What is the philosophy of CRISIL and what values and beliefs drive the organization and its people?

Murali Aiyer, Director, HR: Let me explain to you, CRISIL’s employee value proposition. We conducted a poll for all the employees who have been with us for more than 3 years, where we asked them what about CRISIL made it good for them. One consistent line we heard across team is ‘when I work for CRISIL, I not only work for an organization, but I get a ring side view of the industry, the economy, the government, its policies and a global perspective of things’. 70 pc of Indian industries are our clients some way or the other. We are India’s largest rating company and also the country’s largest Industry research house. We research in 50 different sectors and do an in-depth research of all these sectors. Most B-school students will be familiar with CRISIL research reports because they grow up on them for two years. All the institutes, including the Indian Institutes of Management, are our customers, so they definitely do that. Our second value proposition is our workforce. Our average age is 27 years, a good mix with women forming one-third of the force, so it is a very young organization. A mix of cross culture, with more than 80 pc of the work force being postgraduates or above, it is a knowledge organization to that level. The environment is open and very collegiate.

We are in a trust based business, which means that people really trust us with judgments, whether it’s a bank that wants a loan or a financial institution that wants to invest in a bond. In a trust based business like ours, integrity is a core value.

We do very detailed analysis of everything thus the analytical rigor is one more thing. Whenever senior leaders in government or the industry say that they have spoken to an expert on a topic from CRISIL, then things will get done. Commitment is another core value here.

The fourth value is innovation. Most of our new revenues, approximately 80-85 pc come from products and services that have been developed and designed over the last three to four years which means that innovation is the key. In every business we have centers of excellence, which helps in innovating and churning out newer products.
And of course we are an organization where any analyst on the strength of analysis can even challenge the CEO of the company and the best analysis will triumph. This is one organization, which has made a business of speaking the truth and speaking from great insight.

Some of whom are recognized as national leaders in sectors are a part of this organization and working with them is an incredible experience leading to learning.

For summer internship, we have more people applying than we can handle. For example in a year, we take approximately 30 interns but we get approximately 800 applications. It becomes a little difficult for us, but then this is phase of a growing organization. Currently our employee strength is 1,400. In India we are present in eight different cities. We are also present in the UK and in the US. Our majority shareholder is McGraw Hill Standard and Poors (S&P;), the world’s largest rating company.

We employ students from different institutions across India as well as from some MBA institutes abroad, individuals with dual specialization, for example in finance and marketing or marketing students who want to make consultative or financial marketing as their career. Additionally, we look at chartered accountants and graduates (economics, statistics) who have a strong technical background. That is CRISIL in a nutshell and basically how young talent perceives us.

What kind of profiles are you offering to MBA graduates this year? What is the entry level?

Josey Joseph, Head, HR: This year, we are looking specifically for people who have experience in consultancy, for the lateral placements. The maximum intake would approximately be 150, out of which 80-90 would include CAs and MBAs, who typically come in as Executive Analysts or Research Analysts.

M: Apart from B-school students, I would like to add that we are keen to experiment with graduates and try to train them in different fields of analysis, which according to us, many B-schools don’t offer. Our own analysts have identified 15-20 different areas, which B-schoolers miss out on today. The length of the learning curve is short. We are likely to hit the market with requirements for fresh engineers, law graduates, statistic graduates, pharma and economic graduates and also individuals who want pursue knowledge services as their career. All this will require a lot of hard work and understanding of data, converting data into information, converting information into inferences and knowledge and helping analysts in their day-to-day work areas. We feel this is the profile of students who, as we go ahead, will be far more valuable than maybe generalists MBAs, because today the world is moving a lot towards specialization.

What is the scope for growth in the organization?

M: Today, careers have to be made by individuals. As new terrains open up we look for all kinds of skill sets. What kind of person will fit in? What kind of adaptability does the person have? What kind of application intelligence does the person have? Depending on all this, a person will move ahead. It will be wrong on my part to say that after an Analyst, you will become a Manager, after which you will become a Head, after the Head you will become a Director and then the CEO. That may be a route, which some people may see but that’s not the only route available as a career. There are a host of other routes – there will be individuals who may not be leading a particular department, which is a generalist work, but who is a specialist expert and who may be called the steel expert of this country or of the world. One’s career will grow according to that way opportunities shape up and how the individual shapes up and takes advantage of these opportunities. We have many opportunities across the spectrum – we work on data, thus there are data based careers; we work on analytical tools and software solutions, so we offer analytic and technological careers, we work in many areas of models like financial modeling and also in a whole host of deep areas of subject insights, insights with respect to domains, we work in the area of garnering information to put it all together, we work in the area of opinion and that is what the ratings business is all about, we are also in the business of consulting which includes Risk Management and Infrastructure Advisory. Thus, individuals have a whole spectrum available to them in the organization. Worldwide, S&P; is the business leader. They pass judgments on around 180 countries in terms of sovereign ratings, which determine the amount of foreign direct investment into countries directly affecting the prosperity of a nation. This is an organization, which directly contributes to nation building.

What kind of projects are the management trainees put on when they enter into the organization?

J: In B-schools, one is equipped with management and financial studies, but may not be a hardcore financial analyst. So when they come here, they may start with a simple spreadsheet, putting data into a particular format and making sense out of that. In case of any particular sector, interpretation of data is what they begin with. For one year, the students are trained on how to write reports, how to analyse the spreadsheet and what the processes and procedures are.

M: It takes time and effort and its not easy, a lot of individuals think writing a report is easy but our experience is that MBAs from even premier B-schools are not adept to write proper emails, leave alone reports. Their intelligence on analysis is unquestionable, because we test them on that before hiring them, but their ability to write meaningfully has to be taken care of.

Do you differentiate on the basis of departments?

M: Different businesses have different profiles. If it is an urban practice, then we may want people with a policy background. If it is a research business, then they may ask for a person with a Masters in Finance with a graduation in Economics. But if a regulatory team asks for a graduate, then they may ask for a person with a law degree. Thus it varies and I cannot say it will be consistent and standard. Along with post-graduation, the graduation degree is also of importance. The other thing that could be expected here is cross-functionality.

We have around 150 graduates, of which, five-six have gone for international assignments to the US and the UK where they worked with world renowned analysts at S&P.; The kind of exposure they get there is immense.

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What advice would you give a to B-school students if they wished to get into a credit rating company, in particular CRISIL?

M: Final year MBA students, CAs and CFAs should get attuned to the CRISIL Young Thought Leader (CYTL) competition.We have circulated posters to around 125 B-schools across the country and we have the e-brochure of this on our website.

Gunjan Shroff, Executive, HR: We have ten dissertation topics for the CYTL competition. Each of these has been selected specifically by our teams who have in-depth knowledge about these areas. There is a summary along with every topic so that students can make use of that while preparing their dissertation. Students can select any topic of their interest and with help of the summary, can analyze the topic and build on it further. The dissertation is not only about how they cover the topic, but also how they analyze it while getting a whole new perspective into the topic.

M: A sample of the topics would include positions on rural infrastructure, solution to the energy crisis in India, taxation in India and so on. Our team feels that this is one of the best collections of dissertation topics one can offer to students. I would encourage MBA students to go for it. The submission of the dissertation can be done online and the last date for submission was October 16, 2006. Majority of MBA students spend their time preparing brochures, coming out with CDs and visiting us with all this for their placements. We get around 500 such CDs and brochures. Do you think we really have the time and energy to look through all of this? I would request them to stop wasting their time and money. When we go to their campus, we see that the quality of their thinking process has not been properly developed. This is because these students were busy marketing their B-schools over the two years, rather than developing their own thinking. What we are looking for, is someone of the sort who is, for example, interested in the steel sector and tells us how he has followed the whole steel sector right through his two years of MBA. An ideal person would know what is the global market of steel like, what are the global policies for steel, what happened in the Mittal and Arcelor deal, what is the impact of the global market and the global growth phenomenon, what is the impact of all this on the Indian market, does the Indian government have a favorable budget for the steel sector, what are the likely issues that are going to impact the steel sector, what are companies like Jindal and Tata steel doing for this, what are the skill sets required to be the top player in the steel market, and so on. B-school graduates could take up one sector and cover it from the global perspective down to the micro-level. It shows that the person has the width, the ability to look at micro-details and that is the kind of person we want. No B-school teaches you this and one needs take it up himself and understand it well.

A lot of people tell me that they don’t get time to read many books in B-school because of their rigorous schedules. At best, they say that they have read Philip Kotler, but that’s not good enough. Your reading should be more plural and diverse involving topics from domain areas, non-domain areas, history and more. It is your ability to make a big picture and connect to it because MBA or post graduation diplomas are basically to see how well you can apply theory to practice.

Our problems with B-school graduates are firstly, that they don’t read well enough, they don’t have the time because most of the time they are doing a whole host of things which actually are not required. Secondly, when they come after completing their two years at B-schools, again they stop reading altogether. A good MBA is good enough for the next six months in terms of understanding, but after that one needs to keep educating oneself, otherwise we will become outdated. One should not read for getting promoted or any other advancement, but you read to rehabilitate yourself. The easiest part of an MBA is getting a job, but the tougher part is retaining it, even tougher is building upon it and building a brand. The organization should be able to mention five things for which an employee stands for and those qualities make him stand apart for the rest.

What is the environment at CRISIL like?

M: It is an open culture where anybody can be challenged depending on the strength of their research and analysis. The culture here encourages thought leadership and people are encouraged to write and write publicly. Good thought leadership articles written by the junior analysts are circulated to our customer base, which includes leaders from 70 pc of the industry. The writer’s name is mentioned which gives him an individual branding within the organization as well as outside. The environment is collegiate and young and most people feel it is like an extension of a B-school.

What kind of pay packages do you offer to MBA graduates?

M: I really don’t want to talk much about pay packages but I would like to say that we do differentiate on salaries offered to students. We differentiate on the basis of the experience the person brings in and the background. Differentiation has become part of the industry today and after the first year all companies have to differentiate as everyone is not at the same level. We differentiate at the beginning itself. We differentiate on our selection process. This is something that B-school graduates need to be aware of and we make no bones about it, we say it clearly. Our differentiation is across a wide spectrum and is directly related to the roles they play. We also differentiate on the basis of B-schools. With every business too, the pay package differs.

Does working with CRISIL provide one with an opportunity to be transferred as fulltime employees with S&P;?

M: Yes, there is a chance of that and we have had instances of this but I would not like to position an opportunity to work with S&P;, to join CRISIL. The challenge is to go to S&P; and work on assignments and job rotations, come back and engage in building up financial markets in India. I would like people to join CRISIL with the objective to build India and making it a superpower. Going to S&P; is one part of it but I do not want it to be the key driver for B-schoolers to join CRISIL.