This article reports on the key findings of our recent survey on management students to know their perceptions about career in retail sector. Large Indian players like Reliance, ITC and many others are making significant investments in the retail sector. The rapid growth of the retail sector has opened up new avenues, making Retail Management another talented stream for the fresh graduates.

In this report, we consider the extent to which the growth in retail sector has an impact on the students’ career choices, and what are the most appropriate ways to encourage interested management students allowing for more targeted recruitment efforts. 

Specifically, we examine students’ perceptions of retail sector within the context of their self-reported level of interest in a retail career. To do so, we compare management students who indicated that they were potentially attracted to a career in retailing with students from the same cohort who identified themselves as uninterested in the field. 


Need and Significance for the Study 
There is a dearth of skilled professionals in the retail industry, especially at the middle-management. Retailing is yet to become a preferred career option for most of India’s educated class that usually opts for sectors like IT, BPO and financial services. 

One prospective source of attracting talent is campus recruitment of college graduates. Therefore, there is a need for the retailers to understand the student’s perception and expectations about their career to attract the prospects.

ZeebraCross™ - An experience driven Marketing and Branding Solution provider based in Hyderabad, undertook this study on “Retail Sector – Management Students Perception” to understand student’s career choice and help retailers develop better recruitment practices for attracting the best talent pool in the industry. 

There were three goals to this investigation:
To offer an updated assessment of management students’ perceptions of retailing
To evaluate the personal, educational, and social contributors that led to those perceptions
To explore how those perceptions possibly influence the students’ career decisions
The sample size consisted of 478 management students from different B Schools and colleges. Data was collected from the B-School students and the management students with the help of an online questionnaire.


Key Findings
As well-known that the Indian retail sector is a booming industry, the same is agreed by majority of the students. Whereas a few students said that it is the IT and Finance industries. The boom in the Retail Sectors was attributed to factors like increase in the purchasing power of individuals, changing lifestyle, use of credit cards and increase of awareness of various products and offerings through media.
Sector in boom Percentage (%)
Finance 11
Retail 33
IT 17
Telecom 13
Infrastructure 16
Hospitality 08
Others 02
Booming sector in the Indian economy

Many of the students answered that they would like to be associated with the finance industry as they lack the knowledge of job opportunities available in the retail sector.

Sector want to associate with Percentage (%)
Finance 26
Retail 25
IT 13
Telecom 09
Infrastructure 08
Hospitality 09
Others 10
Sector management students want to be associated with

The available evidence suggests that management students hold mixed views of retail career. They expressed their views positive on retail sector saying that it is people oriented, and exciting with high growth in career. At the same time, approximately 45% of the students said that it is hectic with long working hours and poor salary with limited opportunities.

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