Beckoning Careers, BPO Jobs Are Hot, Help, Tarun!

BECKONING CAREERS

First Day First Show

The Class of 2006 management grads have just joined their newjobs. How are they coping? What are their goals? And what do theiremployers think of them? Here are the answers.

By Rahul Sachitanand, Ritwik Mukherjee and Shivani Lath

It has been three months since the curtains fell on this year'splacement season at management institutes. Most of the freshly mintedMBAs are now gingerly finding their feet in a world far removed fromacademia. The change in atmosphere can be daunting-even for brash and(often over-) confident management grads. That's why almost everyrecruiter has a formal induction process to ease their entry intocorporate life. "Most new recruits understand merit to mean highgrades. In live business situations, however, merit means somethingtotally different-it's all about timely delivery and team work," saysR. Ramkumar, Head of Human Resources, ICICI Bank, which hired 85 MBAsthis year from leading institutes.

But despite this, many of the recruits are in a hurry to go live.Says Anna Abraham, a double major in finance and marketing from theIndian School of Business, who joined Kotak Investment Banking as anAssociate (entry level designation) on May 15: "I've been here twoweeks and I'm already working on a live deal and meeting clients. Mysuperiors are very clear that performance is all that counts." Thispractice of throwing new recruits into the deep end is what makesKotak Investment Banking an attractive employer. "Competition wasvery stiff this year, but our reputation for introducing new recruitsto live projects was what drew our recruits towards us," says YogeshSrivastava, Vice President and Head of Human Resources, KotakInvestment Banking, which, like most other top-notch recruiters, alsohas an elaborate and rigorous induction and training programme toease freshers into the organisation.

And these programmes aren't just routines thought up by hrpersonnel to justify their own existence. They are often a newrecruit's first point of contact with India Inc from the inside.Debopam Roy, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),Kanpur, and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, wassuffering from pangs of anxiety in the weeks leading up to his firstday at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). "I was a little worriedinitially, but I've settled into the job over the last month," hesays, adding that the "transition from campus to office has beensmooth and without any rude wake-up calls".

PWC, which hired 50 MBAs this year, has a structured 5-daytraining capsule for new recruits. Says Santanu Banduri, HR Head, PWCIndia: "We send all of them to our Global Training Centre in Kolkata(outstation candidates are given air tickets along with their offerletters) for our 'Gem Level Training', after which they are put inone of our Strategic Business Units for on-the-job training andfamiliarisation with PWC methodologies." The goal: "to make them realproblem solvers," says Banduri.

The information technology sector is another magnet for freshMBAs. Says Debanshu Sarkar, an iim Ahmedabad alum, who joined InfosysTechnologies last month: "I was drawn to the company by its strongculture of ethics and corporate governance; but the opportunity tointeract with Tier I clients and, consequently, being able to buildan international-focused career were also big motivators." Sarkarsays his "short-term goals are to gain as much knowledge as possibleabout systems, processes and issues so that I'm able to add value toall my interactions with clients and colleagues".

Abhishek Dhingra, a graduate from Pune's Symbiosis Centre forManagement and Human Resource Development, received a pre-placementoffer from Infosys' cross-town rival Wipro for its financial servicesbusiness. "I had worked with i-Flex as a programmer before doing myMBA; I wanted to move from the narrow focus of code-writing to amanagement and consulting position," he says, adding that Wipro madehim the offer on the basis of his strong performance during his 2005summer internship with the company. "I was put on live projects evenduring my internship and was encouraged to actively contribute to myteam; so I expected to be put on live projects soon after joiningfull-time," he says. Incidentally, both Wipro and Infosys place freshMBAs on live projects within a month of their joining. Meanwhile,Dhingra is setting himself up a long-term player. His professionalgoal: learn the ropes of the banking and financial services business;then gradually move into roles that entail handling greaterresponsibility. "I will be based in India, but I hope to travelextensively to get an idea of the global financial services markets,especially in North America and Europe," he says.

Wipro, unlike many if its peers in the it industry, does notrestrict its recruitment strategy to only the IIMs, ISBS and theXLRIS, and often makes aggressive pre-placement offers to students atinstitutions such as Symbiosis. "We have a record of hiring peoplefrom these colleges and developing them into team leaders," claimsKeerthi Chandrashekhar, General Manager, Talent Engagement andDevelopment, Wipro Technologies. This year, for example, it recruitedabout 120 MBAs, several of them from Tier II institutes. They aregiven a year to comprehensively understand their businesses and onlythen are their performances judged, he says, adding: "We also putthem through two-to-four weeks of training before placing them onlive projects."

Ashneer Grover graduated from IIM-A this year and joined KotakInvestment Banking. It's his first job "but I feel no anxiety as thisplace is very open and we can seek help from everyone", he says,adding that it helps to have seniors from campus working in the samecompany. This results in informal mentoring of freshers and helpsthem to integrate seamlessly into their employer's culture.

Interestingly, none of the freshers Business Today spoke toapproved of frequent job hopping. Abhishek Sourav, an IIM-C grad whojoined PWC last month, is just settling into his job. "I'm thinkingof the long term," he says, "that means I'll certainly remain withPWC for the foreseeable future." This is in sharp contrast to theimage MBAs have developed of being compulsive job hoppers. "Quickshifts and rotations make individuals superficial. Only people whostay in the same company for five-to-seven years develop the maturityand the perspective to understand all the aspects of the job," saysICICI's Ramkumar.

Does that mean the typical MBA, and the job market itself, ismaturing? Maybe. But just as the proof of the pudding lies in theeating, it's best to suspend judgment on that at least till the nextjob offer comes along.

What New Recruits Want

Proper systems to ease transition from campus life to professionallife

The opportunity to gain as much knowledge as possible

A bird's eye view of their company/sector/industry

A chance to interact with clients

An early introduction to live projects

What Recruiters Want

Seamless integration into the company's culture

Smooth and fast transition from academic environment to livebusiness situations

At least a 5-7 year job tenure

An effort by recruits to familiarise themselves with sector

An effort by recruits to familiarise themselves with the systemsand methodologies they will use in the course of their work

BPO Jobs Are Hot

The outsourcing boom will continue to generate employment forthousands of people.

The Indian ITEs sector is creating thousands of jobs. But whichspecific verticals within the overall business process outsourcing-knowledge process outsourcing (bpo-kpo) sector are the hottest amongthe hot? Says Raman Roy, CMD, Quattro, and one of the pioneers ofthe Indian outsourcing story: "Banking, financial services andinsurance and technology account for around 70 per cent of the totalBPO-KPO business and all these are booming." Pharmaceuticals andlife sciences is another vertical growing at a frenetic pace.Together, these verticals are expected to add 60-70 per cent of themore than 100,000 jobs that will be created across verticals in thevoice segment. Adds Ronesh Puri, Managing Director, Executive Access,a leading search firm: "Several niche players are also entering thisspace." Neither Nasscom nor Gartner had the disaggregated figures forindividual segments. Roy and Puri are emphatic that no segment withinthe BPO universe is slowing down. "Individual verticals are eitherhot or static," they say.

-Aman Malik

Help, Tarun!

Q: I am a 23-year-old engineering (production) second-yearstudent. Due to family pressure, I joined this field. I am thinkingof quitting engineering and pursuing courses in food processing,export-import management and stock markets. Please advise.

Stock market and food processing are two different fields. So, youneed to decide what you want to do. I would suggest you complete yourengineering and opt for an MBA after that. This will help you in thefood processing business. Or, you could do a CFA if you want to be inthe financial services.

Q: I am a 34-year-old entrepreneurial consultant with 12 years ofwork experience, in India and abroad. I've done Masters in CivilEngineering. I wish to start a consultancy of my own, but don't knowhow to go about it.

You have not mentioned what kind of consultancy you want tostart. At the same time, setting up a consultancy business on one'sown is not easy. You need to have a good network of contacts to helpyou get assignments. You also need to estimate your expenses and workout whether your income will be able to cover all of those. Factor inthe fact that clients will not necessarily pay on time and,therefore, cash flows may not be satisfactory.