Part - I

Consider applying for a post of a manager (Human Resources, Operations, and Finance etc) for any company in India. The company can be a national or a multinational company.

Without much strain we can list down the basic minimum qualifications required to be eligible for such a job as the following: -

1. MBA from a reputed college

2. 3-5 years experience, can be more, depending on the nature of the job

3. Academic excellence throughout academic career, spanning 10th, 12th etc, not to forget a break free academic career path.
   * Just to cite an example, none of the Tata offshoots recruit people with less than 60% in any of the crucial years (Higher secondary, Senior secondary, Graduation and Post graduation)

4. Excellent communication skills

5. Excellent analytical skills

Not to forget the kind of money that goes into acquiring such educational qualifications. An average MBA costs somewhere around 2 lacks to 5 lacks. The "English" skills also need to be honed in a good (read expensive) school. Also pour in the money that has to be shelled for the coaching institutes to prepare for the competitive entrance exams.

Apart from the above, from your very childhood you have been grilled with virtues of "cleanliness" i.e., work clean, earn clean, no illegal stuff, otherwise the society will boycott you, you will not get any jobs as no company would like to hire tarnished names to spoil the reputation of the organization. Be a good leader and a good team member as well. In whatever you do try to think of how you can help the nation (though as we grow up, such virtues slowly fade away making way for the more materialistic ones, nonetheless illegal ways are seldom adopted).
So on and so forth...

Seeing the number of heads competing for such jobs in the country it is becoming tougher and tougher. The innovative minds in the recruitment departments are coming up with revolutionary elimination schemes to come up with the best names among the people who have applied for the jobs. The above scenario is true for the companies, which are just microeconomic units in the economy of "INDIA".

Flip the coin and you get the macro picture, which is the country as a whole. After all, the various companies are concerned, but only with its immediate community of customers, competitors and the society to some extent.

Next

* Contributed by -
Shana Sood Kumar,
Research Analyst - APAC Software & Services,
Frost & Sullivan.