The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad like most schools has experienced a drop of 20 percent in salary levels and had a long drawn out placements season. The most interesting bit this year’s placements at ISB is that only 55 percent of students have changed careers post-MBA and this is a reduction of 26 percent compared to last year’s placements. The average work-experience of students at ISB is five years and this statistic clearly shows that even high work-experience along with an MBA was not enough to allow for a career switch in a turbulent economy.

A lot of students with work-experience join ISB, Hyderabad with the objective of switching careers. In fact, the b-school has also clearly published last year’s data regarding this issue while this information is missing from the b-school’s official placements 2009 information. The drop in salary levels is also an issue and VK Menon, Senior. Director, Careers, Admissions and Financial Aid responded to an e-mail and said, “The mean salary of Rs 15 lakhs is in keeping with market trends for premium hires.” This figure is however well below the loan amount of Rs 19 lakh which ISB students took for their MBA.

The ISB class of 2009 consisted of 437 students and this is the largest student intake among the to ranked business schools in India. The b-school has admitted 539 students for the class of 2010 and VK Menon is optimistic about next year’s placements. He says, “This year in terms of placements will be better than last year. Companies have started recruiting at the Middle & Senior Management levels. We have taken various steps to ensure quality placements for the class of 2010.”

Placements overview:

Average domestic CTC: Rs 15.05 lakhs
Average International CTC: USD 119,022
Number of students who participated in placements: 428
Total batch size: 437
Total number of recruiting companies: 320
Total number of first time recruiters: 150

Major changes in roles offered to students (compared to 2008 placements):

Technology: 7 pc reduction
General Management: 17 pc reduction
Consulting: 5 pc increase
Operations: 3 pc increase
Pharmaceuticals: 5 pc increase

Here is a detailed view of all roles offered to students of the ISB class of 2009.

As far as industry wise placements are concerned, there has been a 3 pc reduction jobs obtained in the finance and consulting sectors. The most significant drop has been that of 16 percent in the IT sector. The manufacturing and pharmacy sectors have respectively recruited 5 pc and 6 pc more students from ISB this year.

One year MBA programs including the Executive MBA programs at the IIMs have encountered difficulties in securing placements in these poor economic times. IIM Ahmedabad had even issued a statement regarding the extended placements process for the Executive MBA program at the end of which five students had remained to be placed.

A month or so back, I had spoken with an ISB graduate of the class of 2009 and he said that a lot of students who came in with significant work-experience had decided that it was better to remain without a job rather than take up an offer which came with a salary not significantly higher than what they were earning prior to their ISB stint. This certainly is one of the reasons causing an extended placements season at ISB and indeed for other Executive MBA programs.