Demand for GST Specialists Emerge in India Ahead of GST Rollout

GST specialist is a new term in the financial sector of India and has been under recruitment demands as the Goods and Service Tax is approaching towards the nation. The recruitment firms are searching financial experts and specialists in the taxation and financial field to cope with the industries accounting needs. A bulk of hiring is in the queue for the GST specialists and tax consultants who can join immediately are in hot topic these days from the recruiting firms. An average 3-7 lakh is being offered by the firms who want an overall perfect candidate who can understand and take responsible for all the GST related workload.

It is a new way of accounting and not at all related to old means of accounting tax methods which were earlier conducted in Indian firms. Numerous hiring experts are betting it to be a vast expert for the financial field candidates which can secure a good place in the brimming market. It is also speculated that the GST specialists are a new data science in the firms.

Paul Dupuis, the newly appointed MD & CEO at Randstad India, mentioned that “I see new opportunities in GST. There will be specialists required to support the enablement of the whole movement of GST and that will cover every function. There will be people that will handle the e-payment model, the flow of information, the flow of money and the protection of privacy along with that flow. It’s hard to predict what it will look like, but there will be opportunities that will get created.”

Dupuis also added that the organization is currently are looking for that one candidate who can hold the hand of the organization and make it stand in this vast GST merging sea. He said that “Project managers would be required and IT people are typically agile and generally good at project management. The advice we are giving to these candidates is to re-skill and become relevant. An e-commerce IT specialist, for instance, could get placed in a pharmaceutical company. It will result in more jobs. We just haven’t seen what it will translate into yet.”

The Randstad also sees this opportunity to be beneficial for the organization as they are thinking to deploy the service professional from their platform anywhere anytime whenever required by any firm. He added in this regard that, “We are keen to do that in India. Being entrepreneurial, this could be an opportunity for us to be in the forefront.”

Sunil Goel, MD of GlobalHunt, a renowned executive searching organization has hinted for the existing tax professionals to be ready for this taxation regime as it can demand their capabilities to be a bit higher than the current one. He added that “Suddenly, demand for such professionals has increased in the market. It has been observed that people who have worked on VAT and excise are being trained for the task. But it is going to be a big task to get everyone trained and upgraded. Almost 50,000-60,000 trained professionals will be required in the initial three-six months to make the process smooth.”

Most of the organizations have tightened their internal force to be compliant with the information and knowledge of the GST and talking about the small companies, it has made them look out for external assistance. Gits food products mentioned that, “I hope down the line, distributors, retailers, and wholesalers get access to experts so as to avoid the anticipated confusion in July (when GST sets in) that is expected to hurt FMCG sales.”