Thirty four-year-old Sushma Samarth, an MTech from IIT-Bombay, had worked for nine years in the IT sector when she realized she wanted to understand more about business, strategy and entrepreneurship. That's when she decided to enrol for an MBA at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

Today, a year later, she's been hired as an assistant vice-president by an IT company for the BPO sector. Samarth will be leading a team of 200 people. What's more, her company is soon going to acquire the BPO unit of a bank. So in another 2-3 years, Samarth will have 2,000-odd people under her.

Women MBA grads have never had it better. During placement season at ISB this year, it is raining offers for women who comprise 25% of the student body. Interestingly, this year women at ISB have seen dramatic jumps in both job profiles as well as salaries. Women are increasingly being taken in at senior-level positions in roles like vice-president, associate vice-president, general manager and assistant general manager.

Sample this: the incoming salaries for most women in this year's batch ranged between Rs 4-5 lakh. But the outgoing salaries (domestic) are dramatically higher and range between Rs 10-27 lakh. In contrast, the average outgoing salary for women in last year's batch of ISB was Rs 13.36 lakh. International salaries this year range between $72,313 and $2,58,822.

Companies nowadays are reposing a lot of faith in women employees. And it is not without reason. Says Arvind Subramanian, principal, Boston Consulting Group, a prominent recruiter at ISB, "We have a very strong emphasis on recruiting women. They bring in a different level of empathy to the role they play." He adds that this perspective comes in handy especially in a client servicing people-intensive business such as BCG's.

In the past, companies have been wary of putting women in senior roles because they are unsure of whether they can rely on them in the long run. One reason is that a lot of women jump off the career track midway due to family and child-rearing responsibilities. But now, it seems, employers are increasingly more comfortable taking big bets on women candidates. Samarth, for instance, has a daughter and husband back home in Pune. That did not seem to be a cause for bother for any of her interviewers. "The recruiters were very positive throughout," she says. Adds her batchmate Sonali Singhal, "Our CVs spoke for us. We have sound work experience and the recruiters could see that we have proved ourselves before."

A chartered accountant, Singhal had worked as an assistant manager with Deloitte in Delhi. Post-MBA she is joining a bank as assistant vice-president in their credit and risk division. Progressive companies, on their part, are also making efforts to make the work conditions more conducive for women. BCG, for instance, offers various options for women staff, such as flexible work time, work-from-home, etc. Subramanian adds that his company is seeing a greater number of women in senior roles and is also hiring more fresh recruits.

Courtesy:- The Times of India