Time flies at business schools. There have been at least three important developments for the MBA community in the last month or so. One, with the orientation for the 2025 batch completed, students and faculty have moved into rapid mode classes, internal assignments and exams. Two, even though next year’s summer internship programme is more than six months ahead, planning and execution for these have begun in right earnest with companies finalising the schools they want to go to and students filling up application forms giving their choices of companies and domains they prefer to work in. Three, registration process for entrance exams like the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry primarily to 21 Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and a few other top schools, NMAT and SNAP has begun. NMAT is a national level entrance exam conducted by the General Management Admission Council (GMAC) for about 50 business schools. SNAP, on the other hand, shortlists students for entry to 17 Symbiosis colleges across the country.
From orientation to classes
Orientation is an important activity to bring together fresher students who share similar interests, discover student life on campus, get them to meet faculty and senior officials and help them understand the crucial need for hard work and intellectual rigor. Says Sanyukta Jolly, Professor of OB and HRM, IILM Lodhi Road, “The two-day orientation we had in our institution really helped in building a sense of belonging and laying a solid foundation for the academic journey ahead. The cohort’s diversity was seen as a key factor in enhancing peer learning.”
Elsewhere, at IIM-Bangalore, the high point this year was talks by three business leaders: Ronnie Screwala, Ganesh Ramachandran and Raghu Polisetty, the latter two from Accenture with global responsibilities. Polisetty highlighted what the firm looks for most in potential leaders: grit, which he defined as the ability and perseverance to stay the full course.
Planning for summer internships
In the midst of busy classes and late-night group assignments, schools and students have embarked on another critical activity: getting ready for summer internships later next year. For many of the top business schools this is serious business. By now, schools have already been in touch with companies, students have started applying to various companies based on their preferred domain of work like consulting or finance and in some schools, schedules for interviews have been finalized.
Consider the case of IIM-Lucknow which secured 100 per cent summer placements last year for the largest batch in its year history by securing 576 offers for 555 students and placing them in various corporates. The highest stipend offered was Rs 3.5 lakhs per month for an internship in the finance stream with consulting right behind with an offer of Rs 3.2 lakhs per month. A total of 210 recruiters participated in last year’s programme. If a company’s experience with a summer intern is good, it is likely that it will give a final placement offer to that student.
But that was last year. Today, in the backdrop of the fast-changing business environment, will these good tidings be replicated in the upcoming summer placements and final job offers? Universum, a global brand employment branding firm’s latest report finds that while technology firms like Google and Meta have typically topped placement rankings in United States, this year, however, three finance companies -- and not tech firms – are in the top three slots.
Will this trend happen in India? It is too early to predict because of the high volatility across companies worldwide due to fast-changing geopolitical uncertainties, impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), heightened social media conversations and anxieties over loss of jobs. Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) recent decision to cut over 12,000 jobs has been a talking point of the VUCA environment in the Information Technology (IT) industry.
Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder, Scaler School of Business, Bengaluru says,” There has been radical changes in how businesses operate today. Consequently, business schools need to redefine not only what they are teaching, but also how they teach. The world needs a nuanced, agile, and ethically grounded approach to developing future business leaders. Yet, many institutions still operate on brittle infrastructure, outdated pedagogy, a lack of understanding of world politics and limited exposure to real-world AI challenges.”
That is a tough ask.
