Although you have to earn your stripes at every workplace (you don't start out as CEO!), once you demonstrate your ability and professionalism, growth in Irevna, in terms of responsibility and remuneration, can be fairly dramatic—if you prove yourself, we will not hold your age or year of graduation against you! And as opposed to captive research centers where you are primarily an agent to reduce cost, at Irevna you will be the breadwinner that brings in the firm's revenue and profit.

Expertise in financial, company and industry analysis is taken for granted, after the initial year. The real opportunity for growth, however, lies elsewhere. As part of a small but expanding company in a growth industry, management responsibility can come surprisingly early. Before you know it, you might be managing a team of individuals of a similar pedigree, much ahead of many of your batch mates!

Being a firm that imparts great exposure and builds solid skills has also meant that Irevna alumni have gone on to leadership positions elsewhere in the equity research and KPO industry and are regarded as highly attractive resources—an inevitable fallout of being a pioneer in the outsourced research industry—and one that we're happy to live with. It just means that we have to work harder at providing Irevna employees with opportunities that continue to challenge and stimulate. And, of course, to closely link remuneration and performance.

The quality and professionalism that you bring to work is what we primarily care about. No bureaucracy and a lot of flexibility—no one worries about your 'in-times' and 'out-times' or whether you smiled at your boss—as long as you get your work done on time and with exceptional quality.

Irevna retains elements from when it was smaller firm, particularly with respect to maintaining its culture of meritocracy and transparency. Respect is earned purely on the quality of the work that you do—once inside the firm, a person is judged purely on performance, and not on credentials. Be warned, this is a knife that cuts both ways!—while high performers are strongly rewarded, it is difficult to hide a weak work ethic.

Our investment banking clients expect the best quality, sometimes with short deadlines, which occasionally means spending long days or weekends in office to work on a particularly demanding project. However, the bristle of pride at the recognition (monetary too!) that great work receives is what makes the long hours at office worth the effort.

We mix our performance orientation with a collegial and lively workplace—whether it is an impromptu gathering at the pantry (almost any excuse will do—a birthday, anniversary or a client win) or a weekend cricket match. Or a late-night party during the weekend at one of the many resorts that dot the East coast.

We are also a fairly diverse bunch, with almost all the states on the Indian map represented. In search of the right candidates, Irevna also holds periodic recruitment drives in different cities around India.

At Irevna, we strongly encourage continuous learning. While a lot of the learning happens through our training programs and also on the job, we also help you to take up professional courses relevant for your work here. Many Irevna employees pursue professional courses such as the CFA charter (from CFA Institute). We augment the benefits of an additional qualification with monetary rewards at the completion of every level.

The online library is also an effort to foster knowledge sharing in Irevna. We have a good collection of articles, spreadsheets, in-house training manuals and reference literature in this library. For access to a wider collection, we sponsor British council library membership cards.

We also have an effective mentorship program where each new recruit is assigned a mentor. The mentor helps the new recruit on a wide range of issues—from giving a perspective on the project allocation and career progression, to get the in touch with real estate dealers to find a house in Chennai, and to get acquainted with the key people in office.

Irevna is a division of CRISIL, India's leading Ratings, Financial News, Risk and Policy Advisory company. CRISIL's majority shareholder is Standard & Poor's, the world's foremost provider of Independent credit ratings, Indices, Risk evaluation, Investment research, Data and Valuations. Being part of organizations operating in multiple domains and geographies, Irevna has the ability and commitment to facilitate career movements to fulfill varied individual aspirations.