A steady growth in hiring of MBA graduates is expected in 2015. Thanks to a forward-looking government at the centre and the majority support with them. Not only local, but global hiring trend is expected to see a uptrend in 2015. Graduate Management Admission Council, organizers of the globally accepted GMAT score, revealed that 9 in 10 employers hiring B-School graduates will either maintain or increase the number of offers to be made at campus. Also, more than half of the employers stated that they will increase the starting base salary being offered to MBA Freshers.Talking about India specifically, many companies are targeting to boost up their MBA hiring straight out of campus. Future Group, Citi, Godrej, KPMG, Whirlpool, PwC, Vodafone and Snapdeal have already acknowledged the increase in MBA fresher hiring this year. While companies across sectors have ambitious plans to increase campus hiring, they are looking at differentiated strategies — psychometric assessments and tests to select the right set of candidates, customised onboarding initiatives and even innovation challenges to pick out the best of the lot.
All looks good. So now is the time to think of what can you, as an MBA graduate, should do to grab the best of this opportunity. Grades definitely make you stand out of the lot, but are not the only criteria that companies evaluate.
Below are few things that should be worked upon in this coming placement season:
- Prepare yourself for new hiring methods: Companies are looking forward to adopt new and evolved hiring methodologies this year. So, it is time that you start preparing yourself to answer tricky psychometric tests, face group tasks or may be an extempore.
- Keep yourself updated: General and Business awareness are more important than what everyone think. A single fact stated in a group discussion or in the recruitment interview can turn the direction your way. Stating numbers from authentic sources always help in breaking into a discussion. Thereby, it’s time that you should read newspapers, journals, and magazines or may be few novels about which you can always talk about.
- Have an opinion: Everyone wants a candidate who can stand up for his/her role in the company and one of the criteria to judge this is identifying a candidate who stands by his opinion. Obviously to build an opinion on a subject, you will have to read and re-read at times in order to partially memorize it. Things will automatically flow when required if you have ever read about it somewhere.
- Hone a Hobby: Yes, you read it right. Developing a hobby can prove to be unfairly advantageous especially during personal interviews. Imagine a case where the only common thing between you and the interviewer comes out to be your ability to play a guitar. You can impress just by the sheer knowledge or dedication which you have shown towards the instrument. A lot of interviews at some point of time drop down to reading books. And if you have had a knack of reading books, you are half way through.
It is time to make the most out of the opportunity coming your way in 2015. We hope that you come out with flying colours in this placement season and keep shining on.
Good Luck.
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Arpit Srivastava
MBA Hiring is really looking good this year at campuses. Hope that the batch come out with flying colours.