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In the interview process series I would be discussing the various rounds of interviews that normally recruiters to BPOs follow. The rounds could vary according to company, but the purpose of each of these rounds would remain the same. Hence the discussion would be more generic than being specific.
In the first of my multi part series on the interview process, I would be discussing on the first round interview that is more often than not the same in almost all companies. We call it the PI round or, the Personal Introduction round.
What is this round and what is the purpose of this round?
As the name itself suggests this round is about introducing yourself to the interviewer. One may wonder as to why is this round so important and necessary when everything about myself is mentioned in my CV. You might have mentioned everything about yourself in the CV, but there are much more to it that it appears in the CV. When the interviewer asks you about you and your family and your work experience and educational qualifications, he is looking for things beyond what is written in your CV. This round is basically, an analysis of your temperament, attitude and approach towards things. When you talk about your family or, your colleagues in your organization, I am looking for cues to check how good a team player are you and how well do you gel with others. I am also looking for answers to questions like, are you understanding enough and how comfortable are you in a team?
In addition to this, the interviewer is also looking for information from you. Information that you have not mentioned in your CV. What is this information? At times you miss out on lot of things that you might well have been handling in your previous organization, in terms of responsibilities. You might also want to elaborate on the kind of role that you were into in your organization, the kind of process that you were working for, how simple or, how difficult it was and so on. These are information that helps the interviewer in deciding if you fit the bill.
Last but the most important, the interviewer is looking for answers. Answers to questions that he would have framed after scrutinizing and analyzing your CV. These questions are based on “misses” in your CV that go unnoticed. A break in employment, a contradicting depiction of your responsibilities, all these are some of these misses. The interviewer would be looking for genuine and appropriate responses to his questions so that he can consider you for the employment.
The PI round is more or, less the same for any levels of recruitments, entry level or, middle management. Preparing for this round can be a later discussion.
Photograph courtesy Faakhir Rizvi
Working with a BPO is stressful? The pressure and work load in these call centers are indeed stressful and relieving it is necessary to maintain a work-life balance. I am a very serious beliver in this and have always been recommending holidays and outings to my team members so that they can relax and spend some time out with their families.
Deciding on what to do in order to relieve this stress is another important factor. We often tend to decide on a wrong outing, which later we regret have gone out for. This is also a loss of the much required holidays and only adds to the stress you already had. So my team members often walk up to me seeking advice on deciding on the best holiday and travel plan and sources available. That’s when I decided I would write this article.
Booking holidays that are affordable and cheap is most important of all. A reliable and good travel agency that I stumbled upon is Holiday Hypermarket. They offer cheap flights, excellent travle packages to almost every part of the world with very few or, minimum formalities. At Holiday Hypermarket, one would at least not be under the stress of determining if the holiday package is the best for you or, not because you can build your own holiday. A travel agent that is worth a visit is Holiday Hypermarket.
I would keep posting more such tips.
Another murder of an employee working in a BPO, another news for the media. Is it anything more than this?
Perhaps this is a question worth discussing. What are the initiatives that we took when the first such incident in Bangalore happened? Did we formulate enough measure to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future? Probably not.
It is easy for the organization to say that it was not our mistake. It is even easier for the employees in these organization to say that the Company is not taking adequate care of them. But actually the fault if from both ends.
Organizations formulate policies to esnure safety of Women employees like – No female employees to be picked up first or, dropped last and tracking of cabs etc. etc. But they fail to do a random check to ensure that these policies are being adhered to. BPOs fail to understand that the kind of population that they are dealing with are the most immature ones mostly aged 22-23 years who are fond of flouting rules and breaking policies. These organizations have to ensure that the policies are being adhered to. A strict random checking would surely help this. So organizations should not just be making and framing policies but also be ensuring that this is adhered to.
The employee population in BPOs is fun-loving, just out of college, new-to-job youth who often find pleasure in flouting rules. Jumping red lights, speed driving, shouting through the darkness of the silent night is thrill for them.But are these things worth the thrill? I would say “No”. Safety – yours and the society’s; comes first.We need to understand that these policies, though at times seem very useless and punishing, benefit us in the long term.When these basic safety instructions are passed onto us, we need to ensure that we follow them, thus ensuring our safety.
It is only with a joint effort from both the employees and the BPO organizations that we will be able to ensure that these kind of unfortunate incidents doesn’t happen in the future.
Genpact has earned the top slot in the top 15 third party ITES-BPO companies, as per the annual NASSCOM survey. The rankings are based on the revenues for 2006-07 reported as per the annual NASSCOM survey on IT industry performance. WNS Global Services is at the second spot and Transworks emerged at the third position, up from 15 last year.
In FY 07, the Indian ITES-BPO segment grew by 33.5 per cent per cent contributing $8.4 billion to the total software and services exports of $31.4 billion. According to Kiran Karnik, president, NASSCOM, “The ITeS-BPO segment continued to grow at a scorching pace, to record export revenues of $8.4 billion in FY07. We expect segment revenues to grow at around 30 per cent next year, to clock exports of $10.5-11 billion in FY08.”
While talking about the growth of the Indian BPOs, Karnik said, “The Indian BPO sector has witnessed significant transformation over the past decade. Starting with basic data entry tasks, it now includes increasingly complex processes. The domestic market has also contributed to the growth of the segment as a whole and we expect on-going momentum considering the large addressable market that it offers. Overseas M&A, along with increase in scale and depth of existing service lines, has complemented the growth of this segment.”
Finance and accounting (F&A), customer interaction services (CIS) and human resource administration (HRA) showed a steady growth. ITES-BPO employee base jumped to 5,53,000 in FY 07 from 4,15,000 in FY 06. The domestic market for ITES-BPO grew to $1.2 billion in FY 2006-07 from $0.9 billion in FY 2005-06, showing a significant increase in demand.
Top 15 third party ITES-BPO companies in India are as follows:
1. Genpact
2. WNS Global Services
3. Transworks Information Services
4. IBM-Daksh
5. TCS BPO
6. Wipro BPO
7. Firstsource Solutions
8. HCL BPO
9. Infosys BPO
10. EXL Service Holdings
11. Citigroup Global Services
12. Aegis BPO Services
13. HTMT Global Solutions
14. 24/7 Customer
15. Mphasis BPO
