286 PGDM students at FIIB, New Delhi, faced six recruitment rounds in two days, and each left with a personalised Employability Report.
Most MBA students meet a recruiter for the first time on placement day, when there is little time left to act on what they hear. On 16 and 17 October 2026, 286 PGDM and PGDM-FM students of Batch 2025–27 met them earlier, at Sankalp 3, FIIB’s Employability Fest and Simulated Job Fair, themed “From Readiness to Results”. Industry leaders from Deloitte, HDFC Bank, CBRE, Capgemini, Tech Mahindra and Reliance Consumer Products, among others, joined as industry panelists and took students through every stage of a real recruitment cycle.
Bridging The Gap Between Being Qualified and Being Career-Ready
A degree tells a recruiter what a candidate has studied. It rarely shows how that candidate will think when the brief changes, the data is incomplete or the interview goes off-script. As AI makes knowledge easier to access, that gap matters more than ever. Employers today are looking for candidates who can create value where there is no playbook, and that ability is built through practice, not just preparation.
Sankalp is built to close that gap.
SANKALP, short for Skills And Knowledge Aligned to Lead and Perform, is FIIB’s four-stage employability framework. It runs through the two-year PGDM so that career readiness develops step by step, not in the final weeks before placements. Sankalp 3 is its Day-Zero simulation, the point where students stop preparing for recruitment and start experiencing it.
Two Days, Six Rounds, One Real Recruitment Cycle
Every round was designed around a skill recruiters screen for. Students began by choosing two of around 22 job descriptions across five career pathways, from Marketing & Growth and Finance & Fintech to People Operations, Operations & Data Analytics and Consulting, and tailoring their applications to them.
A new E-Portfolio round then asked them to prove their fit rather than claim it, using evidence from course projects, internships, AI-enabled work and certifications. An aptitude test measured accuracy under time pressure. Group discussions on themes such as AI ethics and digital payments tested how well students could structure an argument and hold their ground. Day 2 moved into functional and HR interviews, and those who stood out went on to a Leadership Round.
Hiring Leaders on the Other Side of the Table
The panel reflected the range of careers students are preparing for. Parveen Sehrawat, Associate Director at Deloitte, brought the consulting lens. Naman Ahluwalia, AVP at HDFC Bank, and Jaya Nema, RHR North Zone at IndusInd Nippon Life, represented banking and insurance, while Ashwani Khosa, Senior Director, Education Business at CBRE, spoke for real estate. Ravikant Jaiswal, who heads E-Commerce Business and Performance Marketing at Reliance Consumer Products, offered the view from consumer business.
The talent acquisition and employer branding perspective came from Raghav Chandel of Capgemini, Harsha Upadhyay of Tech Mahindra and Jatin Nagpal of AML RightSource. Kapil Kumar Bali, Group Director at CML Group, Meghanshi Gupta of Quantum, Ipshita Ray of Skala Media and Meenakshi M, an HR and people strategy professional, completed the panel.
Every interview ended with direct feedback, so students learnt in the moment what convinced a recruiter and what did not.
An Employability Report, and a Plan
Every student left with a personalised Employability Report covering round-wise scores, strengths and the specific gaps to close before campus placements. They also left with a CV tailored to a real role and an E-Portfolio ready for recruiters. The batch-level insights will guide FIIB’s Career Management Centre in focused mentoring ahead of placements.
Industry-First, Well Before Placement Day
As an industry-first B-school, FIIB brings industry into the learning journey long before the placement table. Sankalp 3 put recruiters in the room while there was still time to act on what they said, so every student walks into placements knowing where they stand and what to work on next. That is the idea behind Sankalp: readiness is built through practice, honest feedback and repetition, and the results follow.
From readiness to results. That is Sankalp.
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