India’s top B-schools, including Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), are betting on external coaches and counsellors to help students ace the placements at a time when the job market has turned uncertain amid a slowing economy, set to be exacerbated by a trade war unleashed by US president Donald Trump.
These counsellors work closely with students to help them understand the job profile that would suit them, whether they have the right aptitude and attitude for certain companies, and if the compensation they expect is reasonable and in sync with the market trend, recruitment consultants and management college officials said.
“We offer one-on-one coaching to help students navigate their career paths with clarity and confidence. This includes personalized guidance on career transitions, strategic positioning, and aligning career choices with long-term professional goals,” said Hardeep Singh, president- Right Management India, ManpowerGroup India.
Right Management offers outplacement, career management and leader development solutions.
Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, and a 20% duty on China, prompting the retaliatory tariffs. He has also announced reciprocal tariffs on all its trading partners, including India, from 2 April, sparking concerns about a full-blown trade war hurting the global economy.
Given the turbulence in the global economy that impacts placements, Singh said that students from the batch of 2025 need help with exploring new career paths, switching industries or functional roles, pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities, or acquiring new skills to enhance their careers.
Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad is one of the B-schools that use the services of Right Management and external coaches who help temper high expectations when the job market plays truant.
“When people come with significant work experience, they are often unsure where they want to go. We work with a reputed executive coaching agency for our one-year executive MBA course and are contemplating to extend similar services for the two-year MBA program as well,” Viswanath Pingali, chairperson, placements, IIM-A, told Mint. In the one-year MBA course, the students have more years of work experience while the two-year program have a mix of students with both work experience and those without. “We have noted that aspirations are often mismatched,” Pingali said, explaining the reason behind the need for external help.
For instance, the coaches explain that if a student has work experience in the banking sector, it is easier to look for a placement in the finance or related sector. However, a similar shift from another profile like marketing to investment banking is difficult. The students are assigned both physical and virtual coaches second semester onwards.
There are five semesters in a one-year program.
Indian School of Business (ISB) said that the external coaches help students understand “the shifting needs of modern labour markets”. This year, ISB tested Yoodli, an AI-powered communication platform, in helping students “refine their ability to articulate ideas with clarity and confidence”.
“As part of the leadership development programme in the school, students work with external coaches to understand their motivations and biases to better influence actions and behaviour in group settings,” said Sujatha Kumaraswamy, executive director – programmes, ISB.
Mint has learnt that IIM-Raipur also uses external consultants to train their students.
While some of the B-schools are using external consultants, IIM Kozhikode started a platform in 2024 called CARE – Corporate Access, Readiness and Engagement to understand the needs of the recruiters. The students, faculty members and staff visited 63 firms in the past one year. “This was also an opportunity to understand the current market scenario and the challenges faced by recruiters. Our aim was to invite more recruiters to visit and experience IIM Kozhikode in its entirety,” Roopak Kumar Gupta, CARE chairperson told Mint.
The batch of 2025 has witnessed a better placement season that the Batch of 2024 . Finance and consulting firms that did not hire last year with their usual gusto are back at the B-schools with a healthy appetite. The crore-plus salaries aside, some of the management colleges have seen the median salaries pick up while others saw the number of offers increase.
