The best answers are found between the lines. An economic daily has just published a survey of the hottest companies on B-school campuses. The analysis that accompanies the list is about the favourites. For the record, the top recruiters are ICICI Bank, Infosys, Deloitte, Proctor & Gamble, Cognizant, Accenture, Wipro, Yes Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Axis Bank. That’s the finance sector ahead, with information technology giving a close chase. (It depends on where you want to put a company like Accenture, which is largely into outsourcing.)

The real question that should be asked is about the missing Incs. What happened to the Citibanks? Where are all the companies with a limited presence in India that have been recruiting all these years for their foreign operations? These are really no brainers. The financial crisis across the globe has taken a toll and the majors who had a hard knock are only now climbing out of their bolt holes.

There is a more interesting set of questions. Where are the large Indian groups? The Tatas are not to be seen, though Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) does pop up in a couple of institutes. The Birlas are similarly missing. Neither Mukesh nor Anil Ambani puts up a showing. Where is the public sector? (You could give a thought to Axis Bank here. Though it is one of the new generation private sector banks, its promoters are outfits like UTI, LIC and GIC.)

Most of these groups will tell you that they don’t like freshly-minted MBAs from top management schools. It is difficult to understand why; they haven’t had much experience with them. The reality is somewhat different; it’s the MBAs from top schools that don’t like such companies today. Times change. Tata Steel, Tata Motors, TCS and Hindustan Lever Ltd (now Hindustan Unilever) were favourites at one time.

Take another recent study — the Antal Global Snapshot conducted by management and professional recruitment specialist Antal International (see box). Sample some headline information from the latest survey (June 2011). The worldwide response to the question “Are you currently hiring at the managerial / professional level?” just about makes it to the right side of the ledger — 52 per cent of the respondents said yes. Against this, in a sector like education in India, the positives totalled a huge 99 per cent. Overall, the Indian response in every sector was well above 50 per cent except the banking and financial services, where it was a comparatively a dismal 38 per cent. Go back to the first survey; banking at Indian B-schools is hot. So is there something that does not sit right?

There’s more. Across the globe, the sectors with the highest levels of recruitment at the managerial and professional level were healthcare, education, social media, technology (hardware), and banking and financial services. IT is a draw at Indian campuses. At the global level, it’s hardware rather than software. This should mean engineers, not managers and is a facile explanation for Indian hiring being different. But if you consider that 90 per cent of the students of B-schools are engineers, you will realise that the argument doesn’t hold water. Incidentally, banking and financial services is amongst the top five globally.

Take another aspect of the Antal survey. Going by hiring intentions (“Do you expect to hire in the coming quarter?”), the top countries are the Philippines (96 per cent), India (80 per cent), China (72 per cent), Brazil (70 per cent) and Slovakia (69 per cent). The US is somewhere in the middle with 52 per cent. The Philippines is a small country and perhaps an aberration. Ignore that and you have India on top, eight percentage points above China.

But several recent surveys in India have painted a gloomier picture. The media are full of stories of how business confidence is at the lowest levels. “You have two options,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “You can ignore the surveys or you can ignore the media.” A survey is needed to find out why Cassandras are so commonplace.

JOBS EVERYWHERE IN INDIA

Are you currently hiring at the managerial/ professional level? (% saying yes)

Automotive        82

Banking & Financial Services        38

Chemicals        67

Construction        80

Education        99

Electronics        61

Energy (including renewable energy)        86

FMCG        71