Like all premier business schools, the Indian School of Business (ISB) is used to handling the hectic activity during placement seasons. But this year is going to be special. For, ISB has to place 770 students, its largest batch size ever.
ISB, which has campuses in Hyderabad, with 570 students, and in Mohali, Chandigarh, with 200 students, will hold its final placements in mid-December. The process will, however, be on till March-April 2013.
“This will be the largest batch size being placed in ISB’s history; so, the task does look daunting. We want to make sure we give the same opportunities to this expanded pool of students and recruiters,” said Deepak Chandra, deputy dean, ISB.
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Chandra is walking the talk. For example, ISB will be integrating its two campuses to hold unified placements. Day One and Day Two of the placement season will be held at Mohali, where shortlisted students from the Hyderabad campus will be flown in. Day Three, Day Four and beyond will be held on the Hyderabad campus, where students from the Mohali campus will be flown in.
The idea, according to ISB, is to allow companies to experience the Mohali campus.
“I know this is an expensive proposition, but we look at it as an investment in creating the ISB brand. This has been very challenging and we are keeping our fingers crossed, so that we are able to achieve what we have set out to achieve,” said Chandra.
The institute’s career advancement services office has put in place a team of representatives to network with industry. The size of the team has been doubled from six last year to 12 this year.
“We have expanded the pool of our representatives, who are based out of certain geographical locations so that we can expand the number of firms and industries we can invite,” said Chandra.
He added the team looks at working with industry to find the right kind of job.
Apart from this, the institute is working with students to find what kind of companies and industries it should be targeting. “There are traditional industries where a lot of business school graduates go, but I think it is important to also find new industries and firms to make this happen,” says Chandra.
“It is not only about working with existing jobs, but forecasting what kind of possible jobs can emerge in the future to drive a firm’s growth, industry’s growth and, thus, economic growth,” said Chandra.
To ensure a successful placement, the institute has sought the help from alumni across its management programmes, executive education and top management. ISB says it has made sure it gets together a large pool of ISB supporters to help it talk to firms. Chandra said ISB is conscious of the fact that it has to communicate the value proposition to a lot of firms, so that they can hire more from ISB. “For example, a lot of automobile companies want to look out to the international market. It makes sense for business school graduates to be there. This needs to be communicated to the companies and industries,” he added.
