Jeetha D'Silva & Candice Zachariahs
Mumbai

ITC has taken its marketing might beyond consumers and into the country’s top business schools.

In this year’s edition of the hottest recruiters on campus, ITC has moved into the top five, surging past multinational banks and IT majors. The tobacco major made an aggressive bid for visibility on campuses this year and won — it moved from a poor No 12 to No 4 in the ‘Recruiters of Choice’ ranking.

With the inter-campus contest ‘Mera Gaon, Mera Desh’, which promised lakhs in prize money, “the company has improved its brand equity at the campus level,” said Mohit Ralhan of FMS, Delhi. Plus, said IIM Calcutta’s Ankush Wadehra, ITC’s diversification into a variety of businesses beyond cigarettes has increased the possibility of cross-functional exposure for those who join it.

ITC was the biggest surprise in a year when B-school students stuck to their list of old favourites — management consulting continued its reign at the top for the second year, buoyed by aggressive recruiting during the just-concluded summer placement season.

And McKinsey continued to be ranked as the numero uno employer by the Class Of ’05. The findings come from the fifth round of ACNielsen ORG-MARG’s CampusTrack B-school, a syndicated study on the preferences and perceptions of upcoming B-school graduates.

One important reason why the consulting sector continues to be rated highly by B-school graduates is that the entire universe of students can apply to a consulting firm, irrespective of domains.

More importantly, a consulting job meets almost all the other key drivers that influence student choice like compensation, job content, overseas travel and cross-functional mobility.

In fact, three consulting firms have been ranked among the top 10. Besides McKinsey, consulting firms like the Boston Consulting Group and Accenture have moved up in the rankings compared to previous years. iim survey

“That’s very flattering. It shows the strength of the brand,” said Vikram Bhalla, principal, BCG. For years, BCG has recruited only at IIMs A, B and C.

Like the previous year, the Class Of ’05 ranked FMCGs second among its industries of choice, with Hindustan Lever (HLL) retaining its second position among the most preferred employers.

According to D Harish, HLL’s vice-president, human resources, “The intrinsic value of both the training and the job challenges that a manager gets while working in HLL makes the company consistently a preferred employer on campuses.”

HLL’s reputation as a great training ground for future marketing big-wigs seems intact even though the company itself has hit a rough patch business-wise. However, though the sector continues to remain hot on campuses, there aren’t many other FMCG companies that students would love to work for. The other FMCG firm among the top 15, P&G, has consistently lost ground, probably because it has cut down recruitment over the past few years.

Another big slide is, rather surprisingly, Infosys, which went from No 3 last year to No 9 this year. Students indicate that the domestic software firm’s uncompetitive pay packets is putting it at a serious disadvantage as the recruitment market picks up.