Posts Tagged ‘requirements’
Exploring Current Openings in Domestic BPOs
Fluency in languages is the primary requirement for a BPO job. By fluency in languages, we most often mean English and maybe some foreign languages. While it is true that English and foreign languages get you the best BPO jobs and the highest pay-packages, regional languages can get you a good position too. Not all BPOs cater to international customers and also among those who do, there are requirements for the domestic sector.
BPOs know that all customers won’t be comfortable with English when it comes to communicating within India. In order to enhance customer services, BPOs have a team which caters to customers unwilling to speak in English. To handle the domestic sphere, a team of customer service executives are hired who communicate in regional languages. For such a profile, it is desirable to be fluent in more than one regional language including Hindi.
The demand is quite big and rewards offered are exciting. To check out a few openings, click here.
New Report on Hiring Activity in India
Naukri.com has released its monthly report on hiring activities in India based on location, industry and experience for the month of August 2009. The report gives us a general overview of hiring activity in the major cities in India and looks into requirements across various industries. Compared to last year, hiring activity has seen a nosedive this year but figures are by and large maintaining stability. With the improvement of the economy, we can look forward to a spurt in hiring across profiles.
The sector under the limelight when it comes to growth is banking and financial services which was hit hard when the recession struck. It is good to see progress in this sphere and we can be hopeful of it regaining its lost ground. Among the cities, Bangalore saw a rise in hiring activity while Mumbai stayed stable. Other major IT hubs such as Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi and Chennai saw a marginal fall.
Check out the detailed report by visiting this link.
Exploring Technical Writing Jobs
Time to look at another prominent and attractive opening in the domain of language and communication, namely, technical writing. A basic research reveals that almost all big and small companies in the industry have requirements for technical writers. So if you happen to be good with the English language and are looking for a job that involves writing and also exposes you to cutting edge technology and latest products launched by different companies then technical writing could be a profile you will enjoy.
Most companies would require you to write about their products, launches and other news related to their research. So you will be writing user manuals, designing brochures and working closely with the development team to form a good understanding of the offerings of your company. As a technical writer, you will be catering to all the users of your company’s products and that can be a big number. You need to remember that your audience will consist of people with and without an understanding of technology so your writing should explain things in a clear and straightforward manner.
People generally get put off by a lot of text so you will have to cultivate a skill for designing. If you take a look at the user manuals of products launched by some big names, you will see almost every page carries pictures, illustrations and the text is arranged in short paragraphs. Often buletted points are used so that the main features get highlighted. If you are trying to explain to your clients how to operate a product, it is important that you show the various processes through pictures in addition to writing the steps down. Using different font colours and formatting will make your work visually appealing. You can consider using different background colours for different sections. Needless to say that a good knowledge of MS Office and a few photo-editing software will be an added advantage.
As for the origin of technical writing, I got a surprising piece of information in the process of finding out more about it. According to Wikipedia, the practice of technical writing can be traced back to ancient Greece and the Renaissance (fourteenth to seventeenth centuries). However, the full fledged utilisation of it came into being during the first world war when a lot of technical documentation was required by the military,manufacturing, electronics and aerospace industries.
Figuring The Nuances of Jobs
This post is a continuation of an earlier post in which i had mentioned that professional life requires you to be an altogether different creative writer by and large. I thought of sharing some of my experiences of writing in the professional sphere. I plan to put up several posts on general as well as specific requirements.
I always wrote long sentences while writing answers or essays for my courses and in examinations. I had to ditch this habit and concentrate on making my sentences short and crisp. Long sentences often tend to get confusing where you are required to put things across as clearly as possible. This applies to lengthy business proposals as well. Though it will unavoidably be lengthier than blog posts or web content, you need to keep your language simple, your sentences short and make every effort to give maximum information using less words. In other words, you will need to get straight to the point.
It is a good idea to include pictures or sketches while trying to write about a place or a product instead of trying to describe everything elaborately in writing. A picture, as it goes, is worth a thousand words.
Keeping your English correct and keeping an eye out for errors will help you in copy editing, proofreading etc. I will put up a separate post to discuss the nuances of editing for a publishing house or other concerns.
It is important that your writings have some visual appeal as well. Split your article into several short paragraphs. Using numbers or bullets to highlight points will make your article eye catching and your readers will be able to easily spot the important points.
Industry Attempts to Bridge the Gap
“We align the college curriculum with the industry’s requirements, and work with educational bodies towards implementing it. We organize seminars and training sessions for the faculty to give them an industry perspective, enabling them to train the students accordingly.”- this is the motto of Infosys’s Campus Connect initiative. Previously i have posted on the problems ailing our education system and the gap between supply and demand. Where competition is cut-throat and the need to keep up a fast pace vital, the industry can’t wait for Universities and Colleges to revise their curriculum, add new courses and start equipping students with the desired skills. They recognise the potential of India as a provider of quality manpower and are getting up close and personal to ensure the potential is realised and fast.
Over the past few years, big names like Infosys and Wipro have come up with Campus Connect and Academy of Software Excellence respectively to train aspirants eyeing coveted positions in these companies. More companies are following suit and partnering with educational institutions. The partnership results in spreading awareness, letting the students know exactly what is expected out of them in the industry and training to make fresh graduates job-ready. While i personally think such initiatives are praise-worthy and necessary, we shouldn’t leave training and teaching solely to these ventures. I hope our education system changes for the better by observing and learning from every initiative to produce more employable graduates in future.
Employability in India
I was recently reading an article on rediff.com which discusses the prospects of the BPO industry in India in the coming days. According to the article, the Indian outsourcing industry has entered “a new era of growth” owing to several companies desperately wanting to cut costs and looking to outsource like never before. The article goes on to say that attrition rates have already gone down and are plummeting further.
Though the BPO job market looks promising, we have to wonder whether we have enough quality talent to meet the requirements. Companies ideally want committed candidates possessing all the basic qualifications and skills necessary for the job profile. Unfortunately, finding such talent takes a lot of effort. Infosys, a premier IT firm, hires only 1% of the over 1.5 million applications it receives annually.
Around 2.5 million graduates walk out of the many colleges in India every year- out of which around 400,000 are engineers and 200,000 IT professionals. However, according to NASSCOM, only about half of these graduates are employable. Why does this happen? There are many reasons, one of the most important being that the existing education system is not industry oriented and therefore does not prepare them.