ISB places its PGP class of 2017 with highest ever number of students

The Indian School of Business (ISB), with campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali, has placed its highest ever class size of 903 students. What stands out is that the N. Chandrababu Naidu-led government in Andhra Pradesh has made offers again at the campus -- nearly 60 to 70 per cent higher than the number of offers last year, it ended up making 21 offers, according to Uday Virmani, Director, Placements (called Career Advancement Services by the school).

Among these, about two or three are to join as executive assistant to district magistrates in certain districts of the state. Virmani would not reveal more either on the salaries offered or on the specifics about the districts but does say that since they are making offers at a B-school like ISB, the salary offers would be competitive. It is not clear if we may have a situation where an executive assistant ends up drawing higher than his boss considering that the average salary of the PGP class of 2017 is Rs 22 lakh.

A note shared by the school says, "increased demand for leadership roles from government think tanks, public and the private sector and presence of marquee brands were some of the notable highlights of the placements 2017 at ISB. The School witnessed a 39 per cent increase in the number of recruiters participating in the current placements season. Over 400 companies, domestic and international, made 1,113 offers to students of the PGP Class of 2017."

On the recruiter profile, it says, "besides the regular recruiters such as McKinsey & Co, BCG, Parthenon, AT Kearney, Apple, Microsoft, Citibank, Novartis, Siemens, Amazon , Cognizant, Hindustan Unilever ltd, who were on campus, there were several new companies such as Jones Lang LaSalle, Havells, Revigo, P&G, Lending kart, Reliance Jio, Mindtree Consulting, L' Oreal,  Bain & Co and Roland Berger."

On the job profile, it added: "There was also a visible increase in leadership roles this year. Over 70 offers were made to ISB students for leadership roles by leading corporates including Aditya Birla Group, Citibank, Yes Bank, Philips India Ltd, Tech Mahindra, MAX, Mytrah Energy and Genpact." The ISB note further observes that "consulting and IT/ITES sectors continued to be the largest recruiting sectors constituting 20 per cent and 21 per cent of total number of offers followed by BFSI and Healthcare & Pharma."

There is nothing mentioned in particular about the share from e-commerce. Virmani confined himself to saying that all those who wanted jobs in e-commerce were able to find them and even this sector made its presence felt. Virmani however did lay stress on the fact that this time there were lot of options available for the class of 2017. Evidently, for who would have thought of a state government hiring a B-school graduate as an executive assistant to a district magistrate.