On 1st December 2010, the All India Management Association (AIMA) launched the Management Aptitude and Skills Test (MAST). The online registration for the test has started from the same date.

In the current business scenario, companies are more conscious about the quality and job skills of MBAs they hire. MAST is structured with the objective of helping recruiters and employers in identifying and hiring potential managers, who have the right skills, aptitude and attitude.

Rekha Sethi, Director General, AIMA mentions that the test has been launched by AIMA keeping in mind the challenges faced by the recruiters for selecting the right candidates. “Recruitment has become a challenge for most companies and choosing the right candidate is becoming not only very difficult but expensive too.”

Talking about the advantages of MAST, Ms. Sethi mentions, “MAST will support the recruiters to reach out to the best suited fresh management talent through a cost effective process, and will evaluate the Management students across the B-Schools in India for their employability skills as desired by the industry.”

With over two thousand B-schools producing more than three lakhs students annually, it is a daunting task for B-schools to attract top recruiters and get good job placements for their MBAs. Through this computer based test, the recruiters and employers can identify the hidden talent of students, evaluate (based on the MAST results) if the students have the requisite managerial skills and hire them accordingly.

MAST helps recruiters to have easy access to entry level talent acquisition across B-schools in India. Currently, leading organizations incur huge costs in the process of visiting B-School campuses to hire fresh talent.

For students, MAST provides a level playing field for them irrespective of the geographical location of the B-schools and their reach with the recruiters. Already, large companies such as Hindustan and Unilever, Dabur India and Moser Baer, have agreed to use MAST for hiring.

AIMA will conduct MAST on 20th February, 2010, across the nation’s major cities.