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Industrial Training, a comparison with working in a CA firm

Sumeet Kapur , Last updated: 18 May 2021  
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In Chartered Accountancy, we put a lot of emphasis on articleship with a CA firm and there are very few students who enjoy the learnings and benefits of Industrial Training (IT). Also, the corporates miss a big opportunity to get great financial talent available among the CA students at low cost.

I was reading our monthly CA Journal and saw a link available on Board of Studies for ‘Online Articles Placement Portal’. I clicked that link (https://bosapp.icai.org/) and was disappointed to see that only students and CA firms can register and decide the respective placements. There is no room for corporates to register and hire industrial trainees. In my opinion, our Institute needs to add this facility on this link, to facilitate access of CA Students to various corporates for Industrial Training.

There are a lot of benefits of doing Industrial Training in the 3rd year of articleship when a student has already spent 2 years in regular audit work in a CA firm.

  • One gets to know how a company actually works. This really helps in future as one can apply the same fundamentals to every industry or company.
  • You learn about how to work towards improving the future instead of finding out mistakes of past – setting up processes, removing inefficiencies, taking preventive measures for non-compliances, analysing financial decisions with respect to their future impact and much more.
  • If you do good work in a corporate during Industrial Training, you are likely to get placed in the same company post qualification. You will get better compensation because of your experience in that Company as a trainee and hence you get a better start in your career. For IT period too, a corporate will surely pay much more than a CA firm because of the low stipend rate limits set by ICAI for the CA firms. Though money in not an important decision making factor in the learning stages of career, one should know that what he or she gets paid is also decided on the basis of value of his or her work to a particular organisation. A corporate will surely put more worth to your work than a CA firm, even more than a BIG4.
  • All these are subject to the Company you choose to work for. This should be true in most of the professionally run/ multinational companies.

For a real life example, I have stated below the opinion of 2 CA industrial trainees working in Groupon. Link to their linkedin profile is given here and one can contact them for practical feedback. Hope this helps the students to decide their path in last year of articleship and become a better Chartered Accountant.


Saniya Dhingra (Working since Oct 2013)

Industrial Training   Articleship
Pros –
  • One specializes in the core working of a particular industry, which guarantees a good job in that industry later.
  • As part of the Company, you share a responsibility for its future growth.
  • Learn to take decisions using all your financial and compliance knowledge.
  • You get to interact with people from different departments and hence, there is a scope to learn a lot more than just the financial laws and conventions.

Cons –

  • Lack of time for studies and lesser study leave.
  Pros –
  • Opportunity to do various kinds of audits, ranging from Internal, Statutory, Bank, etc.
  • Suitable for people having their core interest in auditing.

Cons –

  • Knowledge with regard to the working of the companies one is auditing is confined to basic minimal.
  • Focus only on what’s not correct, no learning of how to improve things for better future.
  • No onus, so the suggestions are mostly impractical and not implemented by clients.
  • Learning is limited to financial and tax related matters.

Aditya Panwar (Working since Feb 2014)

Industrial Training   Articleship
Pros –
  • Industry specific in depth training can lead to easy placements in future.
  • Exposure to working environment gives a holistic view of how an organisation functions.

Cons –

  • Lack of time for studies and lesser study leave.
  Pros –
  • Diversified exposure to various industries
  • Better understanding of compliance rules and requirements
  • Helps in setting up own practice in future.

Cons –

  • Monotonous work.
  • Lesser future job prospects.

Published by

Sumeet Kapur
(Cofounder & CFO)
Category Students   Report

4 Likes   38563 Views

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