Study: Less Than 10% of Indian MBA Graduates Are ‘Employable’

Wall Street Journal India ^ | December 12, 2012 | Preetika Rana

[Fzob]

India’s estimated 3,300 business schools churn out tens of thousands of management graduates each year. But only a small fraction of them are “employable,” or possess basic skills necessary to work in sectors ranging from marketing to finance, according to an unpublished study. B-School graduates are finding out the hard way. Hitesh Kumar, who completed his MBA from a business school in Allahabad, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, earlier this year, has been unable to find a job as an investment banker. ............... Aspiring Minds based its conclusions on a so-called “employability test” it conducted on 32,000 MBA graduates from 220 business schools across India. The test, which quizzed graduates on topics ranging from grammar to quantitative analysis, found that only 10% of those tested had skills that recruiters typically look for while hiring management graduates. The study found that less than half of the students tested had some knowledge of key industry terms and concepts in their areas of specialty. For instance, a third of the surveyed students who had majored in finance, did not know what IPO – short for initial public offering – stood for.

[llevrok]

In the early 80’s, I lived in Vancouver who had zillions of “PhD Indian physicists” who were driving taxi cabs.

Or at least, that's the education they often mentioned to me.

[Amberdawn]

I’m sick of the idea that only foreign grad’s are worthy of a job in this country. If anything, this merely reinforces my view that college is big business.

[ConservativeInPA]

Too bad it is not in the same in America. There’s nothing like a bunch of foreigners that can’t speak American (not English) who have no idea what it is to be American and think their valuable MS, MBA, PhD’s make them more qualified than people who have real experience in America instead of something that came out of a book.

[max americana]

“For instance, a third of the surveyed students who had majored in finance, did not know what IPO – short for initial public offering – stood for”

Last summer, we interviewed dozens of these Ivy-League B School’ dimwits for a simple financial analyst position. Our simple question of “kindly explain a profit margin ratio..” turned to: “I think profit is about greed”. “umm, profit ratio is about the ratio to make a profit”, to “this company should share it’s profits with the poor”. Yes, they were all B school grads from every known Ivy League uni you could think of.

Our headhunter was apologizing in bunches after the first 3 weeks..

[cdcdawg]

Makes me wonder about the quality of medical education in India.

[sgtyork]

I constantly get calls and emails from Indian recruiters. They have cornered the market in my software and are placing new graduates like this for 1/3 of what the market should be. And now I see the recruiters are minority owned businesses. Why should these people get more support from the government than American citizens

[PghBaldy]

You have a point, but if I had my druthers, I would prefer Indians to Somalis or Pakistanis or Chinese or Mexicans. At least Indians (at least according to polls in India during the Bush years) like the US. Indians I have known seem to have what I call a “middle-class” attitude- work and family and being good citizens. Not so the other groups I mentioned, from my own limited experience living in a neighborhood in which English is often a second language.

[poobear]

Thank God for all of you! Seriously!

[null and void]

There’s nothing like a bunch of foreigners that can’t speak American (not English) who have no idea what it is to be American and think their valuable MS, MBA, PhD’s make them more qualified than people who have real experience in America instead of something that came out of a book.

Wrong problem.

The problem isn't that they think they are more qualified, it's that American companies think they are more qualified!

[null and void]

You have a point, but if I had my druthers, I would prefer Indians to Somalis or Pakistanis or Chinese or Mexicans. At least Indians (at least according to polls in India during the Bush years) like the US. Indians I have known seem to have what I call a “middle-class” attitude- work and family and being good citizens.

Hear hear!

I've been displaced by Indian H1Bs on several occasions. Despite this, I still like them. They 'get' entrepreneurship, they are hard working, decent and have a certain attitude and sense of humor that serves them well.

Silicon Valley would be a far different and poorer place without them and the Vietnamese.

[ConservativeInPA]

it's that American companies think they are more qualified!

OK, you nailed it. BTW, my wife is on the phone with a bunch gooks in China that are taking over a business unit from an American company. She has been working normal business hours plus dealing with China and the Philippines every night. There is no way, these people have what it takes to innovate or even deliver the same quality of service to customers in the US.

[Amberdawn]

I wasn’t singling out Indians to criticize, just the idea that get better value from foreigners with degrees than our own people. I constantly hear businesses complaining about the quality of graduates, but never hear business saying what they want from them. Do they want lower expectations in terms of salary? For them to speak a second language? Perhaps we could get a better match if business laid down their requirements.

[Mears]

“You have a point, but if I had my druthers, I would prefer Indians to Somalis or Pakistanis or Chinese or Mexicans. At least Indians (at least according to polls in India during the Bush years) like the US. Indians I have known seem to have what I call a “middle-class” attitude- work and family and being good citizens.”

-

You don’t think the Chinese have a “middle class” attitude-work and family and being good citizens?

You have GOT to be kidding.

.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Et tu, B?

April 5, 2011 http://online.wsj.com/article. India Graduates Millions, but Too Few Are Fit to Hire

"Many recent engineering grads in India say that after months of job hunting they are still unemployed and lack the skills necessary to join the workforce. Critics say corruption and low standards are to blame."

[null and void]

The saying here in Silicon Valley is "Half the Chinese here are spying on us. The other half are spying on them!"

The Chinese idea of a fair trade is never leave anything for the other guy.

They suck all the life out of a company, a customer, a supplier and leave an empty husk.

Indians seem to want their customers, suppliers, employees and companies to thrive.

[Ditto]

Last summer, we interviewed dozens of these Ivy-League B School’ dimwits for a simple financial analyst position.

I think it might be important to point out that these are grads from schools in India, not Indiana or any US schools. (It's an article from the WSJ India edition)

I don't know how US B-school students would test out under the same guidelines, but given today's' US education standards, probably only marginally better.

But I do have some experience in working with Indians who have engineering degrees, and I'd say it was a positive experience on the whole with some super-stars involved in the mix and a few duds.

I'd suggest that the way their economy has been growing in India in recent years, and with a burgeoning middle class sending their kids to college instead of the rice patties, the education system has likely been overloaded.

Any enterprise, even a university, can only grow so fast and maintain quality. As the article said, they have several hundred thousand now going to college just for business degrees. Millions going to college overall.

It would be no surprise to me if the university systems there have expanded faster than their ability to deliver a quality education.

Rapid growth in demand quickly exposes weaknesses and flaws. That's in Business 101 as I learned it years ago. Growth brings new problems. Rapid growth brings big-big problems. ;~))

[BobL]

Where my kids go to college, you’d be REALLY HARD PRESSED to see any American kids in challenging technical fields - they’re all foreigners (or at least kids of foreign-born parents).

American parents are FAR TOO BUSY trying to make sure that their kids get that starting gig on the football team and FAR TOO STUPID to realize that today’s schools are out to fail their kids, BY DESIGN.

Have a look...if you can take it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

[Little Pig]

The problem is really two-fold: On the one hand, many if not most Indian B-schools really don’t teach; they lecture. The students are rarely required to do anything other than rote memorization so they can correctly respond to the answers on the examinations. Unfortunately, being able to function in business requires being able to think creatively, and they just aren’t taught that except at a very few high-end schools. There are lots more B-schools in India than elsewhere, but the number of good ones is really no higher than anywhere else.

The second problem is cultural. Indians as a whole lack the ability to do future planning. Project planners are rare in India, and most things that would normally require extensive planning, such as construction or IT projects, are instead approached with an attitude of “just winging it”. This attitude extends into practically every aspect of life, and no doubt affects B-school graduates just as deeply. As a result, budgeting, forecasting, business strategy and many other critical tools in a manager’s arsenal are missing from Indian B-school graduates. And lest anyone think I’m being racist, or stereotyping, I live in India, and am merely relaying what several Indians themselves have told me.

[Nifster]

Not news to an EE who has worked in silicon valley.....so many of those ‘trained’ engineers couldn’t design their way out of a paper bag....but they were always quick to take the credit for someone else’s work