These placements serve as a bridge between Newly Qualified Chartered Accountants (NQCAs) and organisations seeking top talent to meet their human resource needs.
Like engineering colleges are struggling to meet the placement figures of past years, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is also facing a hard time to match up, or even increase, the average salary in the past few campus placement cycles.
ICAI’s campus placement programmes are held twice a year. These placements serve as a bridge between Newly Qualified Chartered Accountants (NQCAs) and organisations seeking top talent to meet their human resource needs.
The institute recently conducted the 60th campus placement programme for Chartered Accountants (CAs) who passed the May 2024 examination. After a hiatus caused by Covid, this time, the programme was conducted in physical mode across nine major centres: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune, along with 20 smaller centres nationwide.
Placement statistics This year, the number of organisations that took part in ICAI’s campus placement reached its highest to 241, which was an increase from 140 in the 59th process and 169 in 58th placement round. With the rise in the number of participating organisations, the number of offers also increased from 3395 in 58th to 3002 in 59th and finally to 4,782 in the recent process. Of these, 3,705 job offers were accepted by the new CAs this year.
The average salary offered has seen a slight increase as compared to the 58th process, but has decreased when compared to the last placement cycle. The average salary increased from Rs 12.32 lakh per annum in 58th to Rs 13.24 lakh per annum in 59th, but decreased to Rs 12.49 lakh per annum this time.
A similar trend was observed in the highest salary offered (domestic), as it increased from Rs 23.70 lakh per annum in 58th to Rs 29 lakh in the last placement cycle, but has again dipped to Rs 26.70 lakh per annum this time.
Keeping in mind the decrease in the number of offers that several other institutes have been registering after Covid-19, ICAI wanted to ensure that the new CAs are skill-ready for the recruiters, even in this tough market. Therefore, ICAI organised a two-day orientation programme to prepare candidates for interviews, focusing on key themes such as industry trends, communication skills, fintech, AI, and more. This orientation recorded the highest number of participants ever, ICAI claims. Industry leaders provided mentorship and mock interviews to help candidates confidently navigate their career paths.
This year’s overseas campus placements are scheduled on January 24 and 25.
