Icici Recruitment Policies

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ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company

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Have you decided to work only for the market leader? Do you possess the ideal combination of analytical and peoplehandling skills? Then, insurance is a good sector for you and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance a great place to be. For more details read on… - K.Sriraj and Vibha Iyer

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ased on the Malhotra Committee Report, the Government opened the insurance sector to private competition in 1999. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) issued the first set of licenses on October 23, 2000. Among the first private players to begin operations was ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company in December 2000. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company is a joint venture between ICICI Bank, one of India’s premier financial powerhouse, and Prudential PLC, a leading international financial services group headquartered in the United Kingdom. ICICI Bank holds 74 percent stake in the JV and Prudential PLC holds the rest. The company has within a short period, four years to be precise, been able to issue over 100,000 policies, for a total sum assured of over Rs. 3,753 crore. It is currently

the No. 1 private life insurer in the country. The company’s first-year premium income in April 2003January 2004 accounts for 39.3 percent of the Rs. 1,364 crore premium booked by all private life insurers together.

Services and Products Offered Insurance Solutions for Individuals Savings Solutions Protection Solutions Child Plans Market-linked Solutions Retirement Solutions Group Insurance Solutions What is it that has helped ICICI Prudential Life Insurance achieve the position it has attained today? What is its recruitment process? What does the company expect from its employees, and what does it offer in turn? Advanc’edge MBA spoke to Shubhro Mitra, Chief – Human Resources, ICICI

Prudential to find answers to your queries. Can you elucidate the selection procedures for recruitment on as well as off campus for MBAs? On campuses, we use group discussions, followed by two rounds of interviews. For off campus recruitment, our process depends on the levels to which we are recruiting. Candidates are usually hired based on their performance in tests - analytical, numeric, psychometric - followed by interviews. As the level goes up, we use different psychometric tools and two levels of interviews. We have a fairly well-defined matrix to determine what kind of people we need for different levels in the organisation. What do you look for in a prospective recruit? The critical thing about recruiting is selecting the right person for the right job or situation. Anyone aspiring to join us must have the ability to create a

%Dream Company & Read on ................................... structure out of an unstructured scenario and thrive on it. We want people who are sharp, intelligent and have the right attitude. Our whole focus is - hire for attitude and train for skills. We always look for certain key qualities to help us determine if the candidate will enjoy working in an environment that thrives on speed. Will he be able to work around with people and through people? Does he have the tenacity and the patience to manage various aspects across the organisation? ICICI Prudential Life is a growing organisation and the candidate has to have flexibility and, more importantly, the willingness to get into different organisational roles. Which B-Schools did the company visit during this year (2004)? What was the remuneration offered to them? We went to the IIMs, XLRI, and recruited 11 management graduates across various functions such as HR, sales, etc. This year we are planning to hire more, maybe almost two and a half times more

than last year, from these top rung institutes. Apart from these premier B-Schools, we also visit certain other institutes for our frontline talent. In absolute numbers, we plan to hire around 150 odd people this year. All those recruited from the premier institutes, irrespective of the department, received the same salary. The total remuneration offered last year was in the range of around 6 to 6.5 lakhs per annum. Do you have lateral placements? If yes, what specific attributes does the company look for in them? In India, insurance is relatively new and hence industry experience is very uncommon. So, we have decided to focus on fresh talent. We are not closed to lateral recruitments, but this won’t be a key pipeline for hiring. If we find someone who fits into a particular role, then we will definitely be open to hiring that person, but the focus would definitely be on hiring fresh talent. What are the personality traits

Profile of Shubhro Mitra Chief – Human Resources, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Shubhro, an Economics Honours Graduate from Delhi University, started his career with The Oberoi School of Hotel Management and later moved into Mercury Travels, a subsidiary of Oberoi Group of Hotels, in the Sales Operations function. The essential basis of any function, which is people relationship, drew him to the people care function of Human Resources. Thus, began the journey, which took him into training and management development – the core of the human resources functions in ICI, Ballarpur Industries. Before joining ICICI Pru Life, he served as Manager, Human Resources with Cadbury India Ltd.

and skill sets you look for in a management trainee you recruit? Is it IQ or EQ? The skill sets would depend on the function the candidate is recruited for. If we were looking at someone for the analytical wing, the skill sets we would be looking for would be a fair amount of intellect, strong analytical skills, conceptualising ability, comfort with data crunching, etc. For HR, we seek those who can relate with people easily, manage and implement strategies leveraging the strengths of the team. For audit, apart from technical knowledge and analytical skills, we would be looking for an ability to sift through humongous data and bring a context to it. We look at aspects such as is he a problem solver, is he mature, what does he do with the data, is he able to keep the confidentiality of the data, etc. For every position, we have a job description, a template of the necessary skill sets, which we try to match when looking at potential candidates. Does the company offer summer placements? We do offer summer placements and are happy with our experience so far. We believe in using summers as a good pipeline building process. For instance, we have given almost 60 percent of the management trainees PPOs. Since, we are a new organisation, we would also like to use summers to showcase ourselves to the institute. What does the company offer to the management trainee? We offer a level playing field to all our employees, whether they are MTs or otherwise. We are working towards strengthening our mentoring and support

%Dream Company & Read on ................................... system. Given the speed at which we are growing, it is challenging to provide mentoring. But we promise to help anyone joining us to settle into the job and organisation fast, and also give him a challenging assignment. After that, it is for the best man to win. Ours is a very performance oriented organisation. As long as you grow and perform, the roads will keep clearing. As we are growing at such a rapid pace there are opportunities galore. What is the general career path for a management trainee? The career path for management trainees varies from function to function. Ours is a relatively flat organisation. To us, designations at times mean nothing. Growth here is through larger and more challenging roles. As a person outgrows a role, he is assigned another role. We are also making sure that our MTs have the ability to do cross-functional work. We move people into various functions to ensure that they not only grow in their own verticals, but also become managers. At the end of the day, we would like them to take more business-focused loads. Since we are a rapidly growing company, we do not face the problem of how to help our employees grow. In an intraorganisational Gallup survey, for instance, growth and learning were rated very highly (75 percentile). All our employees, we are sure, will have many opportunities to grow, learn and get into different roles. By next year, we may also have an open posting, where a person can choose roles from those available within the organisation. Could you dwell on the

Srikant Vatturi, currently working with the Business Intelligence Unit, was placed from IIM B during campus recruitment, May 2003. employee retention strategies followed by the company to motivate management trainees? We believe that the traditional job retention tool - compensation is only one factor and that differs from function to function. For us, job challenge and stretch are the two biggest drivers of retention. Retention strategies include focused trainings, both domestic and international depending on the employee’s role and need leadership development initiatives, where individuals get a very detailed personal development plan, and their senior’s support to put it in place. Another driver is our reward and recognition schemes, opportunities of being a

"Given the fact that fifty percent of my batch-mates have moved out of their first jobs within six months and I am still here shows that ICICI Pru Life is a great place to work. But to be candid, when I joined, I was very apprehensive of working in a relatively new organisation. My apprehensions were reinforced as my first posting was in Analytics and I wasn't sure what was expected of me. The initial three to four months dispelled most of my apprehensions. I have worked on many intellectually satisfying projects, and with the kind of variety offered, there's no scope for boredom. The mentorship programme, led by exIIM graduates, has also helped us settle down quickly. One aspect I like at ICICI Pru Life is that we communicate freely with our seniors, and this has helped in the learning process. Remuneration is also good, and more importantly I do get a fair amount of time for myself. I work five days a week and haven't worked on weekends so far. I have also been able to take two weeks off twice so far. So I do get a lot of time to pursue my personal interests outside my workspace."

participant or leader of a crossfunctional critical organisational project, other interventions such as specific invites for critical company functions and meetings. A big driver, irrespective of the level, is the pride all our employees have of working with the market leader. Please tell us something about the HR policies, and work environment in the company? A common characteristic associated with us is that we are a very aggressive organisation. Although the word aggressive could have both negative and positive connotations, for us being aggressive has a positive connotation. It is connected to the pride of being number one. We are fairly open and transparent in our

%Dream Company & Read on ................................... processes. There are no qualms in speaking our minds, whether it is to an outsider or an internal person. We are not threatened about anyone questioning our functions because we see it as a wake up call. The mindset is that we need to win and our purpose is to achieve our goals. We value integrity highly. Pride and belongingness to the organisation is very high. Does the company send people

abroad for training? At what levels? Any Management Development Programmes (MDPs)? We send employees, irrespective of levels, for training. Sending employees abroad for training is more need based and depends on whether a resource needs to get trained on something that is not available in India. A fair number of people at all levels have gone

abroad for various training programmes. We have domestic externals as well as international externals, which are insurance- focused international programmes. Many of these programmes are not held in India. But when these programmes are held in India more people are sent, because obviously the economics works out better.