222 companies offered 1,806 jobs to fresh CAs this year

A total 222 companies offered 1,806 jobs to fresh CAs this year,
compared with 156 firms recruiting 398 fresh CAs in the last placement
season.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) wants to place
more graduates in fast-growing sectors such as small and medium
enterprises (SME), retail, telecom and infrastructure. "As of now, the
financial sector remains the biggest sector, with nearly 600 fresh CAs
(chartered accountants) being hired by banks alone," said K. Raghu,
chairman of Icai's committee for members in industry. "But we are
seriously looking to the SMEs to tap a largely untapped segment." Icai
plans a special programme to place CAs in SMEs, he said.

"We are expecting around 250 CAs to participate in the exclusively
structured campus placement programme for SMEs to be organized during
May. We expect to place about 200 candidates." SMEs account for 45% of
India's industrial output and 40% of exports, according to industry
lobby Small and Medium Business Development Chamber of India. They
employ 60 million people, create 1.3 million jobs every year and
produce more than 8,000 products for the Indian and international
markets. The sector contributed 17% of the gross domestic product
(GDP) in 2009, which is expected to increase to 22% by 2012. There are
26.1 million SME units in India and 12 million people are expected to
join the SME workforce in the next three years. ICAI president G.
Ramaswamy said demand for Indian CAs has grown both nationally and
internationally. A total 222 companies offered 1,806 jobs to fresh CAs
this year, compared with 156 firms recruiting 398 fresh CAs in the
last placement season.

"CAs get good grounding during their articleship and are good at
managing business environment. The compensation should reflect the
talent they possess. The highest package of '68 lakh per annum,
offered to four candidates for international posting, shows the
importance of CAs as a complete business solutions provider,"
Ramaswamy said. All chartered accountancy students are required to
work as audit clerks for three years, which is known as articleship.
The demand for CAs is expected to rise with a number of companies
adopting accounting standards in line with the international financial
reporting standards. Anil Sachdev, a human resource consultant, said
CAs are more in demand compared with masters of business
administrations (MBAs) for three reasons.

"Having done their articleship, they have seen life inside a company,
the chartered accountancy curriculum has seen a change with additional
modules on business understanding, and they are into process driven
technology, which is required by sectors such as retail as also
banking," said Sachdev, founder and chief executive of the School of
Inspired Leadership, an HR consultancy firm. "My personal experience
says CAs are more stable than MBAs and, therefore, contribute less to
attrition in a company." Olam International Ltd, an export house on
agricultural commodities based in Singapore, paid the highest salary
of '68 lakh a year in the history of Icai over the last 33 placement
seasons. Among domestic firms, ITC Ltd offered the highest pay packet
of nearly Rs. 14 lakh a year.

ICICI Bank Ltd offered 309 jobs to fresh CAs while Canara Bank hired
55 CAs and Axis Bank Ltd gave offer to 50 others. In total, 589 jobs
came from banks, and 100 from nonbanking financial companies. Icai
also wants to place more students in retail, infrastructure and
telecom sectors. Since September, telcos Idea Cellular Ltd and Bharti
Airtel Ltd have hired at least 23 fresh CAs, said Raghu. Icai plans to
tap the Persian Gulf market as well. Its committee for members in
industry organized interviews for fresh graduates with Gulf-based
companies through video conferencing; two students were placed as a
result.