Although the 2008-09 financial crises led to a big hit on Finance and Banking jobs, the job market made a comeback in 2012 with the salary and offer trends matching the 2007-08 market conditions. India, one of the fastest growing economies even during the economic crisis led the way. We analyzed the job offers and salary trends in two premier Business Schools in India – IIM Ahmedabad and Indian School of Business. Here are the top 7 trends:
1) Bullish Job Market
The 2012 GMAC report on India’s job trends reveals a huge demand for quality personnel. MBAs and ‘Experienced industry hires’ top the wish list of potential 2012 recruiters with 88% of the companies’ surveyed planning to hire from these two categories. At the same time, just 79% of the global respondents’ indicated a desire to hire MBAs in 2012. This demand is reflected in the fact that above 25% of IIMA’s PGP class of 2012 received offers even before the placement process started.
2) Jobs Available = Student Aspirations?
The top three verticals that graduating Indian MBA students preferred in 2012 were consulting (76%), technology (44%), and finance (33%). At IIMA, 29% of the students were placed in Consulting, 20% in Finance and 14% in IT. Similarly, at ISB, Consulting ruled at 30%, followed by IT/ITES at 28%, but with just 4% for Finance. What this tells us is that most students ended up compromising with regard to career choice, with only the cream actually fulfilling their aspirations.
3) E-Commerce Boom
ISB saw six companies - Amazon, Cleartrip, Expedia, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip and Myntra – together make 28 offers in 2012, up from just 6 last year.As more and more Indians get on the Ecommerce bandwagon, this number is sure to rise.
4) Premier MBA – Largest Salary Increase
The GMAC report clearly indicates why an MBA is very popular among Indians, the third largest group of B-School applicants after USA and china. MBA graduates from premier Indian Business Schools report a massive 213% increase in salary post-MBA as compared to a 75% increase in USA and a 71% increase in China. ISB’s MBA class of 2012 had a median salary of Rs. 1,800,000. On the other hand, the salary of a best-paid IT job for a Software Engineer were in the range of Rs 191,207 - Rs 694,043, while a Senior Software Engineer could earn between Rs 345,243 - Rs 1,025,802.
5) Best Offers – Business School
Indian companies recruit top professionals through three routes - On-campus Recruitment (72%), Employee Referrals (69%) and hiring of former and current interns (48%). For a professional outside the B-School network, the best options are online job searches (48%) and company websites (45%). ISB’s class of 2012 was picked up by companies like Amazon, Cleartrip, Apple, Cognizant, Facebook, AstraZeneca, Bloomberg and Booz.
6) Indian B-Schools Preferred by Asians
According to GMAC, the largest numbers of GMAT scores sent by Asian students were to Indian Business Schools beating previous year’s favorite destinations like Singapore and HongKong. Interestingly, 49% of Indian B-School aspirants sent scores to USA, compared to 17% within India. The reasons for this were international career aspirations (53%) followed by the need to develop an international network (46%).
7) International Recruitment
In 2012, the number of international recruiters in ISB has increased along with the Job Offers, which is at 92 compared to 83 in 2011. The offers came from 11 countries - Germany, Switzerland, Italy, UK, USA, Dubai, Nigeria, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. There were 73 international companies including Apple, Bloomberg, Booz, BT, Expedia, GE, Goldman Sachs, Novartis and Siemens. At IIMA, the international salaries ranged from $47,350 to $1,66,926.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.