mba placement

FACTORS AFFECTING THE PLACEMENT PROSPECTSOF MBA STUDENTS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Shreekumar K. Nair and Sadhana Ghosh

This paper presents the results of a study that attempted to link students’ placement prospects, operationalisedthrough student perceptions of recruiting organisations to certain academic parameters such as performancein the entrance examination, group discussion, as well as personal interview, grade point average, internshipmarks, and ratings on extra- curricular activities. The study revealed that students having prior workexperience got placement in organisations which are perceived to be better. Also, students with workexperience performed better in the personal interview as compared to freshers. Further, students withwork experience were found to be comparable with freshers in respect of their performance in the entranceexamination, group discussion and internship.

IN recent times, business schools in the country aregiving a lot of importance to student placements. Thereason is that, to a large extent, the image and brand

value of a B-school depends on its placement record. B-schools vie with one another to get the best companieson their campuses. In fact, in B-school surveys, the kindof placements offered is an important parameterdetermining the rating of that school. On the other hand,there is fierce competition among prospective studentsto gain admission to the best business schools in thecountry as well as abroad. These business schools reallymean business and flaunt their ratings to woo the besttalent. The fact is that while business schools aremushrooming in the country, placements are becomingcritical to their very survival.

In most developed countries like the United States,etc. the initial screening of candidates for admission tothe master’s programme in business administration, atthe institutes of higher learning is through GMAT andGRE. These examinations are continuously validated toensure the suitability of the candidates for the specificprogrammes. The educational system also provides theflexibility to change from one programme to anotherdepending on the aptitude and the interest of thecandidate. In developing countries like India, the studenthas to appear in many entrance examinations for a post-

graduate programme. Different agencies conduct theseentrance examinations, resulting in non-uniformity in thescreening process. Moreover, very little effort is madeto validate the entrance examinations as per scientificmethods and procedures. In fact, the concept of testvalidation and development of validation methods arealmost half a century old. Thorndike (1964) and Anastasi(1966) had recommended certain validation methods fortests to be used in selection. Ideally, a selectionexamination using a battery of validated tests should helpin maximizing the chances of selecting the rightcandidates and rejecting the wrong candidates whileminimising the chances of selecting the wrong candidatesand rejecting the right candidates.

The selection process of students for almost all themanagement programmes involves initial screening ofthe applicants using a battery of aptitude tests, followedby group discussion and interview. These selectionmethods are somewhat stereotyped in nature and businessinstitutes rarely bother about their predictive validity,which means uncertainty as to the accuracy of thesemethods in selecting the best candidates for managementeducation. Different agencies conduct these entranceexaminations, most of which lack any evidence of auniform pattern for screening applicants. Ideally, theselection tools should be able to identify potential

VISION—The Journal of Business Perspective ● Vol. 10 ● No. 1 ● January–March 2006

42 ● Nair and Ghosh

managers, who could be groomed through managementeducation and subsequently offered to industry. Indeed,companies make use of a variety of selection methodsduring placements to determine the students’ suitabilityfor managerial positions.

The written entrance examinations used at most ofthe B-schools comprise an assortment of tests to assessdesirable managerial attributes such as analytical skills,quantitative skills, language ability, business awareness,etc. The tests are usually of the objective, multiple-choicetype format, calling for both speed and accuracy sincethey are loaded with a large number of questions whichthe candidates have to answer within a limited time.There are minimum cut-off marks for each of the teststo avoid selecting candidates with low scores in any ofthe specific aptitudes. The scores on each of the tests areaggregated to get total marks on the entranceexamination. Thus, the short-listed candidates are at thehigher end in terms of total marks and also comfortablysurpass the test-wise cut-off marks. Since managerialaptitude tests assess managerial potential, there is reasonto assume that candidates with better performance in thewritten examination get better placements.

In almost every B-school, candidates short-listed inthe written entrance examination are called for groupdiscussion (GD) and personal interview (PI) for whichmarks are awarded separately. Finally, marks in theentrance examination, GD, and personal interview areadded to arrive at the aggregate marks, which areconsidered for selection to the programme. While makingcampus recruitments, HR executives from differentcompanies invariably conduct group discussions andinterviews with the students. The GDs and interviewsconducted by these recruiters are usually similar to thoseconducted by the B-schools for their admissions. Eventhe attributes that are seen in the candidates are similar.Therefore, those candidates who score high marks ingroup discussions as well as interviews conducted bythe business schools at the time of admissions are quitelikely to find themselves placed in better companies atthe time of campus recruitments.

From the placement point of view, companies arefound to generally prefer students with 2 or 3 years ofexperience in industry vis-à-vis freshers from B-schools.Students with experience are already exposed to thedynamics of organisational functioning and are in a betterposition to adjust rapidly to the complexities and crisesthat are characteristic of organisational life. With studentshaving adequate experience, companies can usuallybypass the need for further formalized training, putting

them on the job straight away. A study by Weinsteinand Srinivasan (1974), tried to link the annualcompensation of 136 alumni of a graduate managementprogramme with their work experience. Results of thisstudy showed that work experience prior to graduateschool entry was predictive of managerial compensation.

In the case of students passing out of college withprofessional degrees, the single best-known indicator oftheir academic achievement is the grade point average(GPA). Particularly in business education, the GPA hasbeen used as one of the important pointers for students’academic performance. Recruiters sometimes explicitlyspecify the requirements for a job applicant’s GPA, andrecruiters almost always require applicants to report theirGPAs either directly or indirectly (Fang et al., 2004). Itseems that recruiters believe that students’ GPAs offerevidence of how well students are prepared for theircareers, other things being equal.

In one study (Rosson, et al., 1973), the results basedon the 478 responses indicated no significant differencesbetween the GPAs of employed and unemployedgraduates. In other words, based on the evidence of thisstudy, the assumption that students with high grades havea better chance of obtaining employment is not valid.However, the Rosson et al. (1973) study includedresponses from various fields of study. Subsequently,Astin (1977) pointed out that students with higher GPAsare more likely to complete occupational and professionaltraining than are students with low GPAs and therefore,GPA can be used as an indicator of career development.In another study (Albrecht, et al., 1994), 80.5 per centof all recruiters representing 664 employers reported apreferred minimum grade point ratio. In particular,business recruiters held true to their emphasis on grades.The results of the study indicate that employers valueboth high grades and high involvement, such asparticipation in student organisation and pre-professionalactivities, although the value placed on grades issomewhat higher. Thus, it seems that students with higherGPAs as well as those with higher involvement in extracurricular activities enjoy better placement prospects.

Ray, et al. (1994) conducted a study to find out whatcriteria are used for the screening and selection of collegeand university business graduates for employment. Thisresearch supports and further confirms other researchregarding the necessity for business students to developskill in all forms of communication; communicationskills are perceived by HRM professionals as the mostimportant criteria for evaluating business graduates.Many researchers (e.g. Edge, 1985; Porter and


Factors Affecting the Placement Prospects of MBA Students ● 43

McKibbin, 1988; Ralston, 1989) have documented theimportance of communication skills for businessgraduates. During placement time, recruiters assess thecommunication skills of the students through groupdiscussions and interviews. This would mean thatstudents who score well in group discussion as well aspersonal interview are likely to end up in good companiesthrough campus placements.

One of the important components of an MBAprogramme is the internship, which in most B-schoolsis for a period of 3 months. Students compete with oneanother to do projects with the best companies, in theirarea of choice. The internship is essentially a win–winsituation for both the institute and the industry; whilethe institute finds it a means of strengthening itsinteraction with industry and thereby sell its products,the industry on its part uses the opportunity to researchand find answers to problems that would, otherwise, havecalled for the services of a professional consultant. Atthe time of campus recruitment, companies show keeninterest in the project being done by the student, and hiscontribution normally has a significant impact on hisoverall prospects of getting a job offer. Therefore,students who do well in the internship could be expectedto get into better-rated companies. This view is supportedby a study by Knouse et al. (1999), which examined therelationship of business college internships to collegeperformance and to subsequent job opportunities. Resultsshowed that internships were significantly co-related tojob offers received upon graduation. Recently, Callananand Benzing (2004) analysed the relationship betweenthe completion of an internship assignment prior tograduation and subsequent employment in a career-oriented job after graduation. This study showed a linkbetween completion of an internship assignment andfinding career-oriented employment after graduation.

Based on this review of literature, we identifiedcertain factors that were important for placement.However, in-depth research in this area, in the Indiancontext, is not available in the published literature. It wastherefore felt worthwhile to identify the factors thatactually determine the placement prospects of B-schoolstudents in India. Accordingly, the following hypotheseswere examined.

Hypothesis 1: Candidates with experience get into abetter organisation.

Hypothesis 2: Candidates with better performance inthe entrance examination get into a betterorganisation.

Hypothesis 3: Candidates with better performance inthe group discussion get into a betterorganisation.

Hypothesis 4: Candidates with better performance inthe personal interview get into a betterorganisation.

Hypothesis 5: Candidates with higher grade pointaverage get into a better organisation.

Hypothesis 6: Candidates with better performance inthe internship get into betterorganisations.

Hypothesis 7: Candidates participating in extra-curricular activities get into betterorganisations.

Each academic year, in developed countries like theUS, numerous new management graduates emerge toseek employment (Maher and Silverman, 2002). Despiteincreases in unemployment among managers in recentyears (Barta, 2003), competition for these and otherbusiness administration graduates, especially for thosewho are highly qualified, is intense (Strout, 2000). Theprevailing situation in India is no different. Given thebuyer’s market for M.B.A. talent, business schools andstudents would be well advised to satisfy the desires ofthe prospective employers. Today, a science, commerceor engineering degree alone does not help attaining fastercareer growth: many realise this after being in the job ayear or more. The management institutes attract a goodnumber of candidates with experience, all aspiring forfast-track career growth. On the other hand, organisationsare realising that it is ultimately people who are thedriving force in companies, and are therefore investingsubstantially in hiring and grooming bright youngmanagement graduates.

B-schools prefer to admit students with adequatework experience, the reason being that they are moresaleable as compared to freshers. When recruiting MBAcandidates, corporate staffing specialists look at the valueand appropriateness of a candidate’s work experienceprior to graduate school (Ettorre, 1992). Indeed, studentswith experience are more adept at relating classroomlearning to actual situations in organisations, andtherefore benefit more from business education. A studyby Carver and King (1994) reviewed the admission,criteria for a non-traditional MBA programme byinvestigating a group of students who were employedfull time while pursuing the MBA degree. The majorfinding is that the combination of GMAT score,undergraduate GPA and work experience is the bestpredictor of success for students in an MBA programme.



Students with prior work experience have a goodblend of theory and practice as regards their technicalknowledge. The entrance examination papers contain amix of theory as well as application oriented questions,which is why students with work experience can beexpected to perform better in the written examination ascompared to freshers. Moreover, students with workexperience are generally found to exude more confidencevis-à-vis students without work experience in groupdiscussions and interviews. No doubt, sufficient exposureto the workplace helps a B-school aspirant to get a feelof organisational realities. It is also a fact that a majorityof B-schools prefer students with work experience asthey have an edge over the freshers during placements,meaning that candidates with work experience may scorehigher in the personal interview for admission to theprogramme. It is also reasonable to expect students withwork experience to do well in academics, since they havebetter insights into workplace realities. Therefore, theycan be expected to have a higher GPA as well as a higherinternship score. Above all, students with workexperience can be considered to be better in extra-curricular activities as well. In almost every B-school,there are regular events organised by students which areeither semi-academic or cultural in nature. Theexperience of working in any organisation can help aperson to gain the skill set required for organising – andeven participating in – various events during the courseof the programme.

Based on this rationale and the findings of studiesquoted earlier, the following hypotheses wereformulated:

Hypothesis 8: A candidate’s performance in theentrance examination depends on workexperience.

Hypothesis 9: A candidate’s performance in the groupdiscussion depends on workexperience.

Hypothesis 10: A candidate’s performance in thepersonal interview depends on workexperience.

Hypothesis 11: A candidate’s grade point averagedepends on work experience.

Hypothesis 12: A candidate’s performance ininternship depends on work experience.

Hypothesis 13: A candidate’s participation in extra-curricular activities depends on workexperience.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study was to identify and relatefactors contributing to the placement prospects of MBAstudents in a B-school. The study attempted to relatestudents’ academic admission-related variables with theoverall rating or brand value of the companies in whichthey got placements. The factors/variables consideredto have a bearing on the placement prospects were (1)Work Experience, (2) Entrance Examination Score, (3)Group Discussion Score, (4) Personal Interview Score(5) Grade Point Average, (6) Internship, and (7) Ratingon Extra-curricular Activities. The study also attemptedto relate students’ prior work experience with factorssuch as (1) Entrance Examination Score, (2) GroupDiscussion Score, (3) Personal Interview Score, (4)Grade Point Average, (5) Internship, and (6) Rating onExtra-curricular Activities.

METHODOLOGY

A sample of 154 management students who passed outin different batches from a B-school located in Mumbaiwas considered for the study. The performance of thesestudents in the entrance examination during the courseand for the placement was tracked and normalised. Thesecontinuous variables were seen for their distributionpattern and then grouped into three based on quartiles.Placement prospect of the student was decided on thebasis of the overall rating of the company in which he/she got placed during campus recruitment. Sincenationwide objective ratings of the companies are notavailable, in this study, an attempt was made to quantifythe perceptions of the students regarding theorganisations based on five parameters, viz. (i) jobprofile, (ii) company image, (iii) career growth, (iv)salary and perks, and (v) HR policy. Student perceptionsof the companies on these five dimensions wereconsidered for rating the organisations. To get the“Overall Company Rating”, perceptions of studentsabout the organisations were captured using a surveyquestionnaire containing items pertaining to these fivedimensions. Responses of the students to the 20-itemquestionnaire were obtained on a 5-point Likert scalewith the options: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral,Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.

Variables such as work experience, entranceexamination score, group discussion score, personalinterview score, internship score, and GPA were in ratioscale, whereas rating on extra-curricular activities andoverall company rating were in interval scale (Likert



type). Rating on extra-curricular activities was based onthe active involvement of the students in certain activitiesduring the course of the programme. Participation of thestudents in extra-curricular activities was assessed byconsidering the time spent by them on activities, viz.,organising academic-cum-recreation events like summerinternship contest, business incubation, case studycontest, business quiz, placement and project relatedactivities, coordination with the press for the institute’sactivities, etc.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

A comprehensive data analysis was conducted usingvarious statistical tools to find out the factors having animpact on the campus placement of the students. Mostof the variables were regrouped into three such asSatisfactory, Good and Excellent. Work Experience wasclustered into four groups, namely, <6 months, 6–12months, 12-30 months, and >30 months for doing chi-square tests. ‘Extra-Curricular Activities’ was categorisedinto three parts: “No Participation’, ‘ModerateParticipation’, and ‘Active Participation’ groups. We didthe cross-tabulation from the placement perspective forthe overall company rating with all the other variables,i.e. Work Experience, Score in Entrance Examination,Group Discussion Scores, Personal Interview Scores,Ratings on Extra Curricular Activities, Internship, andGPA. Table 1 gives one of the cross tabulations of overallcompany rating vs. work experience in months.Similarly, other study variables were tabulated, overallcompany rating being common to all.

Table 1: Overall Company Rating vs. Work Experience:Cross Tabulations

Overall company Work eperience

rating in months <6 6-12 12-30 >30 Total1. Satisfactory 23 4 10 3 40

2. Good 15 23 27 13 78

3. Excellent 8 13 11 4 36

Total 46 40 48 20 154

Chi-square tests of homogeneity were performed forthe groups based on the category of organisations theyhave been placed vs. work experience, their performancein the entrance exam, GD, personal interview, theirperformance in various semesters during the course, andtheir involvement in the extra curricular activities. Thesummary of results is given in Table 2. The chi-squaretests of homogeneity indicate that work experience,

personal interview during admission process and extracurricular activities during the course have an impact onthe placement position of students.

Table 2: Chi-Square Tests of Homogeneity for OverallCompany Rating

S. Grouping Response Chi- Prob>No. variable variable Square Chi-Square1 Overall Work Experience 21.71 0.0014**

CompanyRating

2 Score in Entrance 1.937 0.3796Examination

3 Group Discussion 2.339 0.88604 Personal Interview 21.12 0.0017**

5 Extra Curricular 6.131 0.0466*Activities

6 Internship 1.578 0.4543

7 GPA 9.45 0.0508

Note: * Significant at 5 per cent level of significance; ** Significantat 1 per cent level of significance.

Table 3: Means of Overall Company Rating for the 'WorkExperience' Groups

Work Number Mean Std. Lower Upperexperience error 95% 95%No 46 3.28093 0.09096 3.1012 3.4606

Yes 108 3.61315 0.05662 3.5013 3.7250

Note: Z = 3.10, P = .000968

Further, it was of interest to try and ascertain ifstudents with work experience have an edge over thefreshers in terms of better campus placement. Weclustered the data into two groups: with and without workexperience. Means of the overall company rating werecompared for the two groups. The means of the twogroups have been tabulated in Table 3. The mean ofoverall company rating is 3.61 for the group with workexperience and 3.28 for the group not having workexperience. P-value (probability of significance) forcomparing means is 0.000968, indicating that thecandidates with prior work experience are preferred bybetter-rated organisations.

Another factor which had impact on B-schoolstudents’ placements was their performance in thePersonal Interview (PI). Therefore, it was of interest toknow if candidates with better performance in PI get intobetter organisations. Performance in PI was clustered intofive groups, viz. Satisfactory, Fair, Good, Very Good,



and Excellent. The means for the same have beentabulated in Table 4 along with standard error of themeans and 95 per cent confidence intervals of the means.Figure 1 shows the pictorial view of data and means ofthe overall company rating for the five groups based onthe personal interview scores. The means of the overallcompany ratings for the five groups were comparedthrough one-way analysis of variance. The F-ratio of2.4660 with df 4 and 149, and P-value of 0.0474 showed

that these means are significantly different for the groups.The Tukey-Kramer test was, therefore, applied to findwhich pairs of means are significantly different. The testshowed that the pair for which means of overall companyrating was significantly different was the pair with ‘fair’and ‘excellent’ performance in PI. This implies that thestudents scoring higher in personal interview during theirselection for the MBA course do get placed in better-rated organisations.

The third factor that was of importance in theplacement of B-school students is extra curricularactivities. The next line of analysis was to see howdifferent levels of participation in extra curricularactivities helps the students in getting better placements.The mean scores on overall company rating of the threegroups based on extra curricular activities were comparedthrough ANOVA. The F value was found to be 5.370 at2 and 151 df with P = 0.006. The means, standard error,and 95 per cent confidence intervals are given in Table5. Further, when Tukey-Kramer test was done to comparethe pairs of means, the ‘Moderate Participation’ and‘Active Participation’ groups turned out to besignificantly different.

Subsequently, we were interested in exploring andfinding out as to which of the factors were associatedwith work experience. All the study variables weretabulated with respect to work experience. A student withless than 6 months of experience was considered to be afresher. Table 6 shows one such table of work experiencevs. PI performance. Chi-square tests and P-values aretabulated in Table 7. The data analysis shows that workexperience has an impact only on personal interview and

Ove

rall

Com

pany

Rat

ing

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

1 2 3 4 5 All PairsTukey-Kramer 0.05

Figure 1 : Overall Company Rating vs. Personal Interview Performance

Table 4: Means of Overall Company Ratings Scores for 'PIPerformance' Levels

PI Perfor- Num- Mean Std Lower Uppermance level ber error 95% 95%1. Satisfactory 31 3.43419 0.10806 3.2207 3.6477

2. Fair 43 3.40791 0.09175 3.2266 3.5892

3. Good 18 3.39333 0.14181 3.1131 3.6735

4. Very Good 28 3.54143 0.11370 3.3168 3.7661

5. Excellent 34 3.79118 0.10318 3.5873 3.9951

Note: F= 2.4660, P=0.0474.

Table 5: Means of Overall Company Rating Scores for 'ExtraCurricular Activities' Groups

Participation in Num- Mean Std. Lower Upperextra curricular ber error 95% 95%activities

1. No Participation 83 3.54 0.0653 3.4118 3.6716

2. Moderate 39 3.28 0.1086 3.0678 3.5076 Participation

3. Active 32 3.74 0.0851 3.5752 3.9223 Participation

Note: F = 5.370, P = 0.006.



not on the other study variables, i.e. group discussion,entrance examination, internship, extra-curricularactivities as well as GPA. That is to say, the performanceof students with work experience gets differentiated onlyin their performance in PI. It can thus be inferred thatstudents with experience perform better in the personalinterview and get placed in better organisations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Results of the study indicated the span or duration ofwork experience to have an impact on the kind ofplacements that students get. This supports Hypothesis1. In fact, it was found that students with 12 to 30 months’work experience get into better organisations incomparison with those with less than or more than thisrange of experience. This means that the relationshipbetween work experience and placement is not linear.Further analysis was done to see whether students withor without experience differ in terms of their placements.Results clearly showed that students with prior workexperience are preferred by better-rated organisationsduring campus placements. This reinforces Hypothesis1.Interestingly, this finding also indicates a consciousattempt on the part of companies to consider workexperience as an important parameter for campus

recruitment. As pointed out by Ettore (1992), recruitersinvariably look at the value and appropriateness of acandidate’s work experience while selecting MBAcandidates. Personal interview was also found to have abearing on student placements. That means, studentsobtaining more marks in the personal interview at thetime of admission to the programme got into better-ratedorganisations, and vice versa. Thus, this finding supportsHypothesis 4. Moreover, participation in extra-curricularactivities was found to be related to student placement.Students who had been actively involved in extra-curricular activities during the course of their programmegot into better organisations and vice versa. Thisvindicates Hypothesis 7 as well.

Findings of this study, however, show that factorssuch as students’ entrance examination marks, groupdiscussion marks, internship marks, and GPA do notaffect placements. Therefore, Hypotheses 2, 3, 5, and 6are not supported by the results obtained. The entranceexamination seems to be acting as a screening deviceonly and is not really predicting students’ placementprospects. Same is the case with group discussion. Whilecommunication skills are considered by researchers (e.g.Edge, 1985; Porter and McKibbin, 1988; Ralston, 1989)to be important for business graduates, performance ingroup discussion is not positively related to placementprospects. It seems that although almost all companiesconduct group discussions at the time of campusplacements, the attributes that are looked for in thestudents are different from those sought by the B-school.Further, as an index of students’ academic achievementin the programme, the GPA did not play a role in theirprospects of entering a better-rated organisation. Inretrospect, while looking at the GPA we found that,firstly, the range in GPAs is very small across differentbatches. Secondly, some companies conduct their owntests in the subject knowledge for the initial screening,ignoring the GPA. These could be the possible reasonsfor the GPA not being statistically significant as far asplacement is concerned. As such, the study by Rosson,et al. (1973) did not find students with high grades tohave a better chance of obtaining employment vis-à-visthose with low grades. Internship marks are also not seento be predictive of students’ chances of getting betterplacements. Just as in the case of GPA, students are foundto score very good marks in internship, making it difficultto differentiate between them. This could be attributedto the fact that the students who constituted the samplein this study represented the crème-de-la-crème of thestudent community in the country.

Table 6: Personal Interview Performance vs. Workexperience: Cross Tabulations

Work experience in monthsPI performance <6 6-12 12-30 >30 Total1. Satisfactory 23 6 8 7 44

2. Good 19 23 27 7 76

3. Excellent 4 11 13 6 34

Total 46 40 48 20 154

Table 7: Chi-Square Tests of Homogeneity for WorkExperience

S. Grouping Response Chi- Prob>No. variable variable Square Chi-Square1. Work Score in entrance 2.006 0.3667

experience examination

2 Group discussion 0.340 0.8460

3 Personal interview 17.598 0.0002**

4 Internship 0.1040 0.7470

5 Extra curricular 1.897 0.387activities

6 GPA 0.855 0.652

Note: ** Significant at 1 per cent level of significance.



The next stage of the study consisted of finding outwhether the two categories of students, i.e. students withwork experience and those without prior work experiencediffer in terms of variables such as entrance examinationmarks, group discussion marks, personal interviewmarks, internship marks, GPA, and extra-curricularactivities. Results indicated that students with workexperience perform better in the personal interview.Hypothesis 10 gets supported by this finding. As such,performance of the students in the personal interviewleverages their selection in the course. It is possible thatby virtue of their prior work experience, these studentsare comparatively more practical, mature and confidentenough to face the interview panel. On the other hand,freshers are probably not able to relate to the practicalproblems of the industry and lack the much needed self-confidence required to do well at interviews. It is alsolikely that there is inherent bias in favour of studentswith work experience for the institution as well as therecruiting companies. Generally, B-schools take intoaccount the experience requirements of the recruitingcompanies while selecting candidates for theirmanagement programmes. In this study, the relationshipbetween the admission interviews and the placementinterviews could not be explored, as we did not haveaccess to the marks of the students for their placementinterviews. As such, recruiters are found to applydifferent parameters and yardsticks in their recruitmentinterviews, there being little similarity in their placementprocesses. In respect of the other variables, students withwork experience were found to be no different from thosewithout work experience. Thus, Hypotheses 8, 9, 11, 12,and 13 are not supported by the findings.

Further analysis (in the form of one-way analysis ofvariance) of the relationship of candidates’ performancein the personal interview with the overall company ratingrevealed that students who were rated as ‘satisfactory’,‘fair’, ‘good’, ‘very good’ and ‘excellent’ in the personalinterview got placed in companies with significantlydifferent overall ratings. In other words, these fivecategories of students got employment in companiesdiffering in their brand image. Students who were givenemployment by the better-rated organisations were theones who scored higher marks in the personal interview.In fact, we observed a maximum difference in the ‘fair’and ‘excellent’ categories of students as regards theoverall ratings of companies they have been placed.These two categories of students were distinctly differentin terms of their standing in the personal interview andfinally ended up in two different levels of companies inaccordance with their interview performance.

The findings of this study have implications for B-schools which follow a three-step process to admitstudents for their management programmes. As aselection criterion, prior work experience should be givensufficient weightage by the B-schools, otherwise it couldadversely affect their placements. In fact, B-schools haveto keep in mind the nature and duration of workexperience as desired by the recruiters while selectingthe students. Further, the fact that students’ marks in thepersonal interview had a disproportionate impact on theirplacement prospects justifies the use of the personalinterview, in its present form, as a method for selectionof students for the management programme conductedby the B-school under study.

However, students’ performance in the writtenentrance examination as well as group discussion didnot prove to have any influence on their placementprospects. This perhaps raises questions about the utilityof these two approaches in their present form in selectingstudents who can get good placements. But this wouldin no way mean that selection methods, entranceexamination and group discussion do not serve thepurpose of spotting good candidates for the managementprogramme. It would also be worthwhile examining theway internal assessments are made to award grade pointsto the students. Likewise, it would be prudent to haveanother, closer look at the way evaluations of internship/project presentations are done in the B-school.

This study is purely exploratory in nature and theresults are based on data collected from a singleB-school. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalisedin terms of applicability to all B-schools in the country.Indeed, data from an adequate sample of B-schools inthe country have to be drawn for arriving at definiteconclusions regarding the factors influencing theplacement prospects of MBA students. Further, it wouldbe of interest to all management institutes to have anunderstanding of the variables that discriminate thedeserving candidates from the undeserving ones in termsof their performance in the course. Future research shouldconsider other plausible academic as well as personalvariables of the students that can have an impact onB-school placements. Most importantly, on-the-jobperformance of the graduated students could be trackedand related to the various antecedent variables.Moreover, the validity of the placement interview inidentifying potential managers could be an addeddimension to be studied while extending this research.



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Shreekumar K. Nair, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is currently working with National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE),Mumbai as Associate Professor in the area of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management. He has more than 16 yearsexperience in teaching, training, and personnel selection. He has published empirical papers on topics like the job characteristicsmodel, managerial effectiveness, locus of control, emotional intelligence, and work values. His current areas of interests are emotionalintelligence, work values, and competency mapping.

Sadhana Ghosh, Fellow-NITIE ([email protected]) is currently working with National Institute of Industrial Engineering(NITIE), Mumbai as Professor in the Operations Management area. She has more than 25 years of experience in teaching, training, andinitiating quantitative approach to problem solving in organizations. She has been a Board Member of NITIE, Academic Co-ordinatorand also the Professor-in-charge, Placements, at NITIE. Her interest areas are quality management and process improvement throughsix sigma.

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