Only about 20-50 per cent of students from Tier-II B schools get placed even after getting an MBA degree,and most of them get into jobs paying them a monthly salary of Rs 12-22,000 in jobs in insurance and sales, said Nishant Saxena,CEO of Elements Akademia. Elements Akademia is a company which will open the headquarters of its western region operations in Pune. The company which was started by a group of 15 IIM alumni and faculty to provide MBA and engineering students a rigorous training module which would make the students employable. A survey led by a team of six IIM alumni and faculty brought to light the major reasons for which so many of the students remain unemployed. They came to the conclusion that even if the service sector is growing and there are many jobs available,students are not getting employed. The reason for this is that the industry is looking for not just a degree from a good institute but some basic skills which most of the students were lacking. After an extensive survey carried out in 12 cities,we came to the conclusion that there are 9 missing skills which a company looks for in a student. Apart from basic skills like business communication and grooming,it is very important for students to have the right attitude,practical domain knowledge,basic corporate awareness,some work experience,analytical ability,knowledge about sales and marketing and basic managerial skills. To improve these skills of the students,we will provide a rigorous 120 hour employability intervention in various B-schools/ Engineering Colleges of India with the aim to provide a pool of trained manpower to the industry , said Saxena. Giving his reasons for choosing Pune as the western region operation's headquarter,Saxena said, Pune is considered a students hub and with over 170 B-schools in the city,we at Elements Akademia are very confident with the decision of making Pune the headquarters for the western region. The company will carry out a survey of various institutes in Pune and try to partner with 3-4 institutes. Since we are not a very big company,we will only partner with 3-4 institutes as we want to maintain the quality of training that we give, said Ankit Maheshwari who will be handling the operations of the company in Pune. After setting up base in the city,in the second phase the company plans to go to other Tier II cities of Maharashtra like Nagpur,Solapur,Kolhapur and Sangli.
