Please mention in detail
Roles offered, package, Company, location etc
Hello..
My updates on the career options in ESB as promised:
The first thing everyone needs to understand here is that the placement model in business schools outside India is very dissimilar to those within India. There is no concept of day 0, day 1.. day 'n' or cohort based system as followed in IIMs and even the model followed in the regular PGDM courses of SPJIMR. You need to digest the fact that foreign B-schools do not believe in spoon feeding jobs to candidates and neither does the industry.. The companies here follow a gradual process of hiring wherein they conduct multiple interview at various times in most possibly "their" premises to check if the candidate chosen really fits the requirements for the job. They have to do that because there is no "hire and fire policy" here. That means, they have to exercise extreme caution while hiring personnel, as later its difficult for them to get rid of them if they don't live up to the mark.
Now, Having said that, people still manage to find good jobs.. How do they find it? There are multiple modes of doing that..
1) Master's Thesis: I have discussed this particular aspect in the third post of this thread.
2) Business fairs: ESB conducts business fair twice a year in April and November, where in the best of the companies come and represent themselves.. We attended the the business fair which was held a couple of days back (April 5th and 6th.) Here's how it works:
a) There are "Some companies who like to conduct interviews during this event" (Group-A) and "Some who just want to represent themselves in fair and discuss doubts on careers of students, but not conduct any interviews".(Group-B) (The companies which visited this year is in the link:
Unternehmen 2011) -
b) Before the business fair, we had to apply to Group A companies (no restriction on number of companies you can apply or domains to be applied to, anything on the offer and which you are interested in - marketing, finance, investment banking, operations, HR etc.). We were supposed to send motivation letter(explaining why we want to join the company) , our CV and grade transcripts before March 24th "individually" to email ids created by these companies for the business fair.
c) Many companies had opportunities for a variety of roles - Marketing, sales, operations, HR, consulting etc. for both Bachelors and Master's Students. Hence, any ESB business studies student can participate in the business fair. There is no "discrimination" between us and other international students,(as some of you had doubts), all are treated equally. And of course Master's students are treated better than Bachelor's students.
d) There are good number of English speaking positions available(example in adidas and Siemens consulting etc.) , but on a percentage basis, I should say that German speaking positions were much more. There are over 2000 students in ESB business school in various semesters and various courses (MS, MBA , BBA, etc.) and you would of course understand that not everyone is interested in English jobs.
e) Approximately 30% of the people who applied for interviews in Group-A companies got a call. (including me!) The concept of interview here means that it is a initial starter for discussion. The company in which I was interviewed for, were positive and said they will get back to me with the right opportunities for my profile and call me later to their premises for more rounds.
Same goes with almost all the friends I know. (Indian and International). Interviews at college are just starting blocks of a long discussion.
f) It was not just jobs that were on offer. There were internships and Master's Thesis as well, (which were of interest to bachelor's students and our International friends in MBA, who are yet to find a Master's thesis for themselves. Note that we found ours in India itself through combined efforts of SPJIMR and ESB.)
g) The Group-B companies who represented themselves for discussion only and not interviews, guided us to apply to career links in their websites with motivation letter and CVs quoting ESB business fair as a reference and they will take it forward from their, if they are interested in us.
As you may have figured by now, the "Placement" process is very slow and the model is very interesting and dissimilar to that followed in Indian B Schools. Some get jobs in business fairs, many get through with their performance in Masters Thesis and many more apply to company websites quoting contacts developed in business fair and make it though. In such a circumstance, it is difficult to to collate statistics such as average, highest and lowest salary etc. however, the ball park figure is 50-70K euros for regular positions (depending on the company and profiles) and 70k-100k for consulting positions in some of the biggies. Everyone manages to get at least one job though.. Seeing the business fair, one point crossed our minds that there are plenty of opportunities available if you want to work for it.
There goes my reply.. Looks a little long though
Questions are invited! I have taken some time off to address your concerns before your interviews..All the best!
