Job offers are pouring in at the nation’s top business schools from e-commerce companies and startups, which are on the lookout for managerial talent with a technical background to drive the next phase of growth.
Indian Institutes of Managements in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Kozhikode, and the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) in Delhi said they have seen steep increase in offers this placement season from e-commerce companies as well as startups which have raised funds recently. The demand is largely for management students who are engineering graduates.
“Most startups and e-commerce companies are entering a high-growth phase and they are hungry for talent with management and tech skills,” said Abhishek Goel, chairperson of career development and placement office at IIM-Calcutta. He said these companies were also offering higher salaries than last year.
B-schools refused to share details on salaries, but sources in the placement cells said the packages ranged from 14 lakh to 40 lakh per annum.
There is pressure from investors on startups to deliver, said Shovan Chowdhury, chairperson for placements at IIM-Kozhikode. “They need premium talent (for this) and hence we are seeing more demand.”
Students at IIM-Kozhikode received five offers from CarWale, nine from Amazon and one from Flipkart this year. Last year, the only two offers from these domains had come from Amazon.
Placement officials at other B-schools also confirmed the trend. At FMS-Delhi, the number of offers from the e-commerce sector and startups has more than doubled. Companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Oyo, OfBusiness, Paytm and Rivigo made 48 offers, compared with 20 from these segments last year. At IIM-Bangalore, it rose to 71 from 34.
“Many new startups visited (the campus) in addition to those who hired last year. Hiring by these companies is directly linked to funding,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-Bangalore. Among the new startups that visited IIM-Bangalore this year included Servify, Grab and Udaan.
The roles on offer for students across B-schools are primarily in product management, category management, operations and sales and marketing, placement officials said.
Funding is a factor that is directly contributing to the increased demand for talent from these sectors. Startups and e-commerce companies had gone through a rough patch as recently as in 2016, when Flipkart and some others had deferred offers to campus recruits. This had led the leading engineering institutes to ban some of them from campus placements for a year. Their hiring from top B-schools too had taken a hit. But since last year, most of them are back on campuses.
This season, Flipkart visited the top 15 B-schools, including IIMs, for roles in product and management functions. “Given that these are early years for e-commerce in India, every day brings in fresh challenges to the table. The management trainee talent provides the enthusiasm and fresh perspective required for solving new problems,” said Sandeep Nainwal, head of university relations at the Walmart-owned e-commerce firm.
One of the startups that made its debut at top B-schools this year was Perpule. The company, which has developed a self-checkout product for retail outlets, made five offers, one each at IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Lucknow and at XLRI.
Candidates from B-school bring agility, said Abhinav Pathak, CEO of Perpule, which had raised $4.7 million in Series A funding from Prime Venture Partners, Kalaari Capital and Venture Highway in November 2018.
IIM-Calcutta saw 25 offers from 10 startup and e-commerce companies this year, compared with 17 offers from half a dozen firms last year.
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