Posts Tagged ‘opportunities’
Move Up With Forign Languages
In blog posts earlier that focused on the advantages of learning foreign languages, I talked about the upper hand that you get while looking for a job. A recently published article in The Hindu addresses the same and talks about a few opportunities that are available to students who pick up a foreign language in addition to their courses. As globalization spreads, being multilingual definitely gets you in touch with a wider audience and as a result, access to better opportunities.
According to the article, French still remains a favourite but Chinese and German are picking up fast. A student who is equipped with important soft skills and a foreign language to go with them, can command a starting salary as high as 30 grand. Some of the best places to pick up foreign languages in Hyderabad are EFLU, Ramakrishna Math and others. Click here to take a look at the article. I will be posting specific job openings in this blog soon.
Latest on Bank Jobs
In a blog post earlier, I had written about opportunities in banks all over India. Owing to various circumstances such as opening of new branches and retirement of a lot of officers, there has been a sudden spurt in recruitment both in the public and the private sector banks. Most of the big names in the world of banking are looking for quality talent and here’s your chance to step up and grab the vacancies on offer. To know more about some of the positions up for grabs and their requirements, visit this link. I will keep updating as and when I hear about new vacancies.
Consider Internship Jobs
If you want to taste professional life before plunging into it and would like to experience what it feels like to handle a real time project, an internship can be a very good idea. Several major concerns offer opportunities for internship where you get to learn all about life at work and gain valuable experience in the domain of your choice. Internships can be part time or full time for a limited period, so you can probably take them up along with your studies. Internships can help you make up your mind on your choice of career as there is nothing better than to actually be a part of the industry and learn your work hands on.
Bear in mind however that internships might or might not come with a stipend all the time. So you might have to arrange for your accommodation and travel if your company asks you to report to an office in another state or country. However, good performance will always be rewarded and the company might offer you a position at the end of your internship if you manage to impress them. Google, Infosys and even the United Nations among many others, offer good internship opportunities.
Exciting Publishing Jobs
All of us grow up reading books and in the process, pick up a lot of words, expressions and proverbs from them. Books become our gateways to knowing more about different countries, cultures and practices. From comic strips to novels, books delight and educate us all the way. We all love books that are well written, blemish free and impeccably designed. Now that you have become an English enthusiast (and I am sure books had a major role to play in building your enthusiasm) how would you like to ensure that you and other people get to read books that are well designed and fun to read? If that sounds exciting, then a publishing house could be your destination while making a career choice.
A career in publishing is an exciting as well as rewarding prospect. You get to work with manuscripts, edit them, design them, so that they can be successful in the market. You can also look forward to interacting with authors, working closely with them and when a book is published and goes on to become a bestseller, you can feel satisfied to know that you had a big role to play as an editor or illustrator. In view of the rising number of opportunities in the publishing sector, several institutions are offering courses to equip you with all the skills you will need to turn a raw manuscript into a potential bestseller. Check out this link for some institutions offering such courses.
More Langugaes=Greater Job Advantage
The growing interest in learning foreign languages might baffle some people but there’s no denying that foreign languages open up a lot of new opportunities and it’s heartening that more and more people are willing to explore these. You might be of the opinion that learning English presents enough employment opportunities and there is no need to make the extra effort to learn more but if only you explore what learning a foreign language can do for you professionally, you will be encouraged to re-think.
Data collection and documentation doesn’t always happen in English as companies are expanding into more and more countries around the world. Opportunities as translators and interpreters are up for grabs if you are proficient in a foreign language. BPOs often cater to clients in South America and other countries around the globe where English is not the main language. As there are high demands for people who can speak a foreign language, you can expect a lucrative position in several BPOs.
Commonly people go for French and Spanish. However courses in Russian and Japanese are also sought after.
Outside the Classroom:A Different Take on Creative Learning.
In the academic fields of literature and language, a creative writer is highly appreciated. Several universities and colleges both in India and abroad offer courses on creative writing. If you are an acclaimed creative writer, your proficiency in the language can hardly be called into question. It is taken for granted that you have mastered the language and are able to play with it as per your wishes. You can compose poetry, write stories, argue convincingly and so on. Armed with such abilities, you may think that a job in the industry that involves writing will be a piece of cake for you. Pause here and think again.
Lucrative opportunities like technical writing and blogging require extensive writing from you but not the kind that you have been producing so far in your classrooms. I once attended an interview for the post of technical writer in a reputed company where I was asked why I want this job. I confidently replied that creative writing is one of my skills and I would love to apply that skill in my job. My interviewer smiled and told me “creative” writing is not what is expected out of me. The focus should be to keep the language as simple as possible and be straightforward. The writing thus has to stem from an entirely different attitude and perspective.
You need to keep in mind that a company is hiring you to write about itself, its objectives, its products etc. Through your writing, existing and prospective clients will form an idea about your company and what it is all about. It is up to you to make this idea as clear to them as possible. So you need to free your writing from veiled references and images to make it clear and comprehensible. When you are writing about a product, you have to make all specifications easy to understand and when you are blogging about the company and its services, your style needs to be simple so that your writing is understood by everybody. A poet or novelist can get away by saying he/she writes for a specific target audience, but you won’t usually have that excuse. So does that mean there is absolutely no creativity? Not at all; you need to be creative to make your writing simple, comprehensible, yet eye-catching.
Training Blues
While everyone agrees upon the advantages of students equipping themselves with good communication skills, what is neglected is the prospect of professionals who can train the students. I am talking about the teachers in various Engineering colleges here. It goes without saying that to be successful as a teacher in this field, one needs to have a clear understanding of the needs of the industry and the kind of communication skills desired. By and large, the industry requires its workforce to be aware of domain-specific scientific and technical vocabulary, ability to speak politely and positively, reporting, clear and precise writing and making presentations. Now the question is how many teachers teaching English courses in our Engineering colleges possess these skills?
Many of the teachers recruited by engineering colleges are graduates or post-graduates in English where the emphasis is on English literature. As a result, they are largely unaware of the demands of the industry and most of the English course outline handed out is lost on them. They struggle to make sense of the technical vocabulary and other Industry-specific nuances. Upon asking, I was told by people in the Industry that during their college days, their English teachers often found themselves as baffled by the syllabus as them. Nowadays some reputed institutions like EFLU are offering courses on TEFL/TESL which are attempting to address such demands but good courses of this kind remain few and far between. With the growing demand for professionals with good communication skills, opportunities galore for teachers/trainers who can impart these skills as well. The sooner we realize this, the better.
Time to Wake Up
It never fails to surprise me that though the BPO industry has been around for a while now, our educational institutions do not really train the students for it. Students generally have to depend upon the many BPO training institutes that have mushroomed in recent times.
Why this neglect? In our educational institutions we are still holding on to certain traditional career paths coupled with a tendency to look upon new openings with suspicion. Even after being convinced of their benefits, it takes a long time to implement new courses. Our students end up losing out since they are not aware of these opportunities in the first place and are not given the necessary training. This results in a mad rush for the “established” careers when there are plenty of openings elsewhere.