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CAREERS TODAY: COUNSELLING Help Tarun!!!
Your LLB is an added qualification and your tax practice will add some value to this experience. Finding employment in the corporate sector will be easy for a person with your background, especially in the accounts or legal departments of companies. It will be easier still to find a job in advertising or related industries. However, chances are that you may have to settle for a little less than your ideal job to begin with. But once you are back in the mainstream, you can always change to a bigger and better assignment. And be prepared to answer the question of why you want to give up your tax practice. I am a 28-year-old mechanical engineer working in the operations department of a captive power plant belonging to a large business group for the last five years. With a dearth in the number of power projects coming up, I see a bleak future ahead. I want to switch over to some other sector, perhaps software. What do you advise? There a few things you have to keep in mind. One is that you probably have a pretty secure job. Next is that you have experience in the power industry-which you can use to your advantage. If you wish to change your field, you can probably find a job in any process industry as a mechanical engineer. As far as software is concerned, you need to retrain yourself completely. If you can get a transfer within your group to the software department, it would be great. A job outside may not give you the credit for the five years that have put in. My advice to you would be to enroll in a few software courses and see if you can land a good job. but don't quit your job in a hurry, especially before getting a new assignment. And yes, be sure to weigh the new remuneration against the free or subsidised housing and other facilities that you must be eligible for your present job. I am a 42-year-old electronics engineer. I took VRS and left the PSU I worked with for nearly 17 years. During this period, I worked as a manager in the marketing and business development section, specialising in navigation and landing equipment. I am at present employed in a private company but in an entirely different field. Marketing a product in new area is proving difficult. What are the options available to me? Should I do a part-time MBA, or should I try to go back to my original field, where three foreign companies dominate the business? Or should I try something else? A part-time MBA will enhance your skills and keep up your motivation levels, but don't expect it to leapfrog your career onto a different planet. Your first option would be to apply to the three transnational companies in your field. Simultaneously, you can also figure out what related industries you will be able to fit into. You can always do part-time MBA on the side instead of putting your career on hold. I am a senior executive with a large, reputed Indian business house, and am due for superannuation shortly. I have an MBA from IIM and from IIFT, as well as a diploma in market research from Germany. I am well-known in both industry and government circles. I have worked in almost all non-tech areas, both in the shopfloor and at the headquarters of two large Indian firms for 24 years. I would like to work for an NGO, but do not know how to approach them. Or should I venture into an infotech-related business? Finally, should I approach other firms in my industry for a CEO or No. 2 level position? A lot of Indian private companies, especially small- and medium-sized ones, do look for a retired person in a similar field either at the top management level or as an advisor. Both these options are open to you. You could advertise in the newspapers, but networking and spreading the word through friends and associates is usually more productive for such jobs. You could apply to companies in the same industry (these could easily utilise your skills) as long as there isn't any conflict of interest. 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 They have started looking down in Corporate India-all the way down below the cuffs of your trousers. Formerly footloose Indian executives are polishing their act and learning their eglets from their eyelets. BT's Mily Chakrabarty digs her heels and gets to the bottom of corporate footwear in this round of Building Me-Inc. Our subject, a man preparing for a job interview at a leading strategic consulting firm was experiencing eleventh hour jitters. Mentally, he'd been through every question and supplemental question he could think of. But, it was clothes that worried him. Following the advice of a college senior already with the firm, he'd acquired a dark pin stripe suit. But the shoes-he'd forgotten to ask about the shoes. To cut a long story short, our friend who possessed only a pair of black slip-ons ended up wearing a one-size-too-big pair of four-eyelet lace ups belonging to his senior. Apparently what was on his feet was a big issue-the firm, he would discover when he joins it, went to the extent of giving fresh hires guidelines on the type of shoes they were expected to wear and where they could buy them. The upshot of the story: he got the job and to date swears (with a big grin on his face) that it was the shoes that did the trick.
So, if you thought you could take your shoes lightly think again. There's an apocryphal story about media mogul Rupert Murdoch sacking one of his British editors for the offence of wearing a pair of brown Brogues with a dark suit; it is widely known that Murdoch dislikes dark trousers and brown shoes. In Wall Street investment banks, it is the number of eyelets that is the bone of contention. In India, not many may know their Oxfords from their Brogues, but shoes are increasingly becoming more important. We may not have many executives roaming around in Ermenegildo Zegnas-Italian formal shoes that retail for Rs 19,999, but the days of slip-ons with white socks, or creased, worn out, and unpolished shoes are clearly over. Says Preety Kumar, CEO of the executive search firm Amrop: ''It is not that you get a job because of your shoes, but there are certain things-polished shoes or matching socks for instance-that do get noticed.'' Sobriety helps. Kumar never tires of narrating an anecdote about a candidate who turned up in bright yellow socks. He didn't land the job. Conventionally, formal shoes in India have been European in origin: Oxfords, Monks, Derbys, Brogues, and formal Moccasins (See One, Two, Know Your Shoe). The workmanship is different across brands. For formal occasions, a dark suit is expected to be worn with formal lace-up shoes-black is the preferred option. A matt finish is in these days; no snakeskin or patent leather, if you please. As for colour co-ordination, insists designer J.J. Vallaya, ''The belt, socks, and shoes should match. The socks should be a shade-variation of the trousers.'' As far as shoe colours are concerned there are basically just blacks and browns when it comes to the office. The variety lies in the shape. Today's in-shapes are the square toe and the chiselled toe.
In India, comfort has always been an issue for men. Lace-ups may be formal but they are far from comfortable, which is why many executives-especially the older ones prefer slip-ons. Still as Deepak Bahl, gm (Marketing and Sales), Red Tape insists: ''Lace-ups may not be the most comfortable, but they are the formal option. The more the number of eyelets, the more formal the shoes are considered.'' The sole of the shoes also tells a lot about a man. Explains Avneesh Khosla, Unit Head & Manager (Operations), Shoppers Stop, Delhi: ''As you go up the ladder, the sole becomes the differentiator. Rubber soles are durable, more comfortable, and obviously cheaper than leather soles. On the other hand, those who wear shoes with leather soles are the 'home-to-car-to-office' types.'' Another issue of the foot these days is the confusion between casual, formal, and semi-formal shoes. The casual revolution has left many an executive confused. Of course, there are no rules on this one: it varies from industry to industry and in some cases company to company. Predictably, semi-formals are more comfortable. But there are some rules. Explains Reebok CEO Siddarth Verma: ''Shoes with the 50:50 principle of design (two colours) are a strict no-no for formals workplaces, but are very hot in the casual sections.'' But for those in the stiff-upper-lip kind of professions like banking, investment banking, and consulting, shoes are part of the dress-code that sets them apart. Explains John Band, CEO, Ask Raymond James, ''In certain businesses people can wear exotic footwear without inviting ridicule. But we are in a boring business. No such experiments in investment banking. For us, it's black for business.'' Adds Rajiv Memani of Ernst & Young who swears by his Oxfords: ''Casuals are allowed in Ernst & Young only on Saturdays (it's a holiday), and a strict no-no on other working days. Consulting is the last place to look for any variety in the dress code.'' All In The Game There is a lot to be said about a company that closes shop in the same country twice in one decade-but maybe it's better we keep mum this time. The world's oldest consulting firm Arthur D. Little is in bad shape these days. As part of a global restructuring, it is simultaneously shutting down a slew of offices from Buenos Aires to Bogota due to 'material cash flow problems' and 'significantly depressed' operating income after the cancellation of the listing of C-quential, its technology and telecom subsidiary. According to Srinath Mukherjee, Country Manager (India), the first time round the firm had not closed shop but merely scaled down operations-but ADL, industry insiders insist, was as good as gone from the market. This time the exit shouldn't be too tough for the company as it has only nine clients at present in the country. That is, if it comes to having to pull out of India. Mukherjee says that the relook at the India operations was necessitated by C-quential's incurring of huge costs in the run up to the IPO. He insists that the 10 Indian employees will not be laid off and since they had anyway been travelling extensively around Asia, will be absorbed in other regional offices. A.D. Little, which has focused in the three verticals of telecom, chemicals, and petroleum, has been a trifle unlucky. The exit, if it happens, will be the second by a consulting firm in the recent past, after global strategy house Booz, Allen & Hamilton closed shop in India in 1999. Well, as they say: you win some, you lose some. A Different Game A while ago we told you to expect a move on the part of Salil Punoose of International Bestfoods. Not many thought the ex-Leverite would stay on after the acquisition of Bestfoods by HLL. From what we have been given to believe (yet to be confirmed by the man himself) he has been getting a fair share of offers. So far, Punoose has been politely declining most of the offers. No, he isn't thinking of an early retirement. Punoose, apparently, is considering hooking up with an NGO to do his bit for the society and help professionalise Indian NGOs. Great idea, but will it work? Quiet Reshuffle First, he told us he was retiring. But Hughes Escorts Communications had no intention of letting its 65-year-old CEO Shashi Ullal go. Ullal has now been promoted to Vice-Chairman. The Hughes brass did not go far to find a replacement for Ullal. coo Partho Banerjee slipped into his shoes. Banerjee has been working with HECL since 1994, and was with Tata Lucent before that. His agenda is tough: to increase demand for VSAT services. How he deals with policy bottlenecks is another issue. Searched! When Andersen (as Arthur Andersen is now called) restructured a couple of years ago, Vijay Sahni, the then country manager, India, was put in an 'emeritus' type of role. Sahni would be found floating in and out of Andersen's various metro offices networking; with clients the nitty-gritties of running the business being transferred to boy wonder Bobby Parikh. It is this networking ability that has now landed Sahni a partnership with leading search firm Heidrick & Struggles in London. Sahni will be handling the firm's technology practice in the UK. He is the second Indian to be given this mantle with an international search firm. Stanton Chase made Indian MD R. Suresh, head of its technology practice a while ago. Given their tech-connections, guess it makes sense to have Indians there. |
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I
am a CA, who worked as a commercial manager in an advertising industry
between 1990 to 1999. Since then I have started a tax practice and been
doing LLB at the same time. What are the prospects for a 36-year-old CA
plus LLB in the corporate sector?
