Guidance To Find CA Industrial Training

Many of the CA aspirants desire to have Industrial training in their related and interested field. But how to find the way is bigger and challenging question. This article is an attempt to make everyone aware of the nuances of industrial training; the way to approach the companies and finally, how do you select the right organization.

Many CA articleship aspirant search to do their articleship in a auditing firms, as they may be unknown ‘industrial training’. Working in a company would mean being on the other side of the table – i.e., not to audit the company rather, help to get the audit done from another auditor. Sounds exciting!!

Believe in yourself and decide to take that plunge. What to be very clear is that the Company should be good and they should offer a good exposure. After all, it was a matter relating to your career. Do your Homework first

• Get a list of companies offering industrial training

You can find the list of companies registered with the ICAI  on ICAI’s website with all the details. The same can be found on http://www.icai.org/post.html?po….

• How do you send your CV

The next question you might face is the way to send your CV. Should you send it via email or via courier? I suggest that wherever you don’t have the email ID, just send your CVs to the postal address of the Company and address it to the HR manager.

• Expect a low turnaround

There is a high likelihood of majority of the companies not responding to your emails/ couriers.  However, don’t panic or get demoralized. As the more companies you send your CVs to, the brighter are the chances to receive interview calls. Ultimately you need only one company to work with and that one company you would surely find.

• Select the Right Organization

This question would arise only if by God’s grace you receive calls from more than one organization. And therefore, the chance to identify the right organization starts. Try and have clarity on the following aspects by getting answers to these below questions, whenever you meet the company’s HR or the technical manager:

What kind of work are they offering?

Since you would be moving away from your current employer (i.e. CA Firm) and going to a new company, you should be very clear of the kind of work they offer to industrial trainees. A lot of companies hire industrial trainees for their finance departments only to engage them for bank or other reconciliations. This kind of job might turn out to be really frustrating and you should therefore be careful before picking. Please weigh the pros and cons between your current articleship experience and the one offered by the Company.

Leaving audit or tax exposure for industrial training would make sense only when you get good quality work or in a situation where you are not satisfied with your current employer.

Be upfront to ask about the work profile

Be very clear asking for your work profile with the interviewer. You should be clear in your thoughts and like to know why you would join the organization. Asking for the work profile is your right, which should be exercised every time.

Is it a Company or a Bank and the division in it

Lot of banks also hire industrial trainees for a lot of their departments like corporate finance, private banking, wealth banking etc. You should therefore, be clear which division would you work for and what kind of work would they offer you.

Other miscellaneous things like leave policy, office working hours etc

There is no harm in candidly asking the above questions from the interviewer. Since you would be needing leaves for your study preparation, asking about their leave policy, working hours etc would be helpful in determining your decision to join that organization.

The CA firm might give 2-3 months of study leave whereas the company may offer you less and therefore, you would have to take a call what suits you. There is no set mechanism to take a decision and it would purely depend upon your circumstances in that moment.

• Don’t join with an expectation to be absorbed

There is a misconception in the minds of students that once you complete your industrial training, the chances of getting hired by the same company are very high. This may not be completely true. Majority of the good companies hire chartered accountants at the central level.

There are some companies like Kotak Bank, ITC, HUL, Citibank etc that hire industrial trainees, but to get absorbed on their payroll you have to follow a completely different process. Yes, if your credentials are strong and you satisfy the requirements of their hiring process, you would definitely be preferred. But don’t take absorption in that organization for granted.

Consequently, there is a very high likelihood of you having to clear interviews the way anyone else from outside that organization would do. However, for smaller companies, you may not face similar problems and they might hire you if your performance is good.

• Connect To Your Contacts

The other way to find CA industrial training is by developing contacts. The best way is to connect to a person who is or has already done industrial training as he will be in contact with the person who recruited him for the training. Also, these type of vacancies are usually circulated through internal employees so its natural that they have some junior friends or relatives in the same field.

• Use your gut feeling to take the final call

I have been a very strong believer of one’s own gut feeling, because that feeling comes from within and always guides you to the right direction. You should be completely aware of what’s store in for you before you join any organization but your ultimate decision to join or not should purely be based on your sixth sense/ gut feel.

Wishing you all green lights in life..!!