Recruiters explain why finance MBAs in India are looking beyond investment banking roles⁠— and rightly so

• Management graduates from top b-schools — including Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) — are taking up technical job roles over management consulting and investment banking.
  
• This transition may be due to the extensive demand for digital literacy across job roles as the demand for qualitative and quantitative proficiency has increased.
  
• Companies are hiring management interns with engineering background — especially in the computer science and electronics domain.

With the advent of digitisation, management graduates from top b-schools — including Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) — are taking up technical job roles over management consulting and investment banking.

“Technology is creating opportunities , making way for newer jobs — many of them still unknown to us. The convergence of Big Data with Artificial Intelligence has emerged as the single most important development that is shaping the future of how firms drive business value from their data and analytics capabilities,” Neeti Sharma, Senior Vice President, TeamLease Services told Business Insider.

A study by talent solutions company Xpheno predicted that companies are expected to hire almost a third of management students for tech profiles.

This transition may be due to the extensive demand for digital literacy across job roles as the demand for qualitative and quantitative proficiency has increased. In addition to this, consulting and i-banking multinationals banking on technologies like data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) offer higher remuneration for innovation skills.


Nearly 68 management students were hired for IT and analytics profiles at Indian Institute of IIM Bangalore from companies like Ola, Oyo Rooms and United Health Group among others.

The employer’s side

On the employers front too, automation has restrained the demand for traditional i-banking roles. They are also looking for more diverse candidates. Companies are hiring management interns with engineering background — especially in the computer science and electronics domain.


With automation making inroads in the Indian job market, humans are competing with machines to keep up. According to Microsoft, every business is going to be a Software business, build applications, use advanced analytics. Given that, companies are now looking at hiring employees that bring in AI and ML skills.

“AI & ML tools are being used across the life cycles of workflows & projects across organizations. Many MBA students are Engineering graduates and hence it is natural that companies hiring from campus look for candidates who have a background of both technical as well as managerial skills which will enable them to perform better at their jobs,” Neeti added.

Banks going digital

With digitisation, techno-functional managers have become essential to companies.

Public sector banks Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank also recently announced that they will hire 5,000 fresh graduates with cybersecurity, technical skills.

According to Sukhjit Singh Pasricha, chief human resource officer at Kotak Mahindra Bank, the banking industry has witnessed a sudden demand for professionals skilled in technologies like artificial intelligence, digital banking and analytics.


“Legacy job categories such as Banking or Transaction Processing may be heavily impacted by the automation that AI brings to the business — replacing jobs. The banking industry is anticipated to grow by incorporating AI systems, machine learning & big data. This includes automation of customer service with chatbots, improving risk models, understanding customer behavior, credit decisions, risk and compliance, fraud detection and anti-money-laundering to name a few,” Anne Soumya, HR Director of The Adecco Group India told BI.

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