Cognizant is top recruiter in India! Wipro, Deloitte, HCL, ICICI Bank and KPMG in top five

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Cognizant is top recruiter in India! Wipro, Deloitte, HCL, ICICI Bank and KPMG in top five
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US tech company Cognizant has retained its first place for the third time in the list of top recruiters in India, making as many as 192 offers at various MBA institutes in the country.

Moreover, three other companies — Wipro, Deloitte and HCL — made more than 100 offers in these institutes. Last year, only two companies had made offers in excess of 100, an exclusive ET survey has revealed.

In a testimony to the growing demand for topnotch MBA talent, India Inc's top recruiters have stepped up campus hiring by 33.5%.
Ten of India's biggest recruiters hired a total of 1,033 MBAs from 22 top business schools ET surveyed for this study. Around 774 graduates were picked by the top ten recruiters across 21 B-schools the previous year.

These numbers, in absolute terms, reflect what is easily the most aggressive MBA talent drive in the five years that the ET India's Top Recruiters study is being conducted.

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The ET top 10 recruiters survey results are based on data from IIM Ahmedabad; IIM Bangalore; IIM Calcutta; IIM Kozhikode; IIM Indore; IIM Shillong; IIM Ranchi; IIM Raipur; IIM Udaipur; Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade; International Management Institute, New Delhi; Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi; Faculty of Management Studies, BHU; Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi; XLRI Jamshedpur; XIM Bhubaneswar; SP Jain Institute of Management & Research; IIM Rohtak; MDI Gurgaon; IIM Kashipur and IIM Trichy.

Meanwhile, IIT Delhi's Department of Management Studies and IIM Rohtak replaced Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies this year. There were 21 institutes last year.

With one in every 20-25 technology professionals holding a master's in business administration, Sriram Rajagopal, vice president — HR at Cognizant Technology Solutions, says his company is probably one of the most aggressive MBA recruiters in India.
Besides the 192 hired across the 22 business schools, the company offered jobs to more than 500 MBAs from the 2015 graduating batch.

"We are in the midst of once-in-a-decade shift in the technology landscape. This trend is creating significant opportunities for B-school graduates. We believe our industry leading growth is, in part, a function of our ability to proactively provide solutions to business problems and not just technological capability and this attribute is strengthened by our MBA talent," said Rajagopal.

Following on the heels of Cognizant are Wipro, Deloitte, HCL Technologies, ICICI Bank and KPMG. The first five companies have been regulars on the top 10 list for the past five years.
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Moreover, the fifth position this year is shared by two. KPMG has made a big entry into the list for the first time to be alongside ICICI Bank. The consultancy firm hired 90 students from the surveyed schools, and reported a more than 20% overall jump in its MBA intake over the past two years.
"Our MBA intake over the past few years has increased substantially," said Shalini Pillay, head of people, performance and culture at KPMG in India. "This is commensurate with our growth across various services in the advisory space.”

Rival Deloitte reported a 30% increase in overall MBA hiring over the previous year, taking in 108 graduates at the surveyed schools alone. Wipro said it strengthened its focus on hiring from select B-schools and recruited 127. HCL and ICICI Bank hired 101 and 90, respectively, from the surveyed business schools.

"Hiring talent from top-tier business schools through campus recruitment, thereby building a talent pipeline to create leaders for tomorrow, has been integral to ICICI Bank's recruitment strategy. This year, we have recruited 180 students from business schools across the country," said TK Srirang, the bank's senior general manager and HR head.

Accenture and Vodafone enhanced B-school hiring and reported a significant uptick in this year's numbers. Accenture was the top recruiter at the top three IIMs, with 49 offers, of them 21 at IIM Ahmedabad alone.

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"Yes, we are hiring more MBAs now. We believe that MBA talent is extremely important and a key component of our hiring and growth strategy," said Sukhpreet Kalra, associate director, recruitment, for Accenture in India.

Vodafone recruited 82 graduates from the surveyed schools to debut on the list at the eighth position. While Amazon led the ecommerce companies vying for fresh MBA talent, hiring 84 across the schools surveyed and moving to the seventh position from joint ninth last year.
With Snapdeal snapping up the ninth slot and making its debut on the list with 81 hires, India's largest online retailer, Flipkart, missed out on the top 10 rankings by a whisker.

Raj Raghavan, HR director at Amazon India, said the company has seen a 140% increase in its MBA intake over the past two years. "B-school graduates are a key part of our growth story in India and we are building a leadership pipeline for the future," he said. The company offered roles across operations, consumer business, HR and finance, and around 25% of its MBA hires came through pre-placement offers.

Snapdeal, for the first time, had a large structured B-school hiring plan. It hired for roles in sales and marketing, business strategy, category management, supply chain and product management.

"MBA graduates have proven to be better equipped to analyse, interpret and find actionable trends from complex data. Thus, it is crucial for us to get on board MBA talent for the company's overall business and growth strategy. We have hired around 250 MBA graduates across Indian B-schools this year," said Vice President Saurabh Nigam.
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Companies like Deloitte and Vodafone hired a big chunk of B-school graduates through pre-placement offers (PPOs).

"In the last fiscal (year), we had about 288 interns... A majority of them went on to secure PPOs," said SV Nathan, senior director and chief talent officer at Deloitte in India. Out of the 100 B-school candidates Vodafone hired this year, 57% had been through PPOs. The focus on B-school talent is only going to sharpen for recruiters, the study shows.

Amazon's Raghavan said with India becoming a major growth story for the US-headquartered company, it was looking for top talent from business schools to build a career in Amazon.

(Image: Indiatimes)