Kotak Investment Banking's Srivastava: Competition on campuses was very stiff this year

Help, Tarun!

BPO Jobs Are Hot

It has been three months since the curtains fell on this year's placement season at management institutes. Most of the freshly minted MBAs are now gingerly finding their feet in a world far removed from academia. The change in atmosphere can be daunting-even for brash and (often over-) confident management grads. That's why almost every recruiter has a formal induction process to ease their entry into corporate life. "Most new recruits understand merit to mean high grades. In live business situations, however, merit means something totally different-it's all about timely delivery and team work," says R. Ramkumar, Head of Human Resources, ICICI Bank, which hired 85 MBAs this 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 the Indian School of Business, who joined Kotak Investment Banking as an Associate (entry level designation) on May 15: "I've been here two weeks and I'm already working on a live deal and meeting clients. My superiors are very clear that performance is all that counts." This practice of throwing new recruits into the deep end is what makes Kotak Investment Banking an attractive employer. "Competition was very stiff this year, but our reputation for introducing new recruits to live projects was what drew our recruits towards us," says Yogesh Srivastava, Vice President and Head of Human Resources, Kotak Investment Banking, which, like most other top-notch recruiters, also has an elaborate and rigorous induction and training programme to ease freshers into the organisation.

And these programmes aren't just routines thought up by hr personnel to justify their own existence. They are often a new recruit'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, was suffering from pangs of anxiety in the weeks leading up to his first day at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). "I was a little worried initially, but I've settled into the job over the last month," he says, adding that the "transition from campus to office has been smooth and without any rude wake-up calls".

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

Kotak Investment Banking's Abraham: Working on a live deal is what counts

PwC's Roy: Transition from campus to office has been smooth

The information technology sector is another magnet for fresh MBAs. Says Debanshu Sarkar, an iim Ahmedabad alum, who joined Infosys Technologies last month: "I was drawn to the company by its strong culture of ethics and corporate governance; but the opportunity to interact with Tier I clients and, consequently, being able to build an international-focused career were also big motivators." Sarkar says his "short-term goals are to gain as much knowledge as possible about systems, processes and issues so that I'm able to add value to all my interactions with clients and colleagues".

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

ICICI Bank's Ramkumar: Merit is no longer about high grades, but delivery

Infosys' Sarkar: Focus on a global career is a big motivation

Wipro, unlike many if its peers in the it industry, does not restrict its recruitment strategy to only the IIMs, ISBS and the XLRIS, and often makes aggressive pre-placement offers to students at institutions such as Symbiosis. "We have a record of hiring people from these colleges and developing them into team leaders," claims Keerthi Chandrashekhar, General Manager, Talent Engagement and Development, Wipro Technologies. This year, for example, it recruited about 120 MBAs, several of them from Tier II institutes. They are given a year to comprehensively understand their businesses and only then are their performances judged, he says, adding: "We also put them through two-to-four weeks of training before placing them on live projects."

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

Interestingly, none of the freshers Business Today spoke to approved of frequent job hopping. Abhishek Sourav, an IIM-C grad who joined PWC last month, is just settling into his job. "I'm thinking of the long term," he says, "that means I'll certainly remain with PWC for the foreseeable future." This is in sharp contrast to the image MBAs have developed of being compulsive job hoppers. "Quick shifts and rotations make individuals superficial. Only people who stay in the same company for five-to-seven years develop the maturity and the perspective to understand all the aspects of the job," says ICICI's Ramkumar.

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

COUNSELLING
Help, Tarun!

Q: I am a 23-year-old engineering (production) second-year student. Due to family pressure, I joined this field. I am thinking of 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, you need to decide what you want to do. I would suggest you complete your engineering and opt for an MBA after that. This will help you in the food processing business. Or, you could do a CFA if you want to be in the financial services.

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

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

Answers to your career concerns are contributed by Tarun Sheth (Senior Consultant) and Shilpa Sheth (Managing Partner, US practice) of HR firm, Shilputsi Consultants. Write to Help,Tarun! c/o Business Today, Videocon Tower, Fifth Floor, E-1, Jhandewalan Extn., New Delhi-110055..

BPO Jobs Are Hot
The outsourcing boom will continue to generate employment for thousands of people.

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

-Aman Malik