How Masters’ Union Delivers Exceptional Placement Outcomes with an Average CTC of Rs. 29 - 34L

By Pratham Mittal, Founder & CEO, Masters’ Union

For five years, through bull markets and downturns alike, our PGP cohorts have consistently landed average CTCs between ₹29–34 lakh. People often ask me how it actually happens, especially given that we’re still a young institution. Naturally, there’s curiosity, and sometimes skepticism.

I want to share how we do it, and it’s quite different from traditional B-schools. At Masters’ Union, placements are methodical, structured, and intensely intentional.

Impact of a Dedicated Placement Team

We don’t rely on student committees to drive placements. Instead, we have a 40-member full-time placement vertical. The team is led by Abhishek Kaul, Anurag Yadav, Nishant Singh, and Simran Bhatia, professionals with corporate experience and exposure to other B-schools. The ratio works out to roughly one team member for every four to five students. In effect, it’s almost man-to-man marking.

I like to say we run placements like companies run revenue functions. There’s no rotating committee, no part-time effort. It’s a dedicated, professional engine working to deliver the best outcomes for our students.

Running Placements Like Enterprise B2B Sales

We operate like a consultative sales organisation. There’s a proper pipeline: prospecting → mapping → meetings → farming → hunting → after-sales. Team leads have BDs, sales support staff, and incentives structured like a real sales organisation. Recruiters are long-term accounts, tracked in CRMs.

Seeing ourselves as consultants solving companies’ HR challenges changes everything. One consultative conversation with a large UAE startup even led to them building a full GCC in India, seeded by our alumni. This approach ensures relationships, not transactions, drive placements.

Year-Round Engagement and Relationship Maintenance

Placements aren’t a single-season event. We host industry roundtables, MasterClasses, and forums throughout the year in India, Dubai, and at global conferences such as SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management).

1. Dubai MasterClasses: Quarterly sessions with CHROs
2. India Roundtables: Regular forums with industry leaders

These initiatives keep relationships active and give recruiters early access to our students, months before hiring cycles begin. We also participate in People Matters and other global HR forums, often taking students along so they can network directly with industry leaders.

Dedicated BD Team for International Placements

Our dedicated Dubai BD team handles international placements. The 30+ offers we’ve secured internationally came from four to five full-time members in Dubai. Companies like Puffy, DP World, Careem, and IHC opened doors that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

We even run international placement drives where students fly to Abu Dhabi for interviews. Seeing our students succeed internationally reinforces the effectiveness of our model and highlights the importance of a local presence combined with sustained effort.

After-Sales Mindset: Ensuring Student and Recruiter Success

Placement doesn’t end at the offer letter. We stay in touch with recruiters, managers, and alumni to track student performance. If someone leaves early, we aim to backfill. Our last cohort received an average recruiter rating of 4.1/5.

This “after-sales” approach ensures alumni perform well, relationships remain strong, and we can continue partnering with companies meaningfully.

Role-Specific Career Preparation and AI Tools

Before meeting recruiters, students undergo rigorous preparation. A 15-member career-prep team handles CVs, mock interviews, company briefs, and role-specific drills. AI tools built by Vidhu Goel enable company-specific mock drills at scale.

Abhinav Arora, with experience at FMS, TAS, Reliance, and Airtel, runs this as a professional operation, not an add-on service. Through our in-house mentorship app, Get Prepped, students connect with alumni and industry experts in real-time, customised for the exact roles they’re targeting.

Video CVs and Digital Portfolios

I encourage students to create video CVs and digital portfolios. Recruiters today look for authentic signals: communication, clarity, intent, and evidence of actual work. In an era of AI-generated CVs, authenticity wins, and our approach ensures students stand out.

A 6-9 Month Placement Cycle

Our placement process spans six to nine months, giving students time to explore opportunities, evaluate options, and make thoughtful decisions, rather than rushing everything into the first days of the programme. This allows students to explore, evaluate, negotiate, and for companies to return multiple times. The result: better matches, lower early attrition, and improved negotiating leverage.

Immediate and Flexible Hiring

Our model allows students to join companies immediately, even before completing all programme terms. Many firms prefer not to commit 12–18 months in advance. This flexibility benefits both recruiters and students, letting students start earning before their 16-month programme concludes.

Unlocking Lateral & Non-Campus Opportunities

We proactively source high-quality lateral roles from VCs, PE funds, growth-stage startups and specialised teams that rarely participate in campus cycles because they don’t hire in bulk. These firms typically look for one or two exceptional individuals, not a cohort of 20. By reaching out directly, we unlock opportunities that never appear in traditional placement processes and these non-campus roles now account for nearly 40% of all opportunities at Masters’ Union.

Co-Creating New Roles With Companies

Beyond sourcing roles, we often pitch opportunities to companies, leading them to create entirely new positions around our students. Many organisations introduced roles like Chief of Staff and Founder’s Office only after meeting our talent and recognising the fit. Watching entirely new functions get built because of our students has been a quiet but meaningful milestone for us.

Top-of-Funnel Outreach

We also run targeted LinkedIn campaigns to generate leads for companies outside our existing network. We have seen limited success here but it adds another layer to our multi-channel placement approach.

Alumni-Powered Ecosystem

Our alumni office, led by Jeneesha Singh, an alumna of Masters’ Union, ensures continuous engagement. We host chapter meets, homecomings, and maintain touchpoints across batches. We’re introducing a policy where all university contracts, from the café to printing, are offered first to alumni-led companies. Each year, this ecosystem compounds, creating more opportunities for students and alumni alike.

Professional Negotiation on Behalf of Students

Students shouldn’t navigate compensation, role clarity, joining timelines, or deliverables on their own. Our team manages these discussions professionally, providing a single, consistent point of contact for recruiters. This keeps the process transparent, streamlined, and ultimately helps students secure better offers.

Transforming Placement Outcomes

Many of these practices can genuinely transform outcomes at any B-school. The traditional student committee model is replaced with a consultative, SaaS-style, data-backed placement engine. It’s organised, intentional, and designed to deliver repeatable results; year after year.