MBA Institutes Placements Record At 8 Year High In Spite Of COVID-19

2020 will forever be etched in our memories as the year that changed our lives forever. Not only were we forced to make extreme life adjustments but were also brought back to the simpler and smaller things of life which we once enjoyed, before the digital revolution. As far as living is concerned, we’ve learnt some major life lessons. However, the one thing that was affected deeply and continues to remain a recurrent issue is the financial crunch we all faced as a result of the much-needed lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the economy gets affected, it has a direct toll on the jobs, and professional education gets affected as well. Needless to say, most students who belonged to the 2019-2020 batch were left in the lurch wondering what impact the pandemic would have on their careers and if they would get any jobs at all!

However, much to everyone’s surprise, the recent statistics have a different story to tell as far as campus placements are concerned, at least for the B-school placements. In a recent survey by LiveMint, it has been found that a figure of 1,15,481 MBA graduates was placed against the enrollment of 2,37,000 of the same batch in the previous academic session of 2018-19. To conduct this survey, data was gathered from hundreds of non-IIM Business schools. On the other hand, IIMs too maintained a good round of campus placements for this year owing to their reputed brands.

Further, into the survey, it was found that 50 percent of the students failed to land a job in the placements, thus reflecting upon the state of graduates in the country and the issue of unemployment. Despite this, the number of placements is 8 times higher if one is to look at the numbers of 2012. In fact, according to AICTE, the rate of hiring has only shown an upward growth curve and shows no signs of slowing down.

It can be said that the number of students who landed jobs this time could have been much higher had there not been any pandemic. Nevertheless, an increase in the number of placements from last year is indeed a positive sign.

Another big challenge that was faced by students this year was the cancellation of offer letters. In the first half of the year, while the national news covered the issue of job cuts, what was precisely left out was the situation that was faced by students that had just received call letters for internships and jobs. While some companies withdrew their offer letters, others reduced the salary amount they had offered to the graduates in the first place. The silver lining was that most of the leading B-schools were able to find alternative offers for their students. No compromises were made in getting the graduates the best possible placements they deserved.

In fact, most B-Schools ensured that they had multiple rounds of interviews so that the students got the best companies for their summer and final placements respectively. One such institute that managed a record-breaking number of placements this year was the Bengal Institute of Business Studies (BIBS), an MBA institute in Kolkata that is known for delivering some of the best placements for management students in Eastern India.

BIBS has been around for more than a decade now but has fast become one of the leading management colleges in Eastern India. Over the years, brands like the ITC, Amul, Britannia, Coca-Cola, Dabur, Emami, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Airtel, and around 200 companies have visited the campus as recruiters.

In 2020, students of BIBS have been placed in companies like Cipla, Bajaj Finserv, ITC Limited, No Broker, Jaro Education, Aditya Birla Fashion Retail among others, just to name a few.

In all, one can breathe a sigh of relief that the management education industry in India wasn’t adversely affected and most of the students landed their dream jobs.