TeamLease-MBAUniverse.com survey reveals top MBAs fear global Financial Meltdown will impact Jobs & Placements

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 24, 2016
With the full blown crisis in the American and European financial sector, and a slowdown in the Indian economy, fear and uncertainty is looming large at the elite B-school campuses.

According to a survey conducted by staffing company TeamLease and management portal MBAUniverse.com, whopping 60% of second year MBA students at India's top B-schools like IIMs, XLRI, MDI and JBIMS fear that Wall Street meltdown will have "some impact" on this year's final placements. In fact, 37% percent of the students polled said there will be "a lot of impact" on placements. Only 3% believed there will be no impact at all.  

The TeamLease-MBAUniverse.com survey was conducted by research firm Synovate, and polled 397 second year MBA students across campuses like IIMs, XLRI, IIT School of Managements, JBIMS, IIFT, MDI, and other top 25 B-schools.

When asked about the impact the slowdown in the Indian economy will have on the placements, 67% of MBAs said there will be "some adverse impact" on the placements. Another 20% MBAs feared that the impact will be "extreme".  

The meltdown has had a sobering impact of salary expectations of newly minted MBAs.  

The survey has noted a somewhat reduced salary expectation amongst MBAs, when compared to last year, when economy was in the pink of health, and sentiments ran high. While only 35% of the MBAs polled last year said they expected their salary to be between Rs 6-10 lacs, this year the number rose to 42% -- a seven percent jump. The survey reveal that 42% of MBAs expect their salary to be in the range of Rs 6-10 lacs, while 36% say that they expect their salary to be between Rs 11-15 lacs. Only 10% MBAs say are expecting the salaries to be between Rs 16-20 lacs.  

With marquee brands like Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley collapsing, Investment Banking sector and financial services sector recruitment will indeed take a hit. So which sectors will benefit, and attract more top notch talent? Survey reveals that 68% of MBAs believe that Management Consulting sector will benefit the most, and attract more talent this year. FMCG, Telecom and Retailing sector will also emerge as more attractive, believe the MBAs. A high 48% of MBAs said that FMCG firm will benefit, while 40% said telecom sector will benefit too.  

Says Vivek Mandhata of IIM Kozhikode, "The meltdown of Wall Street is a significant development and would certainly have an impact. With respect to job offers, yes, there will be the impact of the panic reaction. There will be companies freezing recruitment, reducing costs, trying to adjust to these developments but again this will be a short term phenomenon and things will settle down. In the short term though, the sector with respect to which most people are concerned the maximum is Investment Banking. However, we as an institute have an established relationship with many of our recruiters and believe that there would be as reduced impact as possible."  

Says Sushant Thappa of Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, "I feel that the impact of the Wall Street crisis could be huge, but with necessary and corrective steps being taken by the regulators, things would be back to normal soon enough. MBA job offers may suffer in the short term, but over a period of time new and better profiles would start emerging which would give the students better opportunities and more scope to grow. Areas such as Private Equity, Carbon credits etc. would start becoming more popular among the finance students."

Every year, to understand the career aspirations of MBA students, India's leading management portal MBAUniverse.com teams up India's leading staffing company Teamlease and global research company Synovate to conduct the annual 'B-school Pulse' survey. The survey was conducted amongst 397 MBA second-year students at India Top 25 B-schools. The institutes surveyed include six IIMs including IIM-A, IIM-B & IIM-C, XLRI Jamshedpur, FMS Delhi, MDI Gurgaon, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management, IIT SOMs, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, IMT Ghaziabad, IMI Delhi, SP Jain Mumbai, NMIMS Mumbai, Welingkar Mumbai, BIMTECH, XIM B amongst others. The face-to-face survey was conducted between September 26 & October 14 by market research company Synovate.  

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more news and insights from our annual 'B-school Pulse' Survey 08.