I am a 32-year-old IIT (Madras) and IIM (Calcutta) product working as a senior analyst with one of the leading credit rating agencies in the country. I have been covering an array of companies for the past three years carrying out exercises in due diligence or simply rating them. I would like to get out of the industry now. Where do you think I will fit in?

If you want to exit credit rating you could use your skills and experience in other financial services like asset management or corporate finance, even try being part of the treasury function of a company. The other immediate option is consulting, especially in the areas of valuation, and mergers and acquisitions. At a pinch you could even get into risk management. Of course, doing something apart from the first few mentioned will mean starting from scratch. Still, while these areas may not have a direct application for the skills you have learned, they are related and your experience will be valued.

I am an HR professional working in a transnational for the past one year. I am an economics graduate and hold a diploma in management as well. I would like to join the executive search industry. I am good with people and think it will be a great way of meeting people. Do I need extra qualifications in order to fit the bill? And does it pay well?

You would definitely fit into the industry and it pays well. But you are way off the mark if you think meeting people is what executive search is all about. It is a lot of hard work. There is a significant amount of routine work involved in being a good executive search consultant, especially at a junior level. Also, you are shifting to a service business, and that requires a set of skills and attitudes as well. You need to make a conscious decision to change without being carried away by the glamour attached to the job. I can only summarise in Einstein's words-it's 99 per cent perspiration and 1 per cent inspiration.

I am a 25-year-old consultant working for a few leather units in Chennai. I have earned my chemical engineering degree from IIT Madras. I also hold a management degree in HR from XLRI. I wish to continue my studies in an emerging field-Vedic Management. But I do not know which institutes offer such courses. I would also like to know what the job prospects would be after pursuing this kind of management programme.

Vedic management is not yet a mainstream educational course. One of the institutes offering a programme in it is the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Institute. There are other independent consultants who provide short- term courses on the topic. After completing the course, you can start teaching in the institute you began with or become an independent trainer. As far as the industry is concerned, it may not take cognisance of your qualification as something over and above the management courses and give you a special assignment or job based on this unless the CEO has a personal belief in the idea. At another level, you seem to be doing diverse things and that may imply that you haven't quite made up your mind on what you want to do in the long-term, and are trying to find your feet. If that is the case, then you need to do some soul searching before embarking on Vedic management, or any other course.

I hold a master's degree in physics and have done an MBA in finance from IGNOU. I am interested in doing a part-time or correspondence course on insurance. I have heard about the Insurance Institute of India, but do not know if they offer any correspondence course or hold any evening classes. Are there any other institutes in India offering long-distance courses in insurance?

There are a lot of institutes and most of them offer distance learning programmes-some of them (apart from Insurance Institute of India) are College of Insurance, Institute of Insurance Surveyors and Adjusters, and Actuarial Society of India. There are also some transnational institutes like the Institute of Risk Management, London, and Chartered Insurance Institute, UK, which may offer distance-learning programmes.

Tarun Sheth, the senior consultant at the Mumbai-based recruitment and training consultancy firm, Shilputsi, addresses your career concerns every fortnight. Write to Help,Tarun!!! c/o Business Today, F-26, Connaught Place, New Delhi-1.

BUILDING ME-INC
Winner Take All 
How did the manager in the cabin next to you manage to get an extra car, a better house...etc? Competence is not always the answer. In our continuing series on how to polevault the success ladder, Mily Chakrabarty identifies winning tactics while negotiating a service contract.

There is a surfeit of gratuitous advice on how to impress your boss-to-be and make it through the interview, but there's little said or written on how to get that extra bit out of negotiations. Here are a few thumb rules that can help you through the process.

First, never approach the negotiation table assuming that your qualifications will automatically guarantee a good deal. ''Only your track record matters,'' says head-hunter Ronesh Puri, Director, Executive Access.

You need to do a lot of background work before the actual negotiation process commences. Gather information about your prospective employer. Read up on the company, its competitor's position, its financials, and other relevant things. ''One needs to understand the value the company intends to deliver,'' says Shailesh Shah, Managing Consultant, Watson Wyatt India. At the same time, know thyself, too. And it won't hurt to be ready for questions on previous assignments and your key achievements.

Enthusiasm is infectious. Your passion for the job has to come across. Remember, negotiation is not a competition. It would be better not to put yourself and the employer on opposite sides of the bargaining table. Instead, cultivate the impression that you are on the same side. That will help you both come out winners.

Avoid the temptation to exaggerate. Be truthful and honest. When negotiating, it is important to show the employer how hiring you will improve the company's bottomline. Remind the employer of skills you possess that will save the company money. But at the same time don't go overboard selling yourself. ''A lot of people talk themselves out of the job,'' says Puri.

In the final analysis, it's your ability to reason and make sense of things that really counts. Negotiations in real-time, however, involve an element of chance. The negotiator may have trouble understanding your position and may need a number of things explained. Negotiations, however, are not always between 'smart' people who know exactly what they want and how far they are willing to go. They mostly take place between people whose goals are flexible and may change according to their perception of the person across the table. In such cases, understanding the other person's expectations may well be the deciding factor.

Opening the interview with a query on the compensation package is such a hot idea. You may end up pricing yourself out of a job before the employer is convinced of your worth. If pressed by the interviewers, tell them you are flexible and would be happy to discuss the salary after you learn more about the job. Better still, waiting until you are offered the job gives you the leverage you need to negotiate a higher salary. Keep in mind the fact that the compensation that a prospective employer is likely to offer will be directly proportionate to the perception of the candidate's calibre. But when the salary issue is finally discussed, it should be done up-front in terms of total value expected. ''If this remains ambiguous, both the candidate and the potential employer are wasting their time,'' says Shah.

Time is another important factor. Haggling has been known to continue for a year in some cases. But the best solution is to wrap it up as soon as possible. Says Aadesh Goyal, V-P (HR), Hughes Software Systems: ''We try to wrap up the entire process within a couple of weeks.'' After all, any delay leaves the door open for other candidates and companies.

Ultimately, a company will hire you because you will either help them make money or help them save it. Puri says: ''It's finally a cost-benefit analysis.'' If they come to believe that you can do one or both, you stand an excellent chance of being hired! Happy negotiating.

Tracking

Corporate Chameleon

When life is a stage, there is no problem in changing roles. That is probably why theatre enthusiast Vidhur Kaushik, who has recently joined as CEO of Speciality Ranbaxy, has had no problem changing career tracks. Starting with a 17-year haul in ICI's paints division, he then moved to be President of Srei International, followed by a three-year stint with the Vam Group as President of its speciality division, before moving on to Ranbaxy. Apart from acting in a number of plays, Kaushik even did a stint as a news broadcaster for Doordarshan in his college days. The 46-year-old English literature post-graduate is enthusiastic at the prospect of spreading healthcare and given his background will probably do so with a poetic licence.

Sweet As Sugar

The international management buyout of the Monsanto consumer products division Merisant was expected to have repercussions in India. Nine months after the buyout, a new CEO-36-year-old Sanjay Nayyar is in place. The ex-head of the speciality chemicals and nylon intermediates SBU is getting ready to shift base to Mumbai from where he will spearhead the operations. Merisant has brands like Equal and Canderel (artificial sweetners) under its belt. Nayyar is banking on the Indian middle class' current obsession with fitness to bring him his 'sweet success'.

Back Where The Heart Is

Even while joining he had told 123India promoter Arvind Kajaria that he would not stay for long. So there were no shockwaves when Dhruv Sharma resigned as CEO of 123India.com. Sharma is back in Calcutta with his first love-consulting company Mentor Management Services that he started 10 years back. But he is not cutting off all his ties with the internet world. He is working with Caltiger as an Executive Director for their new strategic initiative, Marketing Strategies and Organisational Development project. Sharma is currently involved in a project called 'Narrow Caster' (with Caltiger). Narrow Caster, according to him, is a new technique of online advertising. It aims to do advance-level targeting at users across different demographic and psychographic levels. Asked about the change, Sharma explained: ''I needed fresh creative challenges in other areas of the New Economy.''

Getting Insured

Celine George, the former HR Head of Hewitt Associates, has shifted to CGU Insurance. George has extensive experience spanning a period of 18 years. She started her career as a Researcher in IIM (Ahmedabad), from where she moved to ONGC, and thereafter worked in the Management Consultancy Group of TCS. George went back to the petroleum sector to work as Head (HR) of Cairn Energy India. She explains her most recent career move as an opportunity to participate in the ground-up building process.

Jobs Listing

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