Some suggestions for improving the career prospects of cas

As we are experiencing that the job market since 2008 has been very volatile. A lot of CAs having good experience are not satisfied with the state of their career in terms of compensation and job satisfaction. Most of the freshly qualified CAs, who could not get any offer at the campus placement, remain unemployed or under-employed. So many members keep holding C.o.P just because they could not find any decent job offer and are ready to offer their professional services at unhealthy prices.

I'd like to share some of my observations and suggestions to improve the career prospects of the members not in practice / desirous of a switch from practice :

Suggestion for the benefit of entire fraternity :

1. The ICAI's CMII should function like a mentor / full fledged placement cell / career development department with mandate to improve the employability and continuous career development of the members not in practice / seeking employment.

2. There should be a fully functional and active job-portal for the job seeking CAs and the employers, providing comparable services to popular job-portals like naukri.com, monster.com etc.

3. The CMII should maintain an updated database of all the CAs in full-time employment / seeking employment. This database can be made available to the employers against payment of some fee. This database can be continuously analysed to find out the career trends and to conduct various other studies to guide and improve the career prospects of CAs.

4. The CMII should hire a team of experienced placement consultants / recruiters / HR professionals with great networking among the corporate sector. The hiring cost of these professional can be met out of the placement fees charged from the employers. (As per market trend, the employer pays one month's salary of the candidate hired through a placement consultant).

5. Apart from campus placement for the freshers, regular and nation-wide career fairs should be organised for the experienced candidates.

6. Extensive efforts should be made to improve the brand image and marketability of CA profession.

7. Networking with the highly experienced and successful CAS in industry should be improved. Fresh and less experienced CAs should be provided with opportunities to network and interact with the experienced and successful CAs in industry. A professional networking platform similar to linkedin.com, should be created for the fraternity.

Suggestions for the career development at the candidate level :

1. Service of resume drafting & improvement from the experienced HR professionals should provided.

2. Career Assessment form the experienced placement/HR consultant should be offered to find out whether the career of an individual candidate has reached to a satisfactory level according to his/her qualifications and experiences gained. Suggestions for improving the career prospects should be offered on the basis of such assessment.

3. Regular courses for grooming the candidates should be offered e.g. Soft Skills development, personality development, Interview facing skills etc.

4. Due to better coaching facilities and online study resources, the success rate of students from non-metros / small towns is increasing. But the employment opportunities in non-metro cities are very limited and the candidates don't want to move from their home town due to fear of big cities. Subsidised hostels for job-seekers in the cities with high employment potentials can be opened to help the candidate in relocation.

5. There is a great demand for Accounting / Finance / Auditing professionals in so many countries like Gulf, Africa, USA & Canada, Europe, Australia etc.. But the jobseekers have no information about migrating / employment opportunities in outside India. There is always the fear of unknown in taking the decision to migrate outside India. CMII's chapters should be opened outside India for providing help to the candidates seeking migration / employment in those countries. Continuous networking should be done with the CAs already settled in such countries for helping the new candidates desirous of migrating in these countries.

6.CAs should be encouraged to take other Indian & international professional courses / certifications e.g. MBA from IIM or other world renowned institutes, CS, ICWA, DISA, CISA, CPA, ICAEW, CIMA, CIA etc.. Scholarships / fee reimbursements / soft loans should be offered for taking such courses / certifications.

7.Due to expertise on Finance, Internal Control etc., CAs can be better entrepreneurs. CAs should be encouraged to take entrepreneurship route by regularly organising training programs, workshops etc.. A PE / loan fund / guarantee trust can be started to provide financial assistance / seed capital to the CAs willing to set-up a start-up business.

8. CAs with not-satisfactory professional practice / desirous of quitting practice should be regularly identified and should be assisted in finding decent employment opportunities.