Archive for August, 2009
Learning English=Winning
The urban/rural divide when it comes to education is nothing new to us. Urban students, with better facilities and exposure for learning English, have an edge over their rural counterparts when it comes to soft skills. Developing communication and soft skills is vital when it comes to bagging lucrative opportunities. Though rural students can compete with the city kids when it comes to domain knowledge, the lack of English knowledge often plays spoilsport in interviews. Just came across yet another article in The Hindu today which talks about the problems faced by rural students in various engineering colleges across the state.
Students have to realise that getting into a good college does not guarantee a good job these days. In addition to the curriculum, students need to keep themselves updated on current industry practices and trends. If they find there is something lacking in them (especially something as vital as English), immediate steps must be taken to improve and become an effective communicator. All the domain knowledge won’t be able to help a student out if he/she fails to express it and convince interviewers.
The article provides some other examples as well. Check it out here.
The Impressive Potential of Freelancing
With rising opportunities and variety of work coming in, freelancing is on the rise. Freelancing allows you a lot of freedom and flexibility as you can work from home and can decide how much workload you want to take. A lot of outsourced work is being offered to freelancers and several of them need English writing skills. You get paid to read and write articles on various topics and post them on blogs or as website content. Since a good number of these opportunities are being outsourced, there are opportunities for you to earn in foreign currencies and thus increase your earning potential.
Generally for jobs that involve writing, you need to be a keen researcher in addition to having excellent writing skills. You will either be given a domain or a topic on which you have to write a number of articles. At the end of the month your pay will depend on the number of articles you have contributed. If you are a working professional looking to increase your earning, you can consider writing a few articles per month to add more to your salary. However there are people who do this full time and some of their earnings are on par with people going for work to offices.
More posts and specific freelance opportunities will follow.
Hangman:Get Hung Up on Learning English
I guess most of you will agree when I say learning English should be made as much fun as possible. After all we are most likely to remember all those learning experiences which were informative as well as enjoyable. If you are asked to sit down with a dictionary and learn up a few words everyday, the groan inside will be audible enough to me but if we talk about some fun games which have the potential to make you think about words and remember them in the process, I am sure of hearing some enthusiastic cheer.
Some of you might be familiar with the game “Hangman”. For those of you who are not, the game can be a lot of fun and also serve the purpose of enhancing your vocabulary. While playing the game, you are asked to guess a word based on a given clue. You are given an idea about the number of letters the word contains. So you start guessing one letter at a time and for every wrong guess, the sketch of a person hanging from the gallows nears completion. You need to guess the word before the figure is complete or you lose. From experience, I can tell you that it’s great fun to rack your brains and guess different words. What’s more, the words remain in your mind since you tried so hard to get them.
So if learning English through games sound exciting to you, go for glory with “Hangman”. Follow this link and get started on having fun.
Top BPOs:According to NASSCOM Ranking.
For all of you looking to join top BPOs in India to give your careers a perfect start, here’s some interesting information for you. NASSCOM has recently released the updated list of the top BPOs in India. The rankings are based upon two categories- top employers and top companies. A list of the top IT services exporters also accompanies the BPO rankings. You can also access the annual revenues of these big guns, their past rankings and how they fare in competition against top BPOs all over the world.Check out the list here.
Online Courses:Reaching all Corners
With the internet becoming more and more accessible and one of the major sources of entertainment and information, it is only natural that online courses and training will gain more leverage by the day. Besides corporate training and communication,several courses are also becoming available online. Many of these courses are job-oriented and designed to improve employability skills as well as computer literacy.
The obvious advantage of online courses is that they can be offered to a large number of students and the institutes or organizations need not worry about facilities such as classrooms and equipments. In addition to that, taking online courses is a great way to experience education standards and the education system abroad. You need not travel to a foreign country to take a course that is being offered online. You get access to the faculty and online resources of reputed institutions abroad by taking their courses online. Needless to mention that a certificate from an institute of repute can greatly enhance your demand in the job-market.
Not too many institutions in India offer courses online whereas this practice has gained a lot of popularity in the West. I guess we can start by offering part of our distance learning courses online so that Universities won’t have to ship large amounts of reading material to their students. We can even look forward to the theoretical exams being conducted online in due time. This will make distance education cost-effective while retaining its wide accessibility.
However, for that to happen, we need to ensure computers and the internet reach all our villages and towns. Here’s hoping that happens soon. To get an idea about the variety of courses that can be taken online, visit this link.
Jobs in Hyderabad: Confirms Ongoing Research.
As mentioned in an earlier post, job-opportunities in Hyderabad are on the rise. Among various other profiles, marketing and communication is also doing well as seen from a recent list. In the same post I had mentioned that there is an increasing demand for experienced professionals. A look at the list confirms that information as well. Clearly the experience and expertise of people with adequate professional knowledge and domain experience are being highly sought after.
Learn English Online
There is nothing better than to learn English through regular practice. However not all of us might have access to English schools or a circle of people to converse with in English. In that case online learning resources can come in handy . The advantage here is that there is plenty of material out there on the web and all major aspects of communication (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are covered. The icing on the cake is that they come to you for free and you can access them anytime according to your convenience.
Online resources provide you plenty of choices. It is easy to find material suited for all levels so you just need to try and figure out which exercises will be suitable for you and then get started on all that the resource has to offer in that category. Some websites offer you trial tests as well so that you can assess your competence from time to time. Since all the exercises are online, the fear of making mistakes in front of an audience can be ruled out and you can feel free to take the listening and speaking exercises that are on offer.
From time to time I will provide links to learning materials online. You can access a good source here.
Call Centre Training at British Council
Candidates looking for quality voice and accent training are generally confused when it comes to choosing a training centre. Riding the BPO boom, plenty of such institutes have mushroomed all over and naturally they all claim to have excellent faculty and infrastructure. However, a name that is well known and respected all over the world is the British Council and we can be reasonably sure of the quality of its programmes given the vast experience which backs its claims.The British Council offers a course for BPO aspirants where pronunciation, orientation to accents,proper telephone conversation and functional English are duly covered. So for those of you who want to be well-equipped to make it big in BPOs, the call centre training offered by British Council should be an obvious choice.
Click here to learn more about the course and how to apply.
What Does Your CV Look Like?
To impress the recruiters and bag your dream job, you need to be careful about how your Resume/CV looks. Initially when you are applying for a job, it’s your CV which will do the talking on your behalf and taking care to make it stand out will enhance your chances of getting the interview call. We are all familiar with the fact that we require a CV as we step into professional life but many of us approach the task of putting it together rather carelessly and have to face rejection at the initial screening as a result.
It is therefore advisable to do some reading and find out how to make your CV more prominent. Many candidates, including you, will be apply and companies will try to shortlist those who have the right skills and experience for the vacant profiles they are looking to fill. Therefore when you have a particular opening in mind, make sure you highlight all that you have done so far that satisfy the company’s requirements. Some organizations will ask for a cover letter in addition to your CV for information which a CV can’t provide.Time spent on knowing what companies look for from candidates when they apply is a good investment and will surely enable you to get ahead.
You can take a look at this article on monster.com for some good tips on how to prepare a CV and cover letter.
Good at Communicating? Apply Now.
Current job openings in Hyderabad seem to be based on communication. A search of the most recent opportunities revealed that many organizations are looking to recruit telesales executives, technical writers, business developers and front office executives. Those who are eyeing such positions better start working on your English right away and good news for all of you who are looking to make a career out of the English writing and communication skills that you have inculcated. Check out the list here and start applying now.