Leading business schools in India today have multiple points of interface with industry. Alumni participate in the admission process; corporate leaders are invited to participate in orientation and corporate guest lectures are a regular feature. Two-three months into an MBA, students go through elaborate recruitment processes for summer internship. Students at top institutes also have access to corporate run business school competitions. Many courses involve visiting faculty from industry and some progressive faculty embed industry-relevant projects into their courses.
This seems like a strongly positive picture. MBA students at top schools have significant exposure to the corporate world and often have had some first-hand exposure to the corporate environments they will be a part of when they graduate.
There is, however, a downside to this. Conceptually, the emphasis of most industry interaction in a business school is geared to helping students find a well-paying job, as also help corporates find the best student. Both industry and B-School leadership are responsible for this and the thirst for rankings (and consequently, the cost to company at graduation as a barometer of success, which even the best schools cannot get away from) makes it even more difficult for academic leaders to address this vicious circle.
Why is this a problem? There are many dimensions. An MBA student enters a programme and starts preparing a resume within two weeks. At established schools, there is a strong mentoring process whereby senior students start preparing juniors for summer internship interviews. There are many distortions which arise as a consequence.
The first year of the MBA programme is meant to expose students to broader courses, as well as give them an exposure to the core functional areas. Many years back, it was perfectly acceptable to experiment with an internship in one area and then take a job in another. This is becoming increasingly difficult. What this implies is that students are forced to pick specialisations at the time of summer internship interviews
(two-to-three months into the programme) and fashion, herd instincts and compensation (probably in reverse order) dictate the choices that students make.
It is often too early for students to demonstrate achievements within the MBA programme and shortlisting for summer internships is largely on the basis of the pre-MBA resume. This implies that students who do not graduate from pedigreed undergraduate institutions are at a double disadvantage. They are relatively handicapped at the point of entry and, even if they surpass that barrier with a strong CAT score, they may still
miss many shortlists. The herd instinct implies that a vast majority of students aspire to consulting jobs as their first preference and the importance of pedigree and outstanding past achievement implies that many quickly realise that they will not even get a chance to interview for these jobs.
Students spend more time and energy on preparing for the interview that gets you a job than the curriculum, which is supposed to prepare you for the career which is initiated by the first job
The net upshot, then, is this. Students spend more time and energy on preparing for the interview that gets you a job than the curriculum, which is supposed to prepare you for the career which is initiated by the first job. Many faculty will tell you that students who convert internships to jobs are less serious about the curriculum in the second year.
There is a real likelihood that 5-10 years down the line, there will be a real disillusionment of the corporate world with the MBA degree. This is because the corporate world will expect rapid adaptation, and many MBAs who have not invested in fundamental learning will be ill-prepared.
There is an alternative and it begins with real, deep industry integration. Leaders of the top 10 business schools and the top 30 corporate recruiters need to come to the table and say, ‘What qualities do we require of business school graduates over a 15-year horizon?’ This will involve some forward thinking, and some scenario planning. Together, we can then identify a set of directions for curriculum evolution over the next three to five years.
We must also identify current practices that are detrimental to student learning in the first year. Internship interviews for summer placement should only begin eight months into the curriculum. This is only possible through joint and concerted action by the top schools (these are otherwise difficult trends for any single school to buck).
Corporate competitions should only be allowed in second year of the programme. Industry and academia must come together to value the education process, and think beyond the race to attract the best student into their companies.
The author was formerly dean at two leading business schools: SPJIMR and BITSoM