GIM’s Focus on Bettering the Median Salary Package

Until not very long ago, B-schools were recognised by the highest pay package they would attract; it was simply about being the best horse in the game. Understandably, this view-point has matured. B-schools today are judged more on the basis of average and median salaries offered to their students, and not just their top package cracker. This is one of the major reasons why Goa Institute of Management has broken into the Outlook top-20 this year, and climbed a phenomenal 18 places to break into the top-25 of Business Today rankings in just 2 years; it continues to be in the Top 25 of The Week countdown. The placement track record of GIM has always been very steady, which is one of the foremost reasons for its strong and supportive alumni base. The latest GIM batch to graduate (2011-13) had student strength of 238, of which 16 opted out of placements. Out of the remaining 222, a total of 214 were successfully placed.

"The highest salary offered was 15 Lakh INR per annum," says Prof. Tarun Pasricha, Chairperson - Placement Cell, at Goa Institute of Management. "But for us, what is of greater focus is the median salary of 8.3 Lakh INR per annum. We are positive that the batch of 2014 will emulate or surpass this performance, since it is a very diverse batch with students from different academic backgrounds, work experience, and innate talent."

A very interesting point here is that GIM saw a 40% increase in the number of Pre-Placement Offers for students over last year, with as many as 25 students receiving PPOs. In 2013, students received Pre-Placement Interviews (PPIs) & Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs) from companies of the caliber of Goldman Sachs, Tata Motors, Hewlett-Packard, JP Morgan Operations, Fidelity Business Services India Private Limited, Pidilite Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Wipro Technologies, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, eClerx and Tata Capital, to name a few.According to Dr. Sunil Rai, Director, Goa Institute of Management, this has been a major reason for the steadiness of GIM's placement performance.

"Fluctuations are part and parcel of any economy. When the market is good, packages are on an upswing, and when the market is sloppy, packages drop. Placements end up being market driven, or market sensitive. In GIM this seesaw of sorts has been controlled to a great extent. When markets are bullish we do experience a fairly good rise in packages, but on the flip side, when the market is down, packages offered to GIM graduates hold steady and do not go down."

Defying any signs of sluggishness, the IT & ITeS sector was the highest recruiter at GIM, closely followed by BFSI, and Automobile & Manufacturing. FMCG & Retail, Market Research, Media and Pharmaceutical were among the other recruiting sectors. Major recruiter also included top companies like Accenture, HCL Technology, Flipkart, HP, RBS, Mu Sigma, Tata Motors, Metro Cash & Carry, Bisleri, IMRB, HDFC Bank, TCS, HSBC Bank, BNY Mellon, Wipro, TASL, Godrej & Boyce, Mahindra FES, ACC Limited, Infosys, iGATE, SBI Life, Mastek, TAS Analytical Services, and SBI Life.

GIM’s Focus on Bettering the Median Salary Package

Alumni of GIM feel that the institute actually encourages its students to focus more on the role than on the package or company profile. As a result, students give themselves a wider spectrum to choose from, for instance, opting to be a Business Development Manager with a lesser package, rather than just another Sales Executive in a big company with a heftier package. In the past, GIM had actually carried out a comparative study revealing that a lesser package actually prepares a young manager much better for life.

"The two years I spent at GIM have played a big role in developing my managerial skills, making me far more effective in my professional life," says Abe Joseph, ASM, Apple Inc., who is driving the iPhones business in General Trade in Mumbai. "Eminent personalities addressing us at RibandarTalks, enabled us to gain insights into specific industries and sectors. Organising large-scale events like WizBiz and Samriddhi ensured that all of us got hands-on experience in executing projects with tight deadlines."

It is for this reason that many GIM graduates go on to run their own businesses. A recent GIM alumni meet in the Delhi-NCR region registered a number of senior alumni, who had graduated in the ‘90s, as running their own business with turnover of INR 80 Crore and above. One such alumnus from the batch of 1999, Ketan Hajarnavis, who is the Founder & CEO of Scale Factor Consulting Labs, recalls that GIM nurtures a deeper understanding of business and says, "We had the option of picking courses of independent study based on our liking.This in turn fuelled deeper learning."

About Goa Institute of Mangement (GIM)

Located at Sanquelim as well as Ribandar, the business school was founded in 1993 when Romuald D'Souza (ex Director - XLRI, Jamshedpur and XIMB, Bhubaneswar) moved from XIM, Bhubaneswar to create a centre of learning and excellence in Goa. The autonomous school is governed by a Board, and offers a full-time MBA (PGDBM) program (2 years) and executive MBA (3 years) and also is a resource centre for PhD programs in management for Goa University.

The Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) is the flagship programme of GIM. It is a two year, full-time residential programme. The first year comprises a core programme consisting of compulsory courses on the basics of every discipline in management aimed at developing a common foundation in management theory. The second year of the course consists of electives designed to cater to students' interest and to develop proficiency in the area of their choice. Students need to select one Major and one Minor specialization from among the following offered - Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations. The coursework also requires the completion of an internship between the two years lasting for a total of eight to nine weeks. The current intake of the PGDM course is 240 students per year.

Source: http://www.businesswireindia.com- Press release