B-school student body not diverse enough

While diversity is the buzzword at premier management institutes worldwide, there seems to be little change in the student profile of Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) this year, with engineering graduates still dominating the composition of new batches.

Of the candidates joining IIM-Calcutta this year, 90.4 per cent are from an engineering background. At IIM-Bangalore, this percentage is as high as 91.09 in the 2013-15 batch — up from 88.84 per cent in the previous batch.

Other streams, such as commerce, science, management and the arts have seen only 21, 8, 4 and 2 students respectively in the total batch-size of 404 students at IIM-Bangalore.

While premier management institutes in India have always had a skewed representation of engineers, internationally acclaimed business schools have made a conscious effort to include diverse candidates from various backgrounds.

For instance, Harvard Business School’s 2015 class comprises 43 per cent economics and business undergraduate majors, 39 per cent of science, technology, engineering and mathematics students and 18 per cent students studying humanities and social sciences.

In the 2014 batch of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, 46 per cent of students are from the humanities and social sciences background, 37 per cent from engineering, mathematics and natural sciences and 17 per cent from business, while 18 per cent are advanced degree holders.

Prof M. Jayadev, Chairperson, Admissions and International Aid, IIM-Bangalore, says: “The number of engineers appearing for the CAT (Common Admission Test) entrance is much higher than the non-engineering stream candidates. This, Jayadev said, tends to ensure a higher proportion of engineering students get into the IIMs. Traditionally, IIMs have given higher weightage to CAT, which places greater emphasis on quantitative skills, and not on other sciences. This puts prospective students with a social science background at a disadvantage.

Some years ago, the admission weightages given by IIMs were an internal matter known only to the relevant institutes. But things started changing after the Right to Information (RTI) Act came into force. “Before the RTI Act came into existence, most IIMs used to modify the admission process a bit to add diversity to the student profile. At that time, the strength of engineering students was only around 60-65 per cent in the batches. However, with too many questions being asked about the admission process, IIMs do not have the liberty to tweak the admission process,” said the CEO of a leading financial institution and an IIM-A graduate.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, June 24, 2013

Why Tamil Nadu has 45,000 engineering seats empty

The existence of a large number of engineering colleges is one of the major reasons why the IT industry chooses Tamil Nadu as a preferred destination. The colleges churn out the required manpower in hordes, which the industry laps up for its own growth and expansion. But this year, engineering institutions have faced a major shock. A whopping 45,000 seats out of the 149,000 available seats have fallen vacant in the 2011 admissions to the 577 engineering colleges in the state.

To explain this situation, Anna University Vice-Chancellor P. Mannar Jawahar cites the increasing trend of IT companies going to arts and science colleges for campus hiring. At the same time, education activists are demanding an embargo on the setting up of new engineering colleges by AICTE and the implementation of measures to regulate college fees, plus improve infrastructure, quality and manpower in the engineering education sector.

“IT companies have tasted success by hiring brilliant BSc and MSc IT, maths, physics and chemistry graduates delivering goods at par with BE. A typical BE fresher expects a salary of Rs. 25,000 against the more modest expectations of BSc and MSc pass-outs who settle for a salary of Rs. 15,000,” says Jawahar. Anna is the nodal university of the Tamil Nadu government that conducts entrance exams for the 577 affiliate colleges coming under its umbrella.

Till last year, engineering education was considered to be the only passport to land jobs in IT. Despite the cost of technical education, the salary levels made many middle class and lower middle families educate their children in engineering colleges that got them a high-paying IT job.

“IT industry looks at engineers for their math proficiency, a much-needed skill in analysing problems and conceiving algorithms to solve various IT automation projects. By virtue of their discipline, engineers are sought after for technical grasping ability which cannot be expected of arts and science graduates,” says R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director of Cognizant Technology.

But Deepali Singh, business head of firstnaukri.com (a subsidiary of the job portal naukri.com) says that margin pressures due to a global slowdown have made IT companies look at cost-cutting even for talent, by substituting engineering candidates with MSc and BSc. “There are many companies that are running pilot tests on giving functional roles to BSc and MSc pass-outs. The industry continues to hire 95% engineers but is gradually re-assigning the various support roles to non-engineering workers.”

The intake of non-engineering candidates would impact the hiring prospects of engineering stream students only marginally, opines E Balaji, CEO of Mafoi Consultant. “An engineer would be reluctant to work on many of the job functionalities which an ordinary graduate could unabashedly perform. Scheduling a client call, monitoring the project progress, arranging intra-level team communication are some of the mundane tasks that a trained graduate with limited exposure to IT could handle.” Basic software testing is one domain where IT companies could manage the show with non-engineers.

Source: The Financial Express, September 2, 2011

>Microsoft, Cognizant, HCL and Wipro to hire designers this year

>Technology majors are headhunting at an unlikely place this year — design school. Software majors Microsoft, Cognizant, HCL and Wipro, e-commerce giant eBay India and the local research laboratories of SAP and HP are knocking at the doors of design schools to hire graduates who can lift the aesthetic appeal of their products, sites and services. And to boot, the number of designers in technology firms is expected to see a 20-25% spurt over the next 2-3 years.

As e-commerce grows, the web interface becomes crucial for internet firms pushing up the need for designers. For software firms too, client presentations over the web and providing design services are becoming important and de rigeur. While there is no concrete data on the number of designers in IT, rough estimates put it at between 5,000 and 7,000 — from 2000 till date. Designers are also being put to use to make web graphic design uber cool, bring snaziness to the user-interface for gadgets, write content for web and develop e-learning solutions for internal use.

Non-engineering graduates have been trying their hand at technology firms for sometime now. Along with designers, the number of non-engineering graduates on the rolls of IT companies will go up from 10% of their current workforce to nearly 20-25% at TCS, Wipro and HCL over the next one to two years. Fast-growing rival Cognizant already has 20% of its workforce as non-engineering graduates.

Says Vaithilingam Sairaj, Director, Content & Design Services, Cognizant: “The industry has evolved with a large number of online users turning to e-commerce. Thus, the importance of visual appeal and aesthetics is going up. Cognizant is a major hirer of designers from National Institute of Design (NID) and has created an exclusive portfolio called content and design services. The team is over 1,200-strong, of whom 400 are specialist designers who design websites, applications and convergence devices. Cognizant this year has made 18 offers at NID while last November, eBay India, SAP Labs and HP Labs also recruited students from India’s premier design school.

Professor Ravi Sinha, in-charge of placements at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai — which has a course on interaction design — says: “Yes, IT companies are queuing up to pick up designers from our campus. It is not just the SWITCH (Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL) companies, but even smaller firms are showing interest and scouting for talented designers.” But why? “Globally, it is common to see designers in IT firms but the trend is just picking up here. Designers are working on projects like web designing and user interface. Going forward, as local IT firms move up the value chain, demand for designers will rise,” he added.

A Cognizant employee, who also got an offer from an advertisement agency, says: “I got a good package from a leading advertising agency. But I chose IT because the options are more. In an advertisement firm, I have to work on a single project. On the other hand, I can work on different platforms in an IT firm,” he added. “I do the work of an interface designer as well as a content designer. And it is really challenging and exciting,” he says.

Not everyone gets to do what Jony Ive — the famed industrial designer at Apple — does, but work is exciting enough, say employees. “When a customer comes online to check a product detail, it has to be narrated like a story. That is where designers come handy. For social networking sites, the games, user experience designs and interactive technologies are done by designers. There is scope in the mobile space too,” says an Infosys employee.

The IT bellwether has a large number of designers on its rolls. A team called communication design group at Infosys is a multi-disciplinary one with 140 people involving graphic design experts, user experience designers, instructional designers, technical writers, content developers and editors, video specialists and interactive multimedia specialists. “We have roles from entry-level designers to managers which are aligned to the company’s role and career enhancement track. We at Infosys support communication and design requirements for the company, both internal and customer facing,” a spokesperson said. “The potential of the web, the lure of using the latest design technology, regular updating of skills, and all this possibly for a better pay, are reasons why designers are choosing a career with an IT company,” says Vaithilingam Sairaj of Cognizant.

Salaries offered are also at par, or even more, than what an advertisement agency offers. Though IT firms did not want to disclose what their packages are, sources said the salary for a fresher could be anywhere between Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 900,000. “The salaries offered by IT companies for designers are encouraging. Packages for a fresher is anywhere between Rs. 600,000 and Rs. 800,000,” says Sujitha Nair, industry relations and students’ placement officer at NID. “Around 8-10% students at our campus have already accepted pre placement offers (PPOs),” she added. Though Sinha did not want to divulge salary details, IIT-Mumbai design students say they are paid at par with their peers. “On an average, students are offered anywhere between Rs. 600,000-12,00,000 a year,” one student said.
Source: The Economic Times, February 3, 2011