Next weekend (June 1, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad will host a conference to discuss and finalize a common and transparent format for b-schools to report their placements with.

IIM Ahmedabad’s Placements Chairperson Prof Saral Mukherjee hopes that a standardized process to record and report placements information will deter b-schools from lying about job-related information to the media and help MBA aspirants make valid comparisons between b-schools.

The school had made public a draft proposal outlining both the process of collecting placement information from companies and presenting them to the outside world earlier this year on its website (click to download). Among the highlights of the proposal are recommendations that b-schools should ask participating companies to reveal the fixed and variable components of offered salaries upfront and placement reports should report the averages of these components separately for each sector. The proposal also suggests that b-schools should externally audit the reports before publicising them.

On June 18, Prof Mukherjee has invited representatives from top recruiters, b-schools and the media to deliberate and reach a consensus on a standards they hope to make pervasive among India b-schools. PaGaLGuY too will be represented at the conference.

What do you think of the placement reporting standards as MBA aspirants, their parents, MBA students or those involved in recruitments of MBAs? Do comment and we’ll be glad to submit any interesting suggestions arising out of this discussion at the conference. We trust that you will read the Placement Reporting Standards document well before commenting.