Graduates rake in the moolah

College campuses are becoming a desired haunt for corporate talent wranglers; St Xavier's and HR graduates bag packets worth Rs 8-20 lakh per annum

The human resources circuit seems to be opening up to let in fresh(er) currents, and it is willing to pay for it. Lucrative job offers and high-salaried packages, traditionally the exclusive reserve of MBAs, engineers and post-graduates, are finding their way to graduates fresh out of colleges or still to give their final year exams. The annual salaries offered to some students of St Xavier's and HR college this year range between Rs 8-20 lakh.




hird-year BMS student Rishi Razdan and BA (Econ) Sahil Narang, both
from St Xavier's college, bagged job offers of around Rs 8 lakh per
annum as consultant and analyst

The hefty packages are not too far behind those offered at IIT-Bombay for the last couple of years. The highest pay packet offered to an IIT-B graduate in India in the year 2010-11 was Rs 26 lakh, and Rs 24 lakh in 2009-10. The average salary for the years was Rs 7-7.5 lakh. The trend may be explained by the lure of cheaper labour and spanking new ideas that college graduates bring to the table. Whatever it is, no one's complaining.

Says Sonny George, campus placement coordinator for St Xavier's College, "Our college placements for fresh graduates has touched an all-time high this year with leading corporate consultancy firms offering job packages to students as high as Rs 12 lakh per annum. This is the highest our college has received in the last few years, especially the period post-recession. A third-year BA student majoring in economics from our college has successfully bagged this lucrative package."

Four other students from the college have been offered annual packages of around Rs 8 lakh. Sahil Narang and Reuben Dantes, both third-year Bachelor in Management Studies students at Xavier's, have been absorbed to work as management and knowledge consultants respectively with a business consultancy firm having its presence in 40 countries.

Similarly, third-year Bachelor of Arts students majoring in Economics, Rishi Razdan and Rashid Nayeem, have bagged job offers as business analyst and management consultant with the same company. Speaking to MiD DAY, Narang, who is also student head, St Xavier's placement cell said, "More than your academic excellence, the corporates are giving weightage to a candidate's logical and analytical skills. I feel that they are keen on roping in fresh graduates who could be trained easily."

Nisha Punjabi, campus placement co-ordinator for HR College confirmed the trend. "Corporates seem to be keen on hiring fresh graduates as they can mould them effectively into the work culture. This is evident from the fact that leading MNCs have come to our campus to hire graduates with annual packages of Rs 20 lakh, the highest in the history of our college," she said.

This year, a Japanese retail giant has approached the college to conduct job interviews for a position that pays Rs 20 lakh annually. Elaborating the development, Anujita Jain, Director, Alchemist Talent Solutions, said, "The trend of hiring fresh graduates for consultancy jobs has been on a surge in recent times.

College kids today are definitely smarter and have far better exposure. We have also observed that a lot of fresh graduates prefer to get work experience for 2-3 years and then go in for a post-graduate course. They are more open to learning and getting varied experiences. As against this, an MBA, who has already invested time and money in acquiring a degree, looks out typically for a very high-paid and specialised job-profile."

-- Inputs by Aditya Hariharan

Interview method
>> The candidates were put through three sets of personal interviews with top managerial officers from the MNC.
>> Two interviews consisted of guessing business estimates like estimating the market for women razors in India, the number of coke bottles sold in the city in a day, weekly revenue of a hair-cutting saloon, etc.
>> In the third interview, graduates they were asked for practical solutions to business problems.
>> Students had to arrive at conclusions using their knowledge of demographic statistics