We knew it was coming, the waves of liberalization have also shown the impact on the career moves of the students in Bihar. We always knew that Biharis have done exceedingly well and are amongst the top rankers when it comes to traditional career options like Civil Services and State administrative services.

But students of Bihar have kept pace with the changing times and they have changed the gear now. So what used to be a once upon most coveted career choice is no more considered as the best bet when it comes to career options. The potential and global charm of Management as a career option is also attracting the talent of Bihari students, as more and more students aspire for coveted seats in top management institutes on the country.

Here’s what IBN reports on the changing trends in career choices in Bihar.

"Almost 20-25 per cent of students in IIT are from Bihar. If you add those getting into IIMs, I think the number will be substantially high. Out of 1300 seats, in a conservative guess, almost 120-130 students would be from Bihar," says the manager of IMS Tutorials, Manish Kumar.The wind of change is blowing in smaller cities as well with the state witnessing a similar race towards corporate world.

We have seen a large no of bihari students opting for a alternative careers like media, fashion designing, social sector like NGO’s. This is a good tread as it will lead to a more diverse pool of talent and the state can hope that the talent which has migrated at some time will come back and contribute in developing untapped human resource potential of the state.

The trend for management studies was started in mid 90’s when people slowly realized the impact which the liberalization policy of 1991 on job opportunities in India. Slowly over a period of 4-5 years the no of aspirants for CAT, XAT started to swell exponentially and more and more students started opting for management as a career option.

There were times when students from Bihar could not do well in the interview and group discussions round of the selection test. They had to struggle to beat the confidence and panache of students from other states when it came to communication skills and assertiveness for scoring well in the GD & interview selection process.

However credit must be given to training institutes in Patna which helped student cope with this traditional disadvantage very well and now more and more students from Bihar are competing well with students from other states with great aplomb.