India's top campus talent overwhelmingly chooses investment banking and equity research, leaving risk management and manufacturing roles short. Experts call it a talent allocation problem as companies struggle to fill non-glamour roles.
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India's best campus talent is queuing up for a narrow set of high-paying, high-visibility roles. Investment banking and equity research are the top draws. Consulting is close behind. Employers are finding it harder to attract talent for positions in risk management, manufacturing, and derivatives.
The mismatch is raising questions about whether campus hiring is creating an oversupply of candidates for a small group of glamorous careers while leaving a shortage of skilled workers in other parts of the economy.
"It is a bad talent allocation problem," said Radhika Gupta, managing director and chief executive officer at Edelweiss Mutual Fund. She said many students have talent for other parts of the asset management industry. They force themselves down the path of equity research and investing because of glamour.
Gupta said students should look at where demand for certain roles could be 15 to 20 years from now and "where there is less supply and less competition now." She pointed to private debt, real assets, REITs, InvITs, public wealth, AIFs, and risk management as areas that deserve more attention.
Placement processes on engineering and management school campuses reflect the skew. Students often tweak their resumes or take additional courses to qualify for a coveted job. Coding, artificial intelligence, consulting, high-frequency trading, and investment banking are top draws because compensation can run into crores. As demand for these jobs rises, other sectors get a smaller candidate pool, prompting companies to widen their search.
Viswanath Pingali, chairperson of the placement committee at IIM Ahmedabad, said students are largely trying to maximize their long-term career prospects. The "glamorous" tag and better learning opportunities are factors. Pay remains the primary factor. "Students have EMIs to pay." He added that the onus cannot be on campuses to push students toward or away from certain fields.
High degree costs reinforce the trend. Fees at the older IIMs range from ₹25 lakh to ₹28 lakh for a two-year management degree. A four-year engineering degree from an Indian Institute of Technology costs less than half that. Students also incur heavy preparation costs for entrance exams.
Median compensation has risen over the last couple of years. Mint reported in March that IIM median compensation jumped 25% to 40% from the pandemic-era batch as the batch of 2026 got recruited for specialized roles. Geopolitical tensions are making firms and markets hesitant about their hiring plans, which could affect upcoming batches.
Anthony Heredia, MD and CEO of Mahindra Manulife Mutual Fund, said the investment side of the industry often gains visibility. Many freshers aspire to equity research and fund management because those roles are the most visible. Asset management firms need far more people in sales, distribution, operations, technology, risk, and compliance. "Not everyone is cut out for investing, and not everyone will enjoy it." Investment teams make up only a small fraction of the workforce in most fund houses.
Education analysts note that students often go for profiles that come with an illusion of a certain lifestyle. Suchindra Kumar, partner and leader of education at PwC India, said most students have very little knowledge of what a career entails. They go for a stream that is in vogue. "Sectors like consulting are considered glamorous."
Nilesh Shah, MD of Kotak Mahindra AMC, said vacancies in pure equity research or fund management are extremely limited – often once a year or once every few years at a given firm. Sales, compliance, back-office, marketing, risk, and operations roles open far more frequently, potentially 100 times a year across the industry. Shah said students today are generally sharper about matching ambition to capability and realistic probability of entry. "If pure pay were the sole magnet, we would see large numbers of mutual-fund professionals migrating into HFT or sell-side research, where compensation can be substantially higher; that mass shift does not occur."
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