TAS is a rigorous premium leadership program which has got many aspirants. However, TAS is just not for TATA employees, in contrast to the popular belief, apart from accepting in-house applications, TAS also accepts applications from students of premium business schools of India.
Though these two paths lead to the TAS program, there is a considerable difference when one applies in-house and when one goes through a campus selection. Let’s look at how different is an in-house application when compared to hiring from business schools.
Eligibility Criteria:
- Tata group employees are only eligible to apply for this program if they have been with a company of the group from at least 2 to 6 years. In addition, they should have been done with at least 2 appraisal cycles.
- No such restrictions or rules apply to the campus hires; they are directly recruited from their respective business schools. However, TAS selections are not done in every b-school; they consider students of only premium business schools such as IIM A, B, C, L, and XLRI.
- However, candidates need a GMAT score which is not less than 650.
Number of People Hired:
- Two to five candidates are hired on an average for the TAS program every year from each business school. Though these figures could vary, the variation would not be huge.
- When it comes to the in-house hiring process, TAS receives an overwhelming number of applications. However, the number of candidates hired as a percentage of the number of applications is very low. The number of in-house candidates that get through to the TAS program is so less that sometimes the percentage of the in-house candidates is as low as 10% or less.
The Program:
- The program itself doesn’t differentiate between the in-house or B-school hires. All the candidates are put through the same course. The facilities and opportunities provided to the candidates during the program are equal. Even when it comes to key aspects of the program such as salary, perks, and opportunities in terms of job roles, the source of selection doesn’t determine them.
Post Program opportunities:
- The post-program opportunities for TAS are incredible. As the unofficial cut off for the age is around 27 years, the candidates who are passing out of the program have an advantage of a unique professional experience relatively early on in their careers. It is very difficult to distinguish the long-term career opportunities of in-house and campus hires as the opportunities would also be based on individual profiles and capabilities.
Though the program, what candidates go through in itself is the same and doesn’t differ depending on the selection process of the candidates, there are few other aspects where there is a considerable difference between the in-house hires and the business school hires.
The primary and most crucial difference being the number of candidates accepted into the program from business school and the in-house process. Where, the number of candidates hires from each elite b-school almost remain same every year, the percentage of in-house candidates hired is very low in percentage when compared to both the in-house applications and the number of candidates ultimately selected from various sources for the program. Hence, it would be fair to say that someone applying through a business school would have a better chance of getting accepted in the program than an in-house applicant.