Banking sector: Grads, CAs, ICWAs, MBAs, needed!

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Where are the jobs?
While financial intermediaries segment offers the maximum numbers, high- quality, high-pay jobs are in the Banking and Insurance sector. The marketing function dominates the financial intermediaries sections; functional areas dominate the banking sector.

“This sector has been doing well for quite some time and is again going to grow because penetration of banking and insurance is still low if you see the figure on a national scale,” says Shiv Agrawal of ABC Consultants. According to him, the profiles which are going to be in demand are financial advisors and insurance sales.

What are the skills?
The premier qualification that opens the doors to this sector remains CA/ CS and MBA with specialisation in Finance. MBAs with ability to do acute risk assessment would find tremendous opportunities in the sector.

But the maximum number of opportunity lies in financial intermediary skills. Ability to understand a product, communicate its benefits and risks well, assess the level of risk and returns are the core skills required here. “If you know how to keep the interest of the consumer in the mind, financial products sales is the most lucrative field,” says Raghuraman, an independent financial advisor. But the job demands quite a bit of physical stamina, and mental alertness. In fact, when ICICI Prudential recruits its trainees,

one of the slides in the presentation says that the executives must be willing to slog it out in the initial years. “It is not a kushy job,” concurs Karna Dharmapuri, a middle manager at an insurance firm. But the adrenaline rush one gets once you close a one crore insurance policy is unmatched, he gushes. “It is a challenging sector and the money is quite good,” he concludes.