Attrition Rate among Fresh MBA Graduates - An Opinion

As I pen down this story, I believe that my audience might vary widely from an industry expert to a novice, from an HR to an SME, from an existing B-School student to an aspirant who has taken CAT yesterday.

“An open survey by one of the leading B-School research websites points that the percentage of people in some of the top B-schools switching jobs in the first 18 months stands at around 25%.”

A simple look around in my vicinity delineate that the number would be in the ballpark of 55-60%. It is also evident that the number of graduates switching domains stands at about 40% and this could be a modest number. Another report by CNBC states that, based on experiences, 77% of businesses expect a recent graduate hire to stay less than a year. I always say, engineering might be an accident but if you are cheesed off after an MBA, it is a sheer mistake. While the world is acknowledging Indian talent, it is hard to believe in the inadequacy of the Indian professional education system. However, we must be lacking somewhere that has led to this scary situation, wherein even with excellent pedagogy candidates are failing to perpetuate in an organization for at least an year or two.  

Reality Check: The case may be diagnosed by merely tracking one’s MBA journey. MBA aspirants or students are primarily of two types - a fresher with no prior work experience and someone having a work experience. However, in both the cases one aspires to do an MBA in two situations - When he has a bend towards management or that is the only option left to get a “career jump”. In fact, career jump is a veiled form to boring 9-9 job, financial kick, peer pressure and ‘kya kahenge log’ type society questions. Now for that career jump, one has to appear for an online test called CAT, which can be aced with 6 month of coaching. Nowhere does it test one’s interest in management. Well, capability and interests are two different things.  

Within 3-4 months of joining a B-School, candidate has to face summer placement interviews. Formal work experience is one of the key milestones for a management student and a reference point for evaluation of candidates; a prerequisite almost, at most places of work. Candidates learn a great deal from classroom and more so from the peer learning and industry exposure that a B-School environment enables. In the case of pure fresher, it becomes even more important as it is their first real job. This decides the company, industry or domain they will be interning at the end of first year of their MBA. Students with good amount of pre-MBA experience (as is typical in ISBs or executive courses) are sure of which domain they want to be in and look at the first post-MBA job for a tad longer. Besides, other commitments have set in by now and they are really looking for some stability. This should be an ideal scenario everywhere. However, as we know ideal scenarios are rare. 

B- Schools have nowadays become a bungee jumping rope to give a career jump to the candidates where direction and ‘true-calling’ hardly matters. The bigger disconnect comes when colleges start orienting you for ‘the job’ from the very first day. Consequently, students apply for any random profile with salary offered being the sole criteria. In addition, getting a higher salary package overshadows profile or learning. Hence, there lies the gap where we prioritize based on the brands and companies visiting the campuses over the faculty pool, salary packages over the pedagogy, and being placed on Day Zero over waiting for the right profile. Worst outcome of this is when deserving candidate misses the berth. Moreover, your internship salary offer decides your worth amongst your batch mates.

Now many of you may argue, how can we decide our interest at such an early stage. Oh c’mon, that exercise should be done in prior to joining the B-School. There cannot be an excuse to ignorance in professional education. 

Then comes the second stage where you sit for your final placements. Candidates, who have a PPO (Pre-placement Offer), are barred from reviewing their career choices. In addition, one do not have to prove what have they learnt in the second year of their MBA. Apparently, MBA gets over for them on the day they get ‘PPOed’. Moreover, their attitude tends to become lethargic. For others, the same old story repeats. Nevertheless, the same old excuse (how can we decide our interest at such an early stage) does not work now. Candidates again desperately apply for all random profiles. They are drifted towards the companies offering hefty paychecks on the initial days of the placement process. They cannot wait for the right match. All that one needs is a ‘job’. There could be various reasons attributed to this, like – heavy investment in terms of education loan, peer pressure, family expectations, age and so on. Yet the pre to post “Big MBA Hike” is overrated. MBA is a more about the long-term play. That is why they say, ‘most of you will be at par in few years no matter where one starts’.

Nonetheless, colleges fail to make an effort to get the right match for the candidate. As students look forward to the guidance, not just with career, but also how best should they plan their life goals? Every batch is different in terms of composition, diversity, interest and experience. Each one of them requires a different strategy altogether. Undoubtedly, this is where a completely ‘student driven’ placement process fails. The vicious cycle then is the declining quality of placement. Hence, they end up switching in the first year to inch closer to where they wanted to, that ends the cycle. A worrying trend indeed! 

The first year post MBA is perhaps one of the most critical periods of one’s career and this disconnect has led to severe attrition crisis. The 12-18 months period sees a high degree of insecurity and instability at work making people evaluate their work, domain, culture and so on. Recruiters should start questioning B-Schools on these aspects rather than just competing their hiring targets. May be the root cause lies in the recruitment itself where recruiters fail to set the expectations right. I have seen candidates being selected purely based on generic HR questions and not based on the education that they have earned in 1.5 years of MBA. We see recruiters make the big mistake of hiring persons for roles instead of hiring future leaders for their companies. Unless you are going to believe they are your future leaders, attrition is just round the corner.

In the end, when final placement process is about to begin for many colleges, I will NOT advice candidates about anything. Because this is a collective approach and has to be pondered upon by the colleges and corporate. To the MBA aspirants, get your thoughts clear if you really want to be an MBA or just want to do an MBA.

                                                                           Signing off:-Mr  R.K. Narnoli