IIM graduates are preferring to stay back in India

Foreign companies have not upped their salaries much over last year…this is in reference to paychecks offered to Indian Institute of Management (IIM )graduates. However, domestic companies have increased the salaries of new recruits from IIM’s by over 30 percent (IIM Ahmedabad figures only) but the average international offer has gone up by barely over 3 percent. Clearly the slowing down of the world economy hasn’t reduced the strong desire of domestic companies to lure IIM graduates, and as usual this year people hired from the IIM’s (all) lead the pack when it comes to salaries!

And although foreign companies are not offering anything much above over the previous year, if it is anyone they want from India, it still continues to be those passing out from IIM’s and those from IIM-Bangalore seem to have the greatest brand value abroad.

IIM Bangalore – 52 percent bagged overseas offers.
IIM Ahmedabad – 24 percent
IIT Mumbai – 17 percent
IIM Lucknow – 12.5 percent

Fewer Indians are taking up job offers abroad this year
These are just offers. The reality is that Indian companies have won out and fewer students are going abroad. Partly because domestic offers are lucrative (and the dollar certainly goes a long way here!) This year, more than three-quarters of the graduates from IIM A are staying back in India, and of the group which is heading abroad, it is Asia Pacific most are heading to, not the west or the middle East like it was before.

If you can be Vice-President, why should you not accept a lower salary!?
If fewer IIM graduates are going abroad, it’s also because they have become picker than ever about job profiles. They can afford to as they get high salaries anyway! This choosing to take a lower paying job has been a trend for some time now with graduates giving more emphasis to job content and less to salary.

At IIM-K, it is estimated that as many as 20 percent of their graduates preferred lesser pay over role offered, a role which they felt would ensure them better job satisfaction and better career growth. Companies in fact have been creating attractive job profiles to “woo” potential recruits. However this did surprise me:

As a result of better profiles on offer, some of deserving graduates got mid-level to senior level jobs straight out of campus. At IIM-L, a leading telecom company offered a role of Vice President….The going this year was so good-niche domestic offers, preferred profiles an hitherto unheard of compensation-that several students preferred turn down international placements.

An IIM gaduate becoming a Vice President straight away may be an unusual example (I think) but certainly those passing out from IIM’s seem to be getting far better designations and job profiles than those from other institutes. If you can get a non-entry level position (some have a couple of years work experience) then why take up an international offer at entry level?

Only certain sectors are preferred by IIM graduates
An ideal IIM job would then be a decent salary + an attractive non-entry level designation…but the sector matters. It’s the Finance and Consultancy sectors that IIM graduates prefer…I guess the IIM elite is still a long way off from joining sectors like manufacturing where gestation periods are long and results take longer to come, far longer than the MBA is prepared to put into one organisation! A few years ago it was estimated that less than 5 percent of IIM graduates get into manufacturing. And as for vital sectors of India’s economy such as education and health or transportation and energy, these don’t see much of the IIM’s either.

If that sounds critical, well it wasn’t meant to be. It’s just stating of the facts. I do believe that a person should go where he wants because I don’t like taking moralistic stands as I don’t know what I would have done if I were in their place. What makes me glad however is that the shine on foreign placements has started to fade. It’s great to hear that our very own companies are managing to retain our people.

A new trend of IIM’s social consciousness?
If the craze for foreign assignments is fading, we are also seeing a new trend of IIM grads wanting to chip in with the less popular sectors. One keeps reading of those who have chucked up lucrative offers and are preferring to put their efforts into some sectors that are critical to our nation. For example, this year young Neela Nageshwar Vittal who was offered a salary of Rs1.44 crore turned it down and wants to start a processing unit for medicinal plants:

Vittal is an example of the new India, which is moving upward with dignity and awareness. He has grown up in the slums of Mumbai, when his father was a driver for the Lijjat Papad cooperative. The family’s fortunes improved in time and he went to IIM, Ahmedabad while his siblings became computer engineers.

Then last year there was Neeraj Trivedi from the IIM-Lucknow who decided to dedicate his life for the development of education sector in the country. He wants to find a low cost education model.

These incidents are still a drop in the ocean, perhaps that is why they are reported so widely. But it is a trend.

Just leaving you with a table which gives an idea as to who much IIM salaries have increased over the past year. Table from mbauniverse (click on it to get a bigger image):

Related Reading: Designations matter a lot in India
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More jobs in India, but for a select few
IIM Paychecks 2007
Job discrimination at the workplace
Designers in great demand in India
A promotion makes an IT professional happy for just six months!
India’s has three universities in the world’s top 200
Pay Hikes highest in India in 2007 (as compared to the rest of the world)
The relationship between early schooling and professional success

(Photograph is a stock photo and copyrighted to me)