What are the key factors that business school graduates look for when choosing an employer, and which sector is the most preferred when it comes to employment? Given the shift in business opportunities and job trends in what is a highly competitive market place, how should India Inc. approach the crucial task of recruiting the best talent from campuses across the country? These are some of the questions that the Nielsen Campus Track Business School Survey aims to find answers to.
The Campus Track study measures and monitors attitudes and perceptions of students in relation to career preferences and potential recruiters. The study was conducted among 2nd year students across 35 top MBA colleges in India in October-November 2015.
ECOMMERCE CONTINUES TO SHINE
E-commerce emerged as the most preferred sector for employment for graduates from business schools in India with 30% of the students surveyed indicating it as their top choice – 2% higher compared to 2015. This indicates how much of a foothold the sector has gained over the past several months. The nascency that was initially attached to ecommerce has long since disappeared, and today it has become a highly employable sector. Moreover, as the study found out, the opportunity to learn is also driving B-school graduates towards this space.
The Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) industry and Information Technology are tied in second place with the former seeing an increase in traction with a score of 25% – a jump of 4% from 2015. Information Technology (IT) too witnessed a significant increase; 25% of the students prefer the IT sector compared to just 17% in 2015. The Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry (FMCG) did not witness a change in preference (24%).
Over the last four rounds of the Campus Track survey, we have seen e-commerce consistently strengthening its position as the preferred sector – moving from 20% in 2012 to 30% in 2015. At the same time, BFSI and IT have also seen increase in preference. In 2012, 15% of the students preferred BFSI and 19% preferred IT; in 2015 both these were the preferred sectors by 25% of the students. FMCG on the other hand, has seen decline in its status as a preferred sector from 29% in 2012 to 24% in 2015.
THE RECRUITER OF CHOICE
Hindustan Unilever Ltd. has retained its position as the most preferred business school recruiter according to the latest Nielsen Campus Recruitment Index (CRI). The CRI index is a measurement of the recruiters’ brand strength at B-School campuses, based on multiple attributes. Some of the key factors that students consider while framing an opinion about a prospective employer include, degree of independence at work, amount of learning on the job and company reputation.
In line with the positive sentiment for E-commerce, Amazon India saw a lot of B-school students favouring the company; the online retailer is a new entrant in the top ten list of most preferred recruiters – coming in at number sixth this year.
The top ten companies in terms of the CRI rankings this year include two companies from FMCG sector and three from IT and BFSI each. While FMCG is represented by HUL (rank 1) and P&G (rank 8), Google (rank 2) Microsoft (rank 3) and Facebook (rank 10) are the top recruiters from the IT industry. From the BFSI industry, the top recruiters include HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.