Prema Jayakumar, an auto driver's daughter and an unlikely topper in the Chartered Accountancy (CA) exam results announced on Monday, has simple ambitions. She wants to participate in the campus placements — in February and March — and land a job "in a corporate firm or a good bank". She doesn't have any offers yet. 

Abhishek Gupta, who topped the last CA exams in May 2012, is about to be inducted as a partner at B Chhawchharia Company. He earns Rs 12 lakh per annum. 

Prema's starting pay may not be much higher. This is a far cry from the Rs 1-crore plus salaries that a few students at the top IIMs walk away with. Though the two professions are not comparable, auditing andfinance as professions have traditionally been far less lucrative than management, at least in the initial years. The competition is high in both. Approximately 60,000 students appear for both groups of the CA final exams, held twice over a oneyear period; only about 8,000-8,500 make the cut. Over 1.9 lakh students vied for the 3,200-odd IIM seats available this year. "We recruit both CAs and MBAs and it's impossible to make a comparison since the professions are so different," says P Thiruvengadam, senior director, Deloitte India. 

"Both have different career paths except where they may converge at a management level. So a chartered accountant, who moves into industry in a management role, can get a salary comparable with that of an MBA," he adds. 

Prema is currently drawing a salary of Rs6,000 per month at Kishor Sheth & Co during her articleship. After placements, she stands to earn anywhere between Rs3 lakh and going up to Rs14 lakh (among the highest offered last time by ITC.) Average starting salaries hover at around Rs7 lakh, says Subodh Kumar Agrawal, vice-president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ( ICAI). Fresh IIM grads, on the other hand, can start off with Rs 12 lakh to Rs 15 lakh on an average, with Rs 25-lakh packages not so uncommon.