| Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

Acknowledgements
A report like this only results from the contribution of many people. We would like
to thanks all the NSUers who helped us by gathering data, spreading the word
around and giving motivational support. Even after we failed to complete this in
due time, the support we got was overwhelming and helped us move forwards.
Thanks goes to all the admins of the group and also to the companies that are re-
cruiting NSUers.

2 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Credits
Concept: Niamul Arifin

Survey Design: Niamul Arifin & Asif Khan

Data Collection: All NSUers

Analysis & Report Writing: Asif Khan

Proofreading: Anika Bhuiyan

Design: Waseem Khan & Asif Khan

3 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 How it all began
The idea for the Salary Survey is a brainchild of an NSUer named Niamul Arifin and
shared through the Facebook group “Jobs for NSUers”. Niamul initiated the very
thought of a salary survey document that would help every NSUer (graduate or un-
dergraduate) to get a vivid picture of the salary structure in Bangladeshi job mar-
ket. Since such data is not available in Bangladesh, this report aims to assists both
the students and the companies to make better employment decisions. A secon-
dary objective of this report is to clear out many stereotypes that people might
have towards private universities and more specifically towards North South Uni-
versity. If this survey can be repeated every year then an authentic time series of
salary data can be available for all NSUers and help them set a benchmark for all
the graduates in Bangladesh.

Niamul prepared the initial draft of the survey questionnaire. Later on we made
modifications together to design the survey in its final format. As salary is a sensi-
tive issue of discussion, the survey was kept anonymous (no placeholder for re-
spondent name) and respondents had the option of not mentioning company
name.

The target respondents included all NSU students who have a full time job
(personal business excluded) and are working within Bangladesh. The target sam-
ple size was set at 500 even though we were somewhat skeptical about whether
this size could be reached. However, thanks to all the NSUers who actively spread
the word around, we were able to exceed 500 responses. However, few erroneous
entries had to be removed and our analysis is thoroughly based on the original
sample size of 500.

We do acknowledge that our research has some drawbacks. Firstly, there were is-
sues with the survey design. Some industries were not listed in our survey. We can
definitely make a lot of improvements as far as the design of the survey is con-
cerned. Secondly, we only took gross salary figures for easier comprehension.
However, total compensation can be very different due to the presence or absence
of bonuses and other benefits. Thirdly, we realized that to do meaningful analysis,
a larger sample size would have been helpful. Most of the respondents in this sur-
vey are business graduates and thus we have very little data about salary level of
those who pursued other academic programs.

We encourage everyone to give meaningful feedback of this report so that we can

make it even better and more useful in the future. Hopefully, other universities will
also come up with similar surveys which would help us analyze inter university
comparisons.

-Asif Khan

4 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 About “Jobs for NSUers”
“Jobs for NSUers” is a platform on the social networking site, Facebook, for NSU
students. It allows NSUers to interact with each other through this group. The idea
for this group came from Ashique Elahi Chowdhury. Even though the group was
probably created with the intention of helping NSU students find jobs, it has now
evolved into something much broader and bigger. Today the group has 5,367
members (and counting) who are constantly using it to network, share job ads, give
and receive career advice, share useful information and many other things.

As the group members grew in number, the admin panel also had to be extended
from time to time. Presently the admin panel of the group includes:

Amit Richard
Ashique Elahi Chowdhury
Asif Khan
FazleTaher
Kazi Mashrur Mamun
Kazi Tanzeel Shahid
Marufa Tabassum
Muhaimin Hussain
Priyanka Silmi

We sincerely hope that the group will continue to grow and branch out in terms of
members, depth of information and valuable opportunities. Undoubtedly, a quali-
fied and educated workforce is a necessity for the growth of the country.

5 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Section I: Respondent Profile
This section gives a helpful glance of the profile of the respondents. This is neces-
sary for further understanding and analysis of results.

Male-Female Breakdown
Figure: Male-Female breakdown between respondents

Female 119

Male 381

Total 500

Out of the total 500 respondents, 76% are male and 24% are female. It would have
been interesting to see how this ratio compared to the overall ratio of students in
NSU.

Age Distribution
Figure: Age Distribution of respondents

36-40 1

31-35 17

26-30 216

21-25 266

The vast majority of the respondents are fresh graduates aged 21-25 years. This
category contributed as 53% of the respondents. The next largest group is aged 26-
30 years with a 43% share.

6 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Level of Management
Figure: Level of management

Top Management 12

Middle Management 166

Entry Level 322

As most of the respondents are quite young it comes as no surprise that 64% con-
sidered their jobs as entry level. 33% are mid-level employees and only a meager
2% are in top management.

Education
Figure: Educational background

MS in CSE 0.2%
Masters in Public Health 0.2%
Masters in Dev Studies 0.2%
MSc in ETE 0.4%
MSc in Econ 0.4%
BSc in Pharmacy 0.4%
EMBA 0.6%
BA in English 0.8%
BS in CEG 1.2%
BSc in ENV 2.0%
Dual(e.g BBA and MBA) 2.4%
BS in CSE 3.4%
MBA 2.6%
BSc in Econ 3.6%
BS in ETE 5.8%
BBA 75.8%

It comes as no surprise that BBA is the most popular degree amongst the respon-
dents. However excluding BBA, the distribution is more spread out amongst the
other programs offered.

7 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Major Choices (BBA/MBA only)
Figure: Choice of major amongst business graduates

HRM 2.7%
FIN & ACT 3.6%
FIN & ACT + INB 3.9%
FIN & ACT + HRM 4.1%
Others 5.1%
FIN & ACT + ECON 7.0%
MKT + INB 7.3%
FIN & ACT 9.0%
MKT + HRM 15.3%
MKT 18.2%
FIN & ACT + MKT 23.8%

Amongst the BBA and the MBA graduates, Marketing seems to be the most popu-
lar major, followed by Finance &Accounting. It is also quite clear that dual major (or
major + minor) is a popular preference.

Unfortunately, due to lack of adequate data we could not do this analysis for non
business graduates.

Industry analysis
Figure: Industry where career was started vs present industry
25%
Career Started
20% Present Industry

15%

10%

5%

0%

To find out the biggest recruiting sectors we have asked respondents to list the in-
dustry they started their career in as well as the industry they are currently in.

.It comes off as no surprise that at the top two positions are occupied by the finan-
cial sector (mostly banks) and Telecommunications as the two largest job providers
in the country. Interestingly, Technology/IT sector seems to have as much share as
Telecom. This is quite fascinating because most of the respondents are business

8 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 graduates.

Two main trends can be observed here. Firstly, the share of Media comes down by
around 3% which is quite significant. Secondly, Technology and IT sector jumps
into top spot crossing Telecommunications. We have been hearing that Bangla-
desh has a big potential for developing the IT sector and the last two figures clearly
show some initial signs that the process has plausibly started.

9 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Section II: Working Conditions
In this section we have tried to capture some non-monetary and monetary ele-
ments outside of gross salary to gain an extensive understanding of employee
compensation.

Work Atmosphere
Figure: Working atmosphere in office

Total 7.42

Male 7.42

Female 7.44

We asked respondents to rate the working atmosphere in their organization out of

10 (10 being the best). The results show that most people are quite happy with the
working atmosphere even though there is scope for improvements. The difference
between the answer of male and female is also quite low.

Performance Bonus or Profit Sharing

Figure: Presence of performance bonus or profit sharing scheme

No 67%

Yes 33%

33% of the respondents said

that their organizations have policy for performance bonus or profit sharing. How-
ever, this does not look too bad because according to the website, salary.com, this
is equal to global average.

10 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Awards or Recognition
Figure: Award or recognition received by respondent

No response 1%

No such policy 27%

Yes 28%

No 44%

28% replied that they have received some sort of award or recognition in their jobs.
We believe that this is quite a high number and does indicate that a lot of NSU
graduates are doing well in their career.

Working Hours
Figure: Working hours according to male/female
46%
38%

29% 29%
26%
24%

6%
2% 2% 0%

8 Hours 9 Hours 10 Hours 12 Hours 12+ Hours

Male Female

Overall NSU graduates spend around 9.16 hours per day at office on average.
When we break the data by gender, it becomes more interesting. It is clear from
the figure above that women spend less time at work. On average women spend
about 8.82 hours while men spend 9.27 hours.

11 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Overtime
Figure: Availability of overtime

Yes 19%

No 81%

Most of the respondents do not get any overtime payments. This is understandable
because overtime is normally not given for white collar jobs.

12 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Section III: Salary
While going through the following segments please note that the sample size of
500 is too small to provide absolutely accurate results. Furthermore, in order to
convert the salary ranges (the survey only allowed people to choose salary ranges)
to absolute numbers we had to make some approximations. However, we still think
that the data is as near to accuracy as possible by this sample size.

Gross starting salary over the years

Figure: Gross starting salary over the years

The objective of this data was to understand how starting salaries have changed
over the years. The x-axis shows the years/months of job experience. Generally we
would expect starting salaries to be high for people with less experience (more re-
cent graduates). However, the results are surprising. The only significant change
that we have seen is in the salaries for those who have less than 6 months experi-
ence. While this phenomenon could have some meaningful explanation, it is possi-
ble that some people had entered some erroneous data during the survey.

If, however the data is correct then there are two possible conclusions. Firstly,
starting salary has been coming down in real terms over the years. Secondly, edu-
cation expense has been increasing at a faster rate than salary and thus the pay-
back period of a degree from University (calculated using starting salary) has been
growing.

13 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Gross starting salary by industry within last 1 year
Figure: Gross starting salary by industry within last 1 year

For finding the industry- wise salaries, we only took the data of the people who
have less than 1 year of experience. Tobacco industry leads the list but the wide
disparity is caused because only 3 people (with less than 1 year experience) are
working in this field and they are possibly working for the same company. The sur-
prising second position is taken by freight forwarding sector. Banking and NBFI at
3rd position was quite expected but the position of the RMG sector at 4th can also be
termed as quite surprising.

At the bottom of the list we see education and media/advertising. It is quite unex-
pected that International Organizations are at the lower end of the chart.

14 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Gross starting salary by major within last 1 year (BBA/MBA only)
Figure: Gross starting salary by major within 1 year (Business graduates)

Here again we only worked with respondents who have less than 1 year of experi-
ence. When we analyze the starting salaries by choice of major, Finance & Account-
ing seems to stand out quite significantly. The highest salaries are received by
graduates who have Finance & Accounting and Economics (either minor or major).
This combination is generally considered quite prestigious but now we see the
value in quantified data. The 2nd and 3rd positions also have Finance & Accounting
in it. Marketing and Human Resource Management has the lowest starting salary
according to our data.

Gross salary (present) according to experience

Figure: Effect on experience on salary

The objective of the above figure is to understand how much salary changes with
experience. We have categorized the data according to experience. The data shows
that, salaries remain relatively unchanged within the 1 year of job. However, from
the second year they start picking up. The most significant changes come in the 4 th
and the 5th year.

15 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Conclusion
This is the first such report by Jobs for NSUers. Hopefully, this is only the beginning
of such an endeavor and we will continue to publish such reports that can help the
upcoming generation in the pursuit for their dream job.

The group continues to show strong unity and it is amazing to see how eager peo-
ple are to help each other without getting a single penny in return for the effort.
Let us hope that this continues and we can not only help fellow NSUers but reach
out to people outside as well because we believe in mutual growth through sharing
of knowledge.

16 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

 Abbreviations
ACT- Accounting
ECON- Economics
FIN- Finance
HRM- Human Resource Management
INB- International Business
NBFI– Non Banking Financial Institution
MKT- Marketing

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APPENDIX
Link to the Survey Questionnaire

Survey on NSU graduates working in Bangladesh

This survey is solely for NSU graduates who are employed in different organizations and working in Bangladesh.
The following survey questions require information about a respondent’s age, income, work stress, position in the
organization. Purpose of this study is to determine position of NSU graduates in the market. The analysis and results
will be stored in Jobs for NSUers directory and will be used for further study in near future. The information you pre-
sent will strictly be confidential and will not be disclosed by any means. It will take few minutes to fill up the question-
naire. Please fill up the questions carefully. Your contribution will help us to determine the position of NSU graduates
in the industry.

Background Check
The following questions are about your background. All following questions are required except name of your current
organization and needs to be filled up.
Gender *
1. Please select your gender
A. Male
B. Female
Age *

2. Please select your age from the following choices

A. 21-25 Years
B. 26-30 Years
C. 31-35 Years
D. 36-40 Years
E. Above 40 Years

3. Which program degree you received from NSU? *

Please select your degree (e.g BBA, MBA, MSc in ECO)

4. If BBA/MBA/EMBA, what was your major when studying in NSU?

Please select one of the checkboxes from the following. If you have any other major or combinations of majors,
please select others and write it down. You can check more than one option if necessary.
A. Finance & Accounting
B. Finance
C. Human Resource Management
D. International Business
E. Business Policy & StrategyF. Management
G. Marketing
H. Marketing & International Business
I. Marketing & Human Resource Management
J. Marketing and Finance & Accounting
K. Marketing and Business Policy & Strategy
L. Marketing & Economics
M. Finance & Accounting and Economics
N. Finance & Accounting and International Business
O. Finance & Accounting and Human Resource Management
P. Finance & Accounting and Business Policy & Strategy
Q. Human Resource Management and International Business
R. Human Resource Management and Business Policy & Strategy
S. International Business and Business Policy & Strategy
T. Other:

5. What is the length of your employment period? *

Please select the total time of your employment after graduation

6. Name of the organization you are currently employed

Please mention the name of your organization where you are currently working

18 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers

7. Which industry does your organization represents? *
Please select the industry type

An Insight of your Employment

The following questions are about your income, work stress, current position holding etc. Fairness will be appreciated
while answering these questions.

8. In which industry you started your professional career? *

Please select the industry type where you started your career after graduation

9. When did you complete your graduation from NSU? *

Please select from the following the time frame you complete your graduation.

10. What was the remuneration in your first job after graduating from NSU? *
Please select the remuneration amount when you started your first job after graduation

11. How many times you switched your job? *

Please select the number of times you switched your job after graduation.
A. Once
B. Twice
C. 3 times
D. 4 times
E. 5 times or greater
F. Never changed a job

12. How much time on average do you spend in your office every day? *
Please select from the following the time you spend in your office
A. 8 Hours
B. 9 Hours
C. 10 Hours
D. 12 Hours
E. More than 12 Hours

13. Is there any overtime payment policy in your organization? *

Please choose from the following choices
A. Yes
B. No

14. Does your organization have performance bonus or profit sharing clause? *
Please select the following whether your company follows performance bonus or profit sharing provision.
A. Yes
B. No

15. What is your current position? *

Please select the level of position you hold currently
A. Entry Level/Executive/MTO/IG/FLDP/Trainee/Officer
B. Mid Level/Assistant Manager/Manager/GM/Senior Manager
C. Top Management/AVP/SVP/Director/DMD/MD/Chairman

16. In which post you entered when joining your 1st job after graduation? *
Please mention your first job position
A. Management Trainee
B. Officer/Trainee/Junior Officer
C. Junior/ Trainee Analyst
D. Executive
E. Faculty Member/ Lecturer
F. Other:

17. What is your monthly remuneration at present? *

Please choose your remuneration range from the following. Note: If there is any strict policy with disclosing salary
and you do not want to mention, select the last option.

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18. Working atmosphere in your organization *
Please rate the working environment in your organization (e.g. 1= Very Unfriendly, 5= Neutral 10= Very Friendly)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

19. Did you receive any achievements or rewards (Non-monetary) during your entire employment period?
Please choose from the following choices
A. Yes
B. No
Organization does not have rewarding policy.

20. If answer is "Yes" in previous question, what award or achievement did you received?
Please write about award title or rewards and purpose for achieving the award.

21. After graduation from NSU, Which of the following degree you achieved?
Please choose from the following. In case if you achieved two degrees, you may select more than one. If you haven't
achieved any degree, select None.
A. Masters from local universities
B. MBA from local universities
C. Ph.D
D. Masters from abroad
E. MBA from abroad
F. Professional degree (e.g. CA/ACCA/CFA)
G. None
H. Other:

End of Questionnaire
Thank you

20 | Salary Survey 2012 by Jobs for NSUers