Show me the money

ANALYSE THIS

Strategy issues seen through cartoons.

There are still several weeks to go before the term ends. But the future's already settled for most of the graduates in waiting across B-schools in the country. How do we know?

Because, much like companies announcing their quarterly results, institute after management institute files press releases tom-tomming the highest salary, the average salary and the hours within which candidates were "placed" at various blue-chip companies that queued up for a chance to recruit its students.

Granted, there is an acute shortage of talent, but should salary be the only "" or even the most important "" criterion in deciding the worth of a job? The obvious answer is "no", but you won't find too many people putting their money where their mouths are.

The balance of power is shifting in favour of employees, believe most HR consultants, and placement season appears to bear them out. And we are not even talking about the six Indian Institutes of Management here: they are almost always bursting at the seams with companies desperate to fill their recruitment quotes with IIM grads.

Now, even the next rung of B-schools have companies clamouring for their graduates. Take Mumbai's S P Jain Institute of Management and Research. More than 100 companies have confirmed their presence for campus recruitment "" an almost-43 per cent increase over last year's 70 offers.

Says Abbas Ali Gabula, placement chairman, SPJIMR, "Last year every student had at least two offers in hand but this year, they can choose from four offers each." Institutes like Mumbai's Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and MDI, Gurgaon, offer similar stories of plenty.

You don't need to look far for reasons for the shortage of suitable candidates "" and the explosion in job opportunities. An economy zipping ahead at over 9 per cent is cause enough.

Bhaskar Das, vice president, HR, Cognizant, agrees: "Salaries and the number of people hired have both increased, but so have the tonnes of steel purchased and the power consumed by companies. Businesses are growing fast and, therefore, require more resources."

Das knows what he's talking about: two years ago, Cognizant hired 100 fresh management graduates. Last year, that grew to 170 and recruitment at the company is expected to break records this year. It's not just the volume of offers, of course: even the value has skyrocketed.

In 2005, the highest domestic offer at IIM, Ahmedabad, was Rs 14.5 lakh. It shot up to Rs 34 lakh last year; final placements for this year will take place next month.

What message do such stratospheric salaries send to companies? Not very positive ones, unfortunately, even if companies are contributing by upping their offers everytime.

"Most youngsters today are looking at jobs, not careers. They are willing to change fields later if need be, but most are worried only about what their "take-home" will be," declares Anita Belani, country head of human capital group, Watson Wyatt. Madhukar Shukla, professor of organisational behaviour and strategic management, XLRI, agrees cautiously. "Students chase the high-salaries jobs because of parental and peer pressure."

Which means they also job hop more frequently. Most companies now budget for a fresh graduate's tenure to be between 12 and 18 months; anything beyond that is a bonus. And considering that most recruits are still in training at that time, their resignation also means a monetary loss to the company.

"Most young employees today change as many as two or three jobs in their first three years. Losing employees before their incubation period finishes is a problem recruiters are increasingly facing," says Anita Ramachandran, CEO, Cerebrus Consultants.

Companies are finding ways to work around that problem. Some large retail and consumer goods companies now follow a tweaked hiring process, say HR consultants.

These companies do not visit campuses, nor do they hire fresh graduates in very large numbers. Instead, they recruit from the open market people with a couple of years experience "" which means they've already gotten that intial volatility out of the way and they've been trained at someone else's expense. "People tend to be more stable once they've worked for a couple of years," says XLRI's Shukla.

An older option is making pre-placement offers to students who have done summer internships with companies.

Earlier, that used to be confined to the usual round of consumer goods and engineering companies. But now, the strategy is being extended even to knowledge process outsourcing companies, some of which are even offering stock options as a further sweetener.

But to a generation that is increasingly demanding instant gratification, such delayed pleasures don't really make a huge difference. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, lack of money is the root of all job changes.