Become a Sommelier.

Executive Chefs in India lead kitchen brigades ranging from 30 to 150 cooks at 5-star hotel chains (Taj Hotels, ITC Hotels, Oberoi Group, Marriott, Hyatt), standalone fine-dining restaurants, boutique properties, and cloud kitchen networks. The role spans menu engineering, food-cost management (keeping cost-of-goods at 28–35%), procurement, FSSAI compliance (Schedule IV Hygiene Standards), staff training, and the relentless standard-setting that drives guest experiences from biryani buffets to multi-course tasting menus. India's culinary recognition on the global stage — with names like Garima Arora (Asia's 50 Best), Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accent), and Gaggan Anand — has transformed the profession into a legitimate high-prestige career path. Entry typically runs through a 3-year B.Sc. Hospitality (or equivalent) from IHM Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, or Hyderabad — flagship institutes under the National Council for Hotel Management (NCHMCT) — followed by departmental training in kitchens, CDP (Chef de Partie), Sous Chef, and eventually Head Chef or Executive Chef. The NRAI (National Restaurant Association of India) estimates the organised food service industry at ₹5.5 lakh crore, creating strong sustained demand for kitchen leadership talent across every price point.

Flight attendants (cabin crew) in India are the frontline safety professionals and hospitality ambassadors of every scheduled commercial flight. IndiGo, Air India, Vistara (merging with Air India), Akasa Air, and SpiceJet hire heavily from tier-2 and metro India, as do foreign carriers — Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Lufthansa — which actively recruit Indian applicants via annual open days in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. The entry path requires a DGCA Cabin Crew License, obtained after completing a 6-12 week airline-specific type-rating and safety training program; training institutes like Frankfinn, IATA-authorised AHA, and Sushma Industries provide pre-employment grooming. Age at entry is typically 18-27; airlines enforce height (MinIMum arm-reach ~212 cm for most carriers), BMI, and clear-skin requirements at the time of joining. Cabin crew fly 60-90 block hours per month on domestic/international sectors, operate in a strict FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) framework under DGCA CAR Section 7 Series O Part III, and are responsible for passenger safety briefings, in-flight service, emergency procedures, and crew resource management. Senior crew progress to lead cabin crew, pursers, and cabin managers; international carrier pursers can take home INR equivalent of ₹25-55L annually including tax-free allowances.

Hotel Front Office Managers in India are the nerve centre of guest experience at properties ranging from Taj Lake Palace and ITC Grand Chola to Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton. The role owns the full guest journey — reservations, check-in, concierge, bell services, night audit, and check-out — and operates through Property Management Systems such as Opera, IDS Next, and eZee. A typical 5-star FOM manages 20–60 front-desk staff, drives RevPAR and Average Daily Rate, handles VIP and VVIP protocols (including Bollywood and political arrivals), and ensures C-form filing for foreign guests per the Foreigners Act. The standard entry path is a 3-year B.Sc. Hospitality from an IHM (NCHMCT-affiliated institute in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, or Hyderabad), followed by a management trainee stint at a Taj or Oberoi property. Bilingual fluency in Hindi-English, and regional languages, is a strong differentiator. FHRAI (Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India) membership properties follow shared industry standards on room rates, cancellation policies, and statutory compliance. Demand for experienced FOM talent remains strong as India's hotel pipeline adds 50,000–80,000 branded rooms per year.

Animal Trainers for film and TV prepare dogs, horses, birds, and exotic animals to perform on-cue behaviours for Bollywood, regional cinema, OTT productions, and commercial shoots. In India, the trade is anchored by a small network of established trainers — Sundar Bhatti's legendary work training dogs for iconic Bollywood roles (Moti, Tommy) defined the craft's standards for a generation. Every production using live animals requires an AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) No-Objection Certificate per shoot, compliance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 (PCA Act), and a vet on call under AWBI norms. Trainers typically own or co-own their animal stable, negotiate per-day rates through informal CINTAA (Cine & TV Artistes' Association) conventions, and handle welfare logistics that the production unit has neither the knowledge nor the liability appetite for. Entry is entirely through apprenticeship — usually under an established trainer in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysuru, or Jaipur.

Track and field athletes in India compete under the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and World Athletics in disciplines spanning sprints (100m-400m), middle and long distance (800m-10,000m), hurdles, relays, throws (javelin, shot put, discus, hammer), jumps (long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault), and combined events (decathlon/heptathlon). The Neeraj Chopra era — Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 and World Championships gold at Budapest 2023 — fundamentally shifted how India treats track and field: AFI central contracts, Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) support, and Diamond League appearance fees are now accessible to India's top eight to ten athletes. Training hubs at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) Patiala and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres in Bengaluru and Lucknow provide national-level coaching, sports science support, and international competition funding. Below the national elite, athletes navigate state athletics associations, Khelo India University Games, and junior National Championships on self-funded or state-government scholarships.

Archivists in India acquire, appraise, arrange, describe, preserve, and provide access to records of enduring value — from 16th-century Persian manuscripts at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to born-digital corporate governance records at Tata Central Archives. The statutory backbone is the Public Records Act 1993, which governs the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi and its regional repositories in Bhopal, Jaipur, Puducherry, and Bhubaneswar. State archives (UP State Archives Allahabad, Maharashtra State Archives Mumbai, MP State Archives Bhopal) operate under parallel state-level acts. Private and institutional archives — Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Godrej Archives, TIFR Archives, various university libraries — follow the same international descriptive standards (ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description; DACS Describing Archives: A Content Standard) but with greater flexibility. Day to day means accessioning incoming record transfers, constructing finding aids in EAD (Encoded Archival Description) XML, running preservation assessments (monitoring RH 45-55%, temperature 16-21°C, IPM pest trapping), supervising digitization workflows (TIFF master at 400 dpi, JPEG2000 access copy, PDF/A for text records), and handling researcher access and RTI requests under the Public Records Act and the RTI Act 2005.

Nutritionists in India design evidence-based food, nutrient, and lifestyle plans that improve metabolic, hormonal, and chronic-disease outcomes — distinct from clinical dietitians (typically hospital-based RD-IDA-registered roles managing tube feeds, post-surgical, and ICU nutrition) by their stronger lean towards community, corporate-wellness, sports, and private-practice work. Standard routes are B.Sc Food, Nutrition & Dietetics or B.Sc Home Science (Nutrition major) followed by M.Sc Dietetics & Food Service Management or M.Sc Clinical Nutrition; the Indian Dietetic Association RD (Registered Dietitian) credential is the highest-respected India qualification. Practice settings span hospital wards (Apollo, Fortis, Manipal, Max, Medanta), corporate-wellness companies (HealthifyMe, Cure.fit, Truweight, Nourish, Possible, Cult.fit), gym and sports-nutrition consultancies, school and government nutrition programs (POSHAN, ICDS), and increasingly Instagram / YouTube-driven private clinics where a senior nutritionist can run ₹15-50L+ practices on personal-brand reach. The work blends rigorous biochemistry (macronutrient calculation, micronutrient assessment, body-composition tracking, lab-marker interpretation) with sustained behaviour-change coaching — the patient who knows what to eat is not the patient who actually eats it, and the difference is the nutritionist's craft.

Senior: ₹22.0L

Instructional Designers at Indian EdTech companies — Byju's/Aakash content teams, Unacademy course factories, Vedantu live-class curriculum units, upGrad/Great Learning programme teams, Physics Wallah video scripting squads, and new-gen platforms like Scaler and InternShala — design, sequence, and validate digital learning experiences from conception to LMS deployment. The work is an applied blend of learning science (Bloom's taxonomy, ADDIE model, SAM rapid prototyping), content architecture (module mapping, prerequisite sequencing, learning outcomes), SME collaboration (coaching subject-matter experts to script camera-ready content), and completion-rate engineering (A/B testing dropout points, redesigning low-completion modules). In the post-2023 edtech restructuring, IDs who can both design and instrument learning analytics — tracking watch time, quiz attempts, NPS at module level — command a significant premium over pure scriptwriters.

Senior: ₹50.0L

Software Technical Writers produce the documentation that lets developers integrate APIs, deploy SDKs, and operate software products without filing support tickets — API reference docs (OpenAPI/AsyncAPI), tutorials, how-to guides, conceptual explanations, SDK code samples, changelogs, and migration guides. Unlike a content writer or copywriter, this role requires reading actual source code, understanding HTTP request/response cycles, testing code snippets in at least two runtime environments, and structuring content using the Diátaxis framework (tutorials, how-to guides, reference, explanation). In India the role is concentrated at API-first and SaaS companies — Atlassian, Postman, Hasura, Razorpay, Freshworks, Amazon, Microsoft, BrowserStack, Atlan — and is one of the most remote-eligible technical roles that doesn't require passing LeetCode. Senior technical writers at US-headquartered companies working from India routinely reach ₹60-100L; US-remote contracts pay ₹1.5-2.5Cr.

Senior: ₹75.0L

Clinical Psychologists are the non-medical mental-health doctors of Indian healthcare — assessing, diagnosing, and treating psychological disorders through standardised testing and structured psychotherapy rather than medication. Unlike psychiatrists they cannot prescribe drugs, run ECT, or admit patients independently — but they own the deep diagnostic and therapy work that often defines treatment outcome: detailed neuropsychological batteries, IQ and personality testing, child-developmental assessment, dyslexia / ADHD diagnosis, marital and family therapy, CBT, DBT, EMDR, ACT, and the long-arc therapeutic alliance that medication alone cannot provide. The Indian path is structured: BA / B.Sc Psychology (3 years) → MA / MSc Psychology (2 years) → M.Phil Clinical Psychology (2 years) at a Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI)-recognised institute — the M.Phil is the licensing degree and the RCI registration is mandatory before practising. Premier M.Phil seats are at NIMHANS Bangalore (the most prestigious in South Asia), AIIMS Delhi, IHBAS Delhi, CIP Ranchi, MGIMS Sevagram, and a small number of state university and private RCI-recognised programs. Workplaces span hospital psychiatry departments, child-development centres, schools, de-addiction centres, corporate Employee Assistance Programs, and the rapidly growing Indian online-mental-health platforms (Amaha, Mindhouse, BetterLYF, Manastha, YourDOST) where senior clinical psychologists routinely earn supplementary ₹10-30L per year on top of in-person practice.

Senior: ₹25.0L

HR Managers run the generalist people function at Indian companies — covering hiring (in partnership with the talent-acquisition team), employee onboarding, learning and development, compensation and benefits administration, performance-review cycles, employee relations and grievance handling, and statutory compliance (PF, ESI, gratuity, POSH, Shops and Establishments Act). The role sits at the intersection of policy and judgement: writing the leave policy, then sitting in the room when an employee disputes a manager's PIP decision; running the appraisal cycle, then handling the difficult exit interview when a high-performer resigns. In India this is one of the most established mid-management tracks across IT services (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Capgemini), product companies (Tata, Bajaj Group, Mahindra, ITC), GCCs (Microsoft India, Google India, Amazon India, Goldman Sachs India), and growth-stage startups (Razorpay, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato). The role suits people who have a high tolerance for emotionally charged conversations, can stay neutral when the manager and employee disagree, and enjoy systems thinking around culture, compensation, and policy. It is NOT a back-office role — modern HR managers spend most of their time in business conversations with managers and employees, and only a small portion on compliance paperwork.

Senior: ₹50.0L