of the IITians (delhi, mumbai and kharag) joining software companies for 4.5 lakhs per annum. I lost respect in IITs after I interviewed few of them. They know nothing except what was written in books.
ReplyDeleteIITians impression is they are very briliants students thatswhy all companies offer big payment and big facilities i think this is good policies.either our indian talents are going to abroad.
ReplyDeleteA quick look at Rashmi's post tells me that almost all international recruiters at the IIT doors are Investment Bankers! We all know the "good math skills can be adapted to crunch numbers anywhere" logic, hence it is not surprising really. In fact speaking in placement terms, the IITs have surely done little of value. They cannot really claim the International tag till say GM comes on campus to recruit line engineers for the Detroit facility. I would only feel sorry for the Electronics whiz from IIT who spent 3-5 years with global software & finance biggies before realizing that he could provide better value in a Mfg environment. Precious years of what could be ground breaking research wasted in crunching numbers.
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ReplyDelete"I lost respect in IITs after I interviewed few of them. They know nothing except what was written in books."
ReplyDelete@whoever said above statements-
Perhaps you should know- jee can't be cleared if you have only bookish knowledge so it is totally wrong to say that iitians don't have knowledge out of the books. It may happen your exp. with iitians was bad.
I know it is purely sarcastic but it's fact...