Year 2007. It is Day 4 at IIM-Y. A hundred and one students have been placed so far out of a total batch of 299.
Something is terribly wrong. The placement in-charge, More Joyce could see it coming from Day One. The recruiters who came that day seemed to be window-shopping. But try as he might, More just couldn't put his finger on the reason. All the placement activities had worked like clockwork - the students themselves had made more than 110 PowerPoint presentations at companies. That obviously hadn't been enough. Not only had the number of recruiters gone down, the ones that eventually turned up didn't seem too interested in hiring.
More had two options: go straight to the director and get fried, or sift through records of recruiter surveys and interviews for any information that would help him shift the blame.

Within the next hour he was in the library poring over old magazines and newspapers. More soon found a survey of recruiter expectations in a well-thumbed 2003 copy of India's indispensable business weekly. He knew he had hit paydirt when he came across this statement by R.P. Mohanty, the HR head at ACC: "Students should be spending less time on these placement activities."

The piece indicated that recruiters were getting more and more demanding - as the business environment became inclement, they only wanted to hire management graduates who were an 'excellent fit' for their industry.

Many of the demands appeared to be quite harsh, but once the supply of MBAs increased, there was a real possibility that recruiters would simply stop coming to the B-schools that didn't meet their exacting standards.

More picked up a pen and began to write.

Dear Mr Director,
You probably know by now that we are having a dismal recruitment season. Has this school individually and collectively (emphasis his) failed to address recruiter concerns? I don't know. After fairly exhaustive research, I have managed to get my hands on an old study that anticipated the mismatch between recruiter expectations and B-school limitations.
I am forwarding an extract from the article. The excerpt shows just how complicated the whole issue of recruiter expectations can be. I hope it will help you decide whether or not we could have done anything to forestall the recruiter drought. (My comments are in italics)

The Work Experience Paradox

According to a survey carried out by Executive Access, a leading search firm, about 60% of recruiters want candidates with work experience. They basically need MBAs who can hit the ground running.

Work experience is critical for companies that are trying to crash the training period for management trainees. "From 12-18 months, the training period for management trainees is coming down to 3-6 months. Today 18 months is a lifetime," says Vasant Sanzgiri, senior vice-president (HR), South-east Asia, Prudential. What most recruiters really want is 'relevant' work experience. That is an euphemism for experience specific to their industry.
Here's the rub: getting work experience in India is tough if you are a non-engineering graduate and you don't have an MBA already! "Companies like Hindustan Lever take non-engineering graduates from good colleges for their executive training programmes, but there are only limited opportunities," says A. Sudhakar, HR head, Dabur.

Arun Maira, head of Boston Consulting Group India, feels that industry also has a role to play here. "They should take people (non-MBAs) with the technical skills and teach them management (of resources)." Maira, too, feels that work experience is necessary. "What B-schools, which are designed to produce people who can take up leadership roles pretty fast, teach you is technical knowledge about a host of things, even leadership. But this is not a skill yet - it is information."

Adil Malia, vice-president (HR) at Coke says in future "both models - MBAs who are fresh graduates and MBAs with work experience - will co-exist. The former will definitely stay as there is too much pressure (in India) to get jobs after graduation. It works from a recruiter's point of view too - here is a chance for me to mould them as per our concepts and values."

The Top 10 B - School in 2003

Like top global B-schools, should we, too, select students with an average work experience of 4-5 years?

Industry Exposure

Even those recruiters who don't insist on work experience are particularly keen that students learn as much as they can about the sector they are going to work in. "B-schools should give students a fairly detailed understanding of what to expect and what not to expect in different sectors," says Santrupt Misra, director (corporate HR), AV Birla group.

Suresh Mhatre, principal consultant, TCS, who used to head corporate recruitment for the company at one time, agrees. "For instance, HR in IT companies is quite different from HR in manufacturing. Students must learn this."

However, B-schools feel that students - who have come to learn general management skills applicable across industries - already get enough exposure to the sectors they want to join. "We would not like them to overspecialise," says Shekhar Chaudhuri, director, IIM-Calcutta.

"In addition to various electives, there are also term papers and the project in the second year," says Samir K. Barua, chairperson (PGP) at IIM-Ahmedabad.

Mhatre feels the problem may be simply one of compressing all the learning in two years. "We (TCS) have been speaking to schools to see if they can do an e-learning programme for the students once they are selected in March. That way, the foundation courses can be completed by the time they join in July."

How much industry-specific exposure is enough? How much is too little?

Faculty Development

"I wish that faculty was more more clued into what is going on in industry," says Misra. As president of the National HRD Network he is trying to facilitate that. "I am asking all local chapters to write to management institutes and tell them we will help you get more industry exposure."

B-schools are using management development programmes, consulting and research as one way of increasing the faculty-industry interface. Another obvious option is to get faculty with industry experience. But once again that requires B-schools to strike a fine balance. "We would generally prefer Ph.D.s. We say we are a centre of excellence in management - it is our responsibility to generate knowledge. Somebody who has research experience will be better at that," says IIM-C's Chaudhuri.

Our B-school is going through a difficult time. Before you take any decision, I urge you to look at our employee records. You will see I have 10 years of industry experience and a Ph.D.
Yours, etc...