Articleship, an immensely important part of CA Curriculum which spans for about 3 years gives CA Students an opportunity to spend the last 9-12 months in the industry, get exposure of the world you will be entering post qualification.
I made such opportunity count and got transferred to Industrial training, in General Electric (GE), pending last 9 months of my Articleship. GE is the World’s 3rd largest Company as per Rankings released by Forbes.
How to get into Industrial Training?
Getting into industrial training is not a tough job, its just you got to do a little homework. Companies intending to hire industrial trainees put up requirement advertisement on the notice board at ICAI Office. Moreover, you can also directly apply to Companies as many Companies prefer to keep trainees. Finally, you can make your references count. It is a known fact that applying to companies through reference gives you a slight edge over the others.
My CA Industrial Training Experience
To begin with, its all together a different world and work as compared to CA firms. GE being a MNC company had its own Work Ethics, Culture, Jargon etc which I wasn’t accustomed to, so had to equip myself with it as soon as possible.
Like any good MNC, you are allowed to settle in after joining and get used to company’s working style, post which you are allocated a designated work and expected to complete it within reasonable time. The Team I worked with was gracious enough to pay heed to whatever difficulties I faced during completion of work I was entrusted upon.
In GE, there was a set rule to work in finance department – “Excel is Blood and Power Point is Oxygen”. To grow big in GE or for that matter in any MNC, these two are must haves in your kitty.
There were times when I worked for 12-15 hours a day for weeks but it has its fun, Learning by Doing was an all together different experience. Always remember – Time you spend in your initial days in a Company is an Investment which you are making on yourself so never shy away from giving more than your 100%.
Work Profile
On joining, I was not put into operations straight away instead I was given a reputed project called “Dashboard” for which I was single point responsibility (SPR). Dashboard is mechanism where a company tracks its Key Performance Areas.
While working at GE, I realised that everything done at operational level was done in Excel and everything that was to be reported was done in Power Point. Each worksheet had went across 100 rows and 15 columns, this is how heavily loaded an excel sheet was and hence important to know Excel Formulae, Linking and Shortcuts.
After having successfully completing the project, I was introduced to hardcore operations where in I had to assist two managers at same time, one put me into Service Tax Work and the other on Loans & Advances.
I was also made to work on the applicability of US-GAAP on GE and my job was to prepare Foreign Currency Translation Reconciliations which were a mandate owing to compliance of US GAAP and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). I learnt a few other things as well but majorly I was made to work on the above mentioned things for the rest of tenure.
Examination Leaves
When I joined GE, I was awaiting the result of both groups of CA Final that I had appeared for. I managed to clear one group and for re-appearing in the second group, they gave me a month s examination leave. Most companies give 1 month leave; rest it all depends on how your performance has been during your Industrial Training Tenure.
Do’s and Dont’s
Do’s –
- Behave professionally around the clock
- Good knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint are as important as Oxygen
- Understand how work is done and what are expectations from you
Dont’s –
- Never Submit an Incomplete Job
- Never Get into Office Politics
- Counter Argument with your Manager
