Commerce Graduates: The Opportunity and Competition – How to Get High-Paying Jobs?
Welcome to the IDB (I Deserve Better). Join the 1,000+ commerce graduates who are discovering smarter career paths, building in-demand skills.
For the past two years, I have been mentoring commerce graduates and helping them navigate their career paths. As a B.Com (Hons) graduate myself, I understand how confusing it can be to decide what skills to learn and where to focus your efforts. Everyone needs a guide or at least someone to show them the best options. That’s exactly what IDB does—it provides career clarity, helps you develop in-demand skills, and prepares you for high-paying jobs. Because, let’s face it, who doesn’t love earning well?
My career journey -
2014-2017 - B.com Hons (Delhi University)
2017-2019 - EY (Audit Associate)
2019-2021 - MBA, IIM and CFA L2
2021-2022 - Deloitte (Consultant -Valuations)
2022-present - Investment Banking Analyst at Bulge Bracket IB firm!
Commerce graduates face a conundrum: they enter the workforce armed with degrees that promise broad opportunities but often find themselves outpaced by peers from science and technical fields. The job market favors those who adapt, evolve, and differentiate. So, why do commerce grads lag behind? What can they do to bridge the gap and secure the high-paying roles they aspire to?
1. The Reality: Why Commerce Graduates Fall Behind
Since the time we opt for commerce in 12th standard, we are limiting our choices to less technical courses. Although there are so many avenues coming up in commerce domain and cross domain jobs, but mainstream courses post 12th remains B.com, BBA, CA, CS.
While these courses are valuable, they don’t focus on skill building. By skill building I mean you are learning something that helps a company or a business to execute something that can help them earn profits. Because when they earn profits, you earn salary.
Compare this to science graduates: even from Tier 2 or Tier 3 colleges, they find technical roles in companies like TCS, Infosys, and Wipro. In starting, these people at par with a BBA/B.Com grad but companies in technical domain teaches them those skills at 3-4LPA starting jobs and they go on to build upon those skills like Programing, SaaS, Analytics, Data science etc. Eventually, they are forced to learn a skill which is demanded by multiple companies and help them earn money.
For a commerce grad, 98% of jobs are operations specific. They are either placed in some sort of backend operations or banking operations, where again these are company specific operations, which may be demanded by 4-5 peer group of companies. Hence, the demand is relatively less and your chances of extraordinary earnings are similarly limited.
2. The Numbers Don’t Lie
According to the India Skills Report, the employability of commerce graduates hovers around 47%, compared to 57% for engineering graduates. Further, the unemployment rate for commerce graduates is higher than the national average, reflecting a concerning gap between qualifications and job market demands.
Nearly 80 Lakh people enroll for graduation in commerce in India every year. At any given time, nearly 2–2.5 crore individuals are competing for the same operations jobs that pays between 2-4LPA in cities having 20% inflation.
Hence, if you are doing things which a average commerce grad is doing, probabilities are you will end up like a average commerce grad in a operations job, struck there and not finding the compounding effect of years of workex.
As per my rule I name as “Minimum Growth Salary”, your annual salary after 3 years of workex should be bare minimum 2.0x to 2.5x of years of workex. (e.g. 3 years of workex should at least give you 6LPA). Else, you are definitely doing something wrong.
3. What Are the Options?
Commerce graduates typically get jobs towards fields like:
- Finance: Roles in accounting, auditing, and taxation. (backend operations)
- Marketing: Brand management, sales, and market analysis. (mostly sales)
- Human Resources: Recruitment, payroll management, and employee relations. (HR’s in startups or consultancy)
However, as they spend time in any of these domains, they fail to survive the Minimum Growth Salary rule, which trigger them to again go for some degree to fix it. Then what an average person does?
They go and select a private college to do MBA to climb the ladder. Here’s the catch: without cracking the top 20 B-schools, the ROI on an MBA diminishes significantly. You invest almost like 15Lakh, 2 years and then fell into the trap of getting subpar jobs.
4. What is the business of Job?
Think like a business, It continuously need to evolve, launch new products, grab market share and survive in the market to remain relevant. Similarly, you have to continuously work hard, gain skills that are trending and develop skills that are monetizable in real world.
Herein, Science grads by the nature of domain get things differently:
- Technical Roles: Positions at IT giants involve coding, software development, analytics and data analysis—skills that are high in demand.
- Continuous Learning: Even in entry-level roles, they are pushed to upskill, whether in programming languages, software tools, or agile methodologies.
- Higher Market Value: Technical expertise commands a premium in the job market, why? because it can be applied across different company. A personnel who knows PowerBI, it can be applied to a FMCG company, Automobile Company, Internet company , any company. Hence, the demand is high
In India, the real skill based education starts when you graduate, and commerce grad are struck there. They are forced to jobs which doesn’t teach them well monetized skills. I have personally seen B.tech grads from tier 2 and tier 3 colleges earning 50LPA+ in 5-7 years of their graduation just because after graduation they worked on the basis of well monetized skills.
5. The Bridge: What Commerce Graduates Must Do
The key lies in building parallel skills alongside your curriculum. The skill building is a process, it needs cross functional thinking and application. Here’s how you can make the leap:
- Learn practical skills: Gain technical and analytical skills like:
- Financial Modeling & Valuations
- Data Analytics (Google Data Analytics, Tableau, Excel, PowerBI)
- Digital Marketing / Performance marketing/ Influencer marketing/ Trending things
- Professional Degrees for validation:
- CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst)
- FRM (Financial Risk Manager)
- Networking:
- Attend industry meetups, webinars, and LinkedIn networking sessions.
- Build relationships with alumni and professionals in your desired field.
- Focus on Specific Skills:
- Finance: Learn financial modeling, valuations, investment presentation, and industry analysis skills.
- Marketing: Master trending areas like performance marketing, influencer marketing, and dashboard analysis using analytics tools.
- Human Resources: Start with smaller startups to gain experience. HR roles often require a post-graduate degree since core skills are largely non-technical but demand strategic insight.
What Opportunities Lie Ahead?
The maximum opportunities currently lie in finance and analytics. For example, approx. more than 1000 IPOs have been floated in the last four years. These companies must report their numbers, prepare investor presentations, and communicate their outlook to investors. Consequently, they need skilled professionals for financial modeling, pitch deck presentations, and industry analysis. Either they will open up these departments in their companies or they would hire agencies executing these functions for them.
For these positions, a strong grasp of financial modeling and presentation preparation is crucial. These roles often start with salaries ranging from 5-8 LPA, but they serve as stepping stones to core finance roles such as investment banking and equity research, where earnings and growth prospects are significantly higher.
There are quite a good things coming up for marketing as well. Business in India spent approx. 31,221 cr. and Rs. 22,370 on advertising on Google and Meta respectively. And these numbers are increasing by more than 25% CAGR. Meta has opened up their ad school, ad support team exclusively for India looking at the valuable business opportunity. This means, people executing these ads, perfectly knowing business analysis skills combined with performance marketing skills are going to fetch more than 8-9LPA starting jobs. But what they need is revenue generation skills. For example, if you are getting 8 LPA, and you are running ads of 30Lakh in a year, that’s an expense of 38LPA for a business.
They would want to earn at least 5x in sales with that investment, hence you need to calculate these numbers, try to learn skills in a manner that execution is at the top level. How to do that is the topic for another article.
A Strategy for Success
Here’s a roadmap for current commerce graduates looking to land high-paying jobs:
Year 1-2 of Graduation:
- Focus on academic performance and internships and try to narrow down the domain you want to get into. Earlier you know it, better chances to crack the top roles.
- Take up one certification program aligned with your interest, and try to build practical exposure for 1-2 skills.
Year 3:
- Build a project portfolio (e.g., creating financial models, running social media campaigns, starting your ad agency).
- Applying and participating in competitions at Unstop, do Live projects and start tracking share markets (extremely important for people interested in Finance).
- Apply for competitive internships and entry-level roles.
Post-Graduation:
- Evaluate the ROI of professional degrees like CFA or MBA. Don’t rush into them without clarity. If you are planning to do MBA, do it from Tier 1 or top-20 colleges, else you will find it difficult to find good jobs.
- Best piece of advice is narrow down the domain you want to be in, work for at least 5 years, and then do a executive MBA. The competition is less, you are more matured and the ROI is highest.
The Final Word: Adapt or Perish
Commerce graduates must understand this: the job market rewards specialization and skills, not degrees alone. Science grads have an inherent advantage because their roles demand constant upskilling. Hence, all you need to do is decide the domain you want to get into and focus on building monetized skills rather than simply completing certifications from online platforms.
“The Inherent meaning of word successful is above average. Hence, If you want to be successful, you have to do what everyone else isn’t doing. Else, you will end up being average.”
The world is evolving at breakneck speed. The question is: are you evolving with it?
Next I will discuss what people interested in Finance should do, followed up with a post on marketing.
Stay tuned!