Back to Basics?

Hello World!

Have been thinking of blogging for quite a while...finally decided to start off today...not sure what triggered this..but here i am...

I read an article somewhere in the papers today which talked about companies in India looking at hiring more and more graduates in positions currently occupied by or reserved for the Post Graduates from the premium institutes in the country and abroad.

Just got me wondering...where are we headed? Its good to hear that our graduate population can now begin to look at industry sectors other than the booming BPO/KPO space..but the primary question in my mind is ...what's really prompting this?

Where is our tertiary education system going wrong...why are our companies failing to see the value of hiring the products of these Business Schools who are supposedly the best minds/visionaries the country has on offer. Are we saying that they aren't needed any more or is the need being felt only for a few "critical" positions..which will only get fewer as times pass by?

Just thought I would pen down the possible explanations for this:

1. Maybe the companies are relooking at their roles - may be these positions didn't need MBA's after all. These roles could easily be performed by Graduates, but for some reason the companies felt that hiring over qualified people for such roles would be beneficial to the company in the long run. After years of experimentation, the companies have realized its not really worth it and so they've begun changing one of the sections of the Job Specification file and started going to top Graduate schools instead to fill them up. So what happens now is that companies end up with a lot of people who are young and energetic but are not really "middle management" material..so an average tenure at the entry or lower levels of management would increase multifold (may be become 3x) and hence the companies get more time to groom these folks into what they want them to be...send them for specialized training and derive more value from them over a longer period. Don't see anything wrong with this explanation but am sure there's more to it :)

2. Maybe companies are now beginning to differentiate between the value adding and non value adding activities. My guess is that any MBA hired from a premier institute may be spending at least 60% (even more) of his time doing non-value adding and repetitive tasks which could be done by a graduate (or even a diploma holder?) So why not combine such tasks of 2 -3 people, convert it into one or two jobs for graduate and hire 1 MBA instead to do the remaining value adding work (planning, organizing, directing etc. etc. etc.) So what might really be happening is that companies may be dividing each function in an organization between a front-end and a back-end. After all the company doesn't need an army of highly qualified professionals to think of the next big thing ( blue ocean strategy?? :)) ..just one smart mind will do :)

3. Maybe companies are realizing that they just don't have a lifetime career to offer to an MBA...that's why most people that they'll hire will end up leaving the company somewhere along the way...maybe just after the company has spent a zillion on them on training etc. or maybe just when the company's shared their confidential medium term plans with them :) An average post graduate from a premier institute will want to grow at an amazing pace..and most companies in India (that have been around for a while) may not be willing to accommodate that kind of pace. The average age of the Indian CEO seems to be reducing all the time...that may not be good news for most MNC's where their counterparts may be a decade older than them :) I think companies have struggled quite a bit with this question - "How can we offer the right opportunities (lateral/vertical/cross functional) to our people at the right time which makes them want to continue longer with the firm without thinking about leaving because of dearth of enough growth opportunities." And as expected..companies seem to be giving up....its just not possible to meet all career aspirations...hence they've decided to move a level lower to start with.

Well...this is what I could think of for the time being...am sure we'll all be around to see how things unfold :)