Recently, Mr. Satish Pradhan, HR Head of Tata Sons made the following comment at IIM Ahmedabad's annual fest "Just like cattle is paraded and traded at the fair, the highest tag goes to the student with the best performance during the two years (of their programme). Is that the way to go? Will you be happy selling derivatives, living in a penthouse and driving expensive cars while the rest of the world goes to the dogs?"
Well that's a fair observation in many ways. Sure, on the day(s) of placements, students vie for the best job (which usually means the highest paying job) on offer. The best budding management graduates of the nation participate in one GD after another trying to outwit, out shout the other participants to get that interview call and finally the job offer. Of course, this is only the culmination of months of preparations which includes preparing multiple one page versions of CVs (each customized to a specific role like Finance, Consulting, Marketing, General Management, Operations etc), endless hours spent tweaking and beautifying the CV right down to the alignment of text, font face and size, days worth of cases preparations for that big ticket consulting firms, or reading Hull and solving problems from 'Heard on the Street' to the point that given the solution one can go backwards and give out the question, reading up on companies and attending presentations from various firms and asking good (and often needless) questions during or after the presentation just to make an impression. Call it a cattle fair or a rat race, it's relentless and combined with the academic pressure it's often near back breaking; for almost a month students hardly get more than 4-5 hours of sleep owing to placement preparations.
While the sermon is all right, the preacher isn't. It is easy to make such statements and expect others to shoulder the onus of state building when you yourself are doing a rather comfy job at Tata Sons, one of the most risk averse conglomerates in the whole country. If Mr. Pradhan is so concerned about the 'world going to dogs', why hasn't he done anything himself? Why not join a government body and help in policy making? Or why not go to the villages and start some grass-root level enterprise/NGO to help the 800 million poor in the country. How about taking the entrepreneurial plunge Mr. Pradhan? I am sure with your reputation and contacts, starting a business and getting funds and even good people to join you won't be tough. So why haven't you? Charity begins at home Mr. Pradhan. Instead you expect fresh IIM grads, who have a hefty loan to pay back and zero savings, to forego a lucrative offer and jump into selfless service. The hypocrisy is so evident.
Off late it has become rather fashionable for speakers at IIM events to cajole the audience to think beyond their hefty paychecks and do something for the country. Now, that's all fine if comes from the likes of Dr. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rakesh Sharma, Dr. S.K Brahmachari (CSIR) etc who have worked in public institutions to bring about positive change and are worth emulating. But when it comes from a CXO of a corporation (particularly when it is as taunting as 'cattle fair') it sure wouldn't go well. The language itself is abominable and smacks of opportunism because it was made in the presence of a slew of reporters who would be vying for such quotable quotes. And as expected, every news paper, right from the tabloid-esque Times Of India (which regularly published unverified news about IIMA) to the more serious ones like Indian Express, have not spared a inch to mar the reputations of these institutes. Dear corporates, we don't object to you getting on the high horse and asking us to do something you yourself haven't bothered to, but please do so in a way that does not abuse our hospitality. We still believe in "Athithi Devo Bhavo" despite our well reported arrogance, but don't stretch it.
Of course these articles led to the usual reaction. Readers in TOI comment threads have jumped in, as they always do, claiming how IIMs are nothing but a placement agency and it's grads are greedy and not worth the salaries they commands. So let's take it one by one.
Are IIMs placement agency? I don't think so but why shouldn't they be. IIMs prepare it's students to be managers who then are supposed to manage the affairs of corporations (or even PSUs and NGOs). So it is only natural that IIMs are doing their bit in getting their students placed in the best possible firms to do they very job that these students have been trained for 2 hectic years. Placement therefore is a big factor over here. The buzz around placements is simply because that is the primary reason why students go to a business school. Add to that the front page news that the media publishes about placements. And for the general public, if IIM placements are so useless affair, why do you comment so much on it (as can be seen in the TOI comment section). You know, if you people did not show so much interest in these figures, TOI would have no incentive to publish it on their front page. IIMs would like nothing better than to conduct a media free placement where we do not have to go short of issuing restraining order on media personnel. But for various reasons, we have to inevitably provide the news to the media. When we do not, they publish stuff on their own.
Do IIM grads deserve the salary they command? To those people who have asked it I ask, how do you know that you deserve the salary that you get? More importantly, it's a free market and companies pay a competitive price. If the firms think it's fair, then who are you to pass judgement. Even Mr. Pradhan's firm recruits students on the basis of their curricular, co-curricular and extra curricular achievements and a long drawn out GD. IIMs only provide the market, it is the buyer (the firms) and seller (the students) who decide the prices. And considering that students have much less power to negotiate, it is primarily the buyers (the recruiters) who drive up the salaries.
Some have argued that American firms have a better placement mechanism where there are no 'cattle fairs'. Not really. In the US, a student has to individually contact recruiters and write emails and await for replies. It's good in the sense that a student has more control over which sector, firm and role he or she would like to be in. However, such a system depends a lot on how well connected the student is to the places where he is applying. In India, where most of the bschool students are freshers and that too from lower and middle class families with hardly any contacts in the industry, this can be disastrous. Of course, a student at an IIM may not always get a offer to his liking (either role or sector wise) but he/she is sure to get a offer that is nearly as good as everyone else's. A lot of the exchange students have praised IIM-As placement system and it is also ranked the best in the world in terms of placement by Financial Times. May be, in the long run, when IIMs have students with high work-ex and the buzz around placements is less, such a method can be employed. IIM-A already employs a similar method for placements in the Executive MBA (PGPX) programs where it obviously makes more sense.
Are IIM students greedy? Well, what have the people, who accuse IIM grads to be greedy, done to show that they aren't? And should IIM grads be saints oblivious to money? If you are entering the corporate life, you have to have some affinity for money. And most of these IIM students are from modest families. It is only expected that they would want a good life. Why should we be apologetic about it? And I am sure, Mr. Pradhan's company would not want to buy derivatives sold by IIPM grads or hire a consulting firm staffed with IIPM grads for a consulting assignment. Wonder what would have happened if the Tata-Corus deal was structured by IIPM grads?
And yes, quite a few IIM grads do join NGO or start their own firms. But in a country where risk taking is not encouraged, it's a little tough to be courageous. But we try. Also we do not owe anything to you and we are free to work in any country we choose. Sure the govt subsidizes our education. Big deal. The government also subsidizes diesel and tax payer money also pays for roads and water supply. Does that mean that no Indian should ever go and work in another country? Is every Kendriya Vidyalaya student expected to never go and work in another country?
To all those people who have been commenting about how greedy we are and how IIMs are nothing but placement agencies I have this to say - "Hey, stop being such sore losers. Losers never win"
