LIC AAO or Bank PO: Which is a better career option?

There are many times when a person is in a situation of dilemma and choosing a right career option is one of that. Bank aspirants often find themselves discussing on a very disputable topic that “whether they should go for Life Insurance Corporation of India's Assistant Administrative Officer (LIC AAO) exam or a Bank Probationary Officer (PO) exam in terms of a better career and future choice". 

Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) is the conducting authority of both LIC AAO Exams and IBPS PO. That is the reason there is so much similarity between the IBPS PO Exam Pattern and LIC AAO Exam Pattern.

As both, the exams are almost similar in their exam pattern and working profiles most of the candidates usually sit for both the examination. One more reason for so many candidates opting for both the examination can be the fact that it is difficult to pinpoint why LIC AAO is better than Bank PO and vice-versa.  This particular article aims to present some of the crucial data that can help the aspirants make the right career choice.  In the upcoming segments here we will highlight few silent features of both LIC AAO and Bank PO examination like SBI PO and IBPS PO along with the points of differences between the job profile, salary included, additional perks and stages of promotions.

Nature of Industry:

• Life insurance Company of India (LIC) provides life insurance to the policyholders and earns profit from the same as one of the biggest organization with branches across the country.
• Banks, on the other hand, is for serving people by providing with facilities of saving their money, providing financial aids and also helping industries to grow by lending capitals.

Exam Pattern:

Institute of Banking Personnel Selection is responsible for conducting both LIC AAO and IBPS PO, so, there is a lot of similarity in the exam pattern for both the examinations like segments of question paper and types of question. However, there can be a minute difference in the questions and there can be few questions specific to the sector. SBI PO, on the other hand, has the same segments to evaluate the students but types of questions may differ.

Job Responsibilities:

• LIC AAO focus on selecting candidates capable of handling administrative and other responsibilities, which includes managing databases, interacting with the present as well as prospective clients, apprehension of latest schemes and policies and underwriting.
• Bank PO is no different from LIC AAO in terms of job responsibility as it is also an administrative job with other responsibilities like managing customer accounts and keeping track of cash transactions, crediting employee's salary, making official announcements to staffs and issuing cheque as well as demand drafts.

Working Hours:

•  Assistant Administrative Officer works on 5 days a week in an approved 9 hours shift with 2 week offs.
• Bank POs, on the other hand, works in a shift of 9 hours with 6 days a week and additional week offs on second and fourth Saturdays.

Work Pressure:

• Talking about work pressure of an AAO in particular, it is not that high as they are not supposed to interact with prospective clients for more business as it is the job of an LIC Agent.
• Bank PO, on the other hand, works quite in pressure as they need to keep the business flow coming by managing both the existing as well as potential clients.

Salary:

• LIC AAOs gets a monthly salary of Rs. 40, 245 per month which includes house rent allowance (HRA) and City Compensatory Allowance (CCA).
• A probationary officer can take home a salary of Rs. 34,000 to Rs. 38,000 per month which varies from banks to banks and sometimes the location of the bank.

Job Transfers:

Both AAO and PO jobs include job transfers in every 3 to 5 years. LIC AAO job transfer can be little convincing as most of the LIC branches are located in major cities of the country. Bank POs, on the other hand, can be transferred to rural areas as there is always some requirements.

Perks of LIC AAO vs. Perks of Bank PO:

As both of these are government jobs and include a lot of perks (that's what government job is for, isn't?). Here are a few perks a candidate enjoys on respective post.

Promotions:

A candidate can expect much faster growth in Bank PO than LIC AAO as in banks promotions takes place in every 2 to 3 years whereas in LIC the same can take 5 years.

There are various stages of promotions in a bank:

1. Bank PO
2. Assistant manager
3. Branch manager
4. AGM
5. GM

Various stages of promotion in LIC:

1. Assistant Administrative Officer
2. Administrative Officer
3. Assistant Divisional Manager
4. Divisional Manager
5. Senior Divisional Manager
6. Zonal Manager