IAIP – Career Day & Felicitation Ceremony, Hyderabad

IAIP Hyderabad organized a Career Day and Felicitation ceremony on January 12th, 2013 to give members and candidates guidance from senior industry participants. The event was well attended and a first experience for most attendees.

The event started with a presentation by Joanna Kwok, Director, Society Relations, CFA Institute HK. This was followed by a talk from Aveek Mukherjee, CFA, Managing Director – Wells Fargo and V. K. Menon, Director of Admissions, Indian School of Business (ISB). The event continued with the felicitation ceremony and a panel discussion comprising of Joanna Kwok, Aveek Mukherjee, and Arun Rao, Vice President, Talent, Deloitte.

Joanna Kwok spoke about the CFA society and the strengths of its worldwide network in her introductory speech. She gave attendees an update on the benefits of candidacy and membership in the CFA program.  Membership helps one keep abreast of the industry developments through the regular newsletters, offers networking opportunities, career growth through ‘jobline’ features, and other learning resources. She also stressed on the importance of keeping the profile updated on the membership portal and volunteering for the institute as a means to develop the society’s activity footprint.

Aveek Mukherjee took attendees through experiences gained during the progression of his career in the industry. His success mantra is ‘Don’t be straight jacketed’ – make most of every opportunity that comes across and be flexible to mould into the demands of the job at hand. The focus on career goals is important but members should keep an open mind for the various means that are present to achieve them. He also mentioned that intuition is as important as knowledge for decision making.

V.K. Menon added to the knowledge by providing an insight into the minds of interviewers during recruitment and the three important roles played during an interview. First is a person who is looking at the big picture and how a potential candidate would fit into the team dynamics. This is mostly performed by the senior members of the organization. Second is the line manager or supervisor who focuses on the candidate’s skill set and abilities to execute the job. Third is the HR which focuses on the person’s fit into the organizational culture and climate. These roles define the kind of questions one can expect from each member of the panel. Another significant aspect is that an interview can happen anytime and anywhere which makes it necessary for candidates to be well prepared at all times.

This was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Chandrashekar Katuri, CFA, wherein the panelists spoke about the virtues of the CFA and MBA programs. The consensus arrived at was that the comparison between a CFA and an MBA is not straight forward as the former provides an in-depth financial knowledge while the latter gives one a broader administrative and organizational understanding. The choice between the two depends on the specific needs and career plans of the candidate. They also answered questions from the audience on career progression (both general and candidate specific), on role of the CFA society, and on acceptance and reach of the CFA program in India. The success of the end result depends on the candidate’s efforts and passion.

Another highlight of the evening was felicitation of CFA pass outs. This was in recognition of the commitment, hard work and dedication demonstrated by the candidates to reach this important milestone in their careers.

Overall, the event gave the participants an opportunity to learn from the experiences of industry leaders as well as interact with other members thereby enriching their understanding of the industry.

Contributions from: Anup Bansal, Nisha Gandhi and Raghu Kotrike, CFA