Economic slow down for...err...MBA dummies
Sidin Vadukut -
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:10 AM
It is a sad time indeed for business schools all over the country. I have nothing more than oral history to go by, but Lehman Brothers, in the mid-90s, it appears were the first big investment bank to hire from Indian business schools. I have heard alumni talk of the time when the bank came to India and in quintessential-Wall Street style made 200,000 dollar offers to IIM grads who promptly passed out. Students, once they were back on their feet, lapped it up and old stalwarts like Hindustan Levers and Tata Administrative Services had a colossal battle on their hands to get good people.
But then it's not like them oldies are rejoicing and oozing schadenfreude right now. The economy, and I use that in the "jobs for MBAs" sense, is taking a beating across all sectors and industries and countries. When Lehman catches a cold, it seems, HR managers all over the place throw themselves under buses.
But how bad is it really? If you are a fresh MBA out of business school or even a young MBA looking to switch jobs how bad is the "job scene"? Well in a Play Things exclusive we trawled through the Careers_IIMA email group on Yahoo to see how the frequency of job postings have changed over the last few years. (The group is one of the more popular middle and senior level job posting e-groups among alumni.) Our results show that the scenario is very sub-prime if you know what I mean. Check following graph and try not to burst out in tears (starts from Feb 2004 till the morning of 17 September 2008):
Have other such revealing data on how it is all blowing up all around us? Drop us a line.