Why I Think B-School Placement is Redundant

Recently I came across a blog article which was listing out the dangers of placement being run by students and that placement should be done by professionals.  I put out the link to that article on my Facebook page and the response to it has been very different from what I anticipated.  Some of the readers seem to believe that many B-Schools would shut shop and so on.  Some question my wisdom as to why I am being radical and suggesting that placement should be done away with in B-Schools, and should be a process owned and carried on by employers and their organizations. 

Here is why I feel so.

1.      Placement was a necessity in B-Schools because when they hit the shores of India, in the 60s, no one knew what an MBA programme was.  So to educate the industry, and to demonstrate to them the usefulness of B-School graduates, the pioneering institutes went about “selling” the MBAs.  At the same time, it also ensured that the graduates got suitable jobs (in more current terminology appropriate profiles) so that they would be able to show results.  Such a demonstration effect was also necessary for the MBA programme to really succeed.  Half a century down the line, none of these are valid reasons any more.

2.     In the beginning, placement was an activity which was restricted to a few days/weeks in the last month of the stay of the students in their respective B-Schools.  Is this true anymore?  The answer is that it gets spread over six to seven months of the programme.  It starts anywhere in August/September.  This has brought about several issues which I consider serious

a.     If interviews happen in the second year, most of the grades available are the CGPA when the students have finished the first year compulsory courses.  Most grades of the electives are not available to the employers to judge how good the student is in his/her chosen field of specialization.
What kind of exploration can you do when you meet a student who is yet to do 50-70 per cent of the classes of the second year.? Is there some serious issue here that the employers are not looking at value add of the B-School, or by ignoring this they are undermining the value for education in the student minds?

b.     The focus of the students get diverted and if anecdotal narrations are to be believed, placement committee members end up working only on placement the entire second year thereby not focusing on their studies. 
Given that placement committee members are chosen for their managerial skill and capability, I would consider this a waste of wonderful talent which should spend more time in the class room and sharpen their skills further to become better managers; rather than spend time on selling their class mates.

c.      Students tend to become distracted by placement activity which drags on for such a long time and this affects their learning due to the distracted state of mind.  At the same time class schedules are sacrificed at the altar of the placement gods.  The sixth term ennui; when most students are placed and students are biding time to graduate, is slowly spreading to the fifth term.  I think this is not very good sign and the primary focus of sharpening the perspectives and skills of the students and this should not be sacrificed.

d.     The prolonged placement season has given to rise to another bad situation. All placement activity has gone underground and a veil of secrecy has been drawn over this. This veil makes the process prone to some kind of problems which are talked about here.
Worse, the process loses its ability to self-correct by the critique it receives from the community.  Veils of secrecy obviously invite possibility of manipulation by powers that be.

e.     I would not like to sound very moralistic, but the fact that students sell spiel which border on lies to the employers about which other employers have/have not visited campus for employment etc is probably not very good management-in-practice lessons?

3.     Getting good employees for their organization is the responsibility of the employers.  Why are they not seeking alternative models like working city wide placement efforts (with the active help of the chambers of commerce and similar employer organizations) rather than B-School wise placement efforts? It gives them a wider choice also as many schools would surely participate.  I am sure if it is run by employers organizations like the Chambers and Federations, employers would behave better – less tantrums, more transparency about the offers and it can be easily be subjected to audits by the Chambers. 
Besides, commitment or offers made in a placement process through such employer organization have to be firm and cannot be easily flouted? Unlike what they do in B-Schools – for example delaying the joining date, throwing a tantrum and not turning up at a school just because they did not get a “desired” slot? It is high time employers took responsibility for their own needs and acted to own the processes.

4.     Placement activity is also a resource sapping activity when it is vested in the B-Schools.  Several seminars and round tables are just that - PR activity to enhance employer visits to the campus rather than academic knowledge generation/exchange.  Efforts are not about having a dialogue with the students but to have desirable/targeted managers to come and “speak”; whether they have the skills to speak or not is of least concern often. Lots of money is also pumped into this which could be used to enhance delivery of the programme or knocked off from the fees the students pay for their education.

5.     Placement activity enhances the dependency of the students on the B-Schools. If placement activity is removed, it would enhance their level of independence.  The students would no longer depend on the need of the B-School's desperation to sell their products; they would make a sincere attempt at perspective/skill enhancement and fight it out in the open market.

6.     Given the size of the batches, B-Schools are facing the realities that not all students would be “placed”. The last few who do not make it are branded “failures” just because they may not be suitable for the employer set who have come to that school.  If the students are in the open market or in the employer run placement process, they would find employment for sure as the employer group is bound to be heterogeneous. So no one gets branded as failures and would then be forced to seek jobs in the open market; which is "ab initio" an uphill task.

7.     Individual schools no longer have to toy with setting salary levels for employers who can be invited if the placement process gets owned by the employers.  No longer would they be stuck between employers trying to figure out who should have which slots. Neither would placement committees have to decide how many offers should each student gets.  All that would be decided by the open market or by the employer organisations?
 

Do I believe that placement activity would disappear from the Indian B-School scene? I do not think so. 
The “business model” and the expectation created by the Schools is too deeply engraved in the minds of students.  They see themselves as customers buying a product, which is the job, which takes 20 months to be made, packed and delivered. 
They behave like any customer waiting with the bill to be given the product. 
It would take any B School a lot of courage to break the mould and come out of it and say that they are not responsible for placement.
Kenneth Arrow told us that what may be rational for the society as a whole is not necessarily the sum of the individual rationality.  The age old question of who will bell the cat remains……

Bala @ Panaji