Dear Tarashilpa,
If you have not cleared NET, then I recommend first passing the NET. The UGC conducts NET twice a year.
The UGC NET Exam was to be conducted in Mar 2021. However, because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was conducted in May 2021. Now, wait for further notification from UGC.
The Part-I of the NET tests the candidate's aptitude, logical reasoning etc. For the Management discipline, there is no specialisation in the Paper-II of NET. Therefore, one has to be thorough with all the disciplines of management like marketing, finance, HR, supply chain and so on.
It may be noted that clearing NET is just obtaining an entry through the main gate. Each university conducts its own interview for the selection of a PhD scholar. For this, you will have to write a research proposal. Questions in the interview will be asked based on the proposal. To test your general knowledge of HR, the panel members could ask a few other questions which may not be related to the research proposal. Generally, the questions are asked to check whether the candidate has the research aptitude or not.
If you have eight years of corporate experience, then what is your future plan? Would you like to enter the world of academics? You could be well aware that in the corporate sector, at least in India, the jobs for PhDs are few and far between. Therefore, getting a job of your stature could be a challenge even then also. In fact, because of your over-qualification, you could be disqualified for ordinary jobs. Therefore, my recommendation is to do market research before you embark on the PhD. Secondly, the PhD could impose a break of 3-5 years in your career. Are you prepared for this? Will your family members support you during this period?
I am able to provide you with all this information and also able to ask these questions as my daughter is pursuing her PhD. After clearing NET, my daughter visited several universities to gather information. On her behalf, I had gone to several places to gather the information. In spite of doing this work, she still faces a few challenges. Hence, my recommendation in the previous post was to talk to the research scholars. In addition to choosing the suitable subject for the research, tuning oneself with the idiosyncrasies of the research guides is also a challenge.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar