One of the most important qualifications that any BPO asks for in their advertisements is ‘command over spoken and written English’. Most of the candidates that come to any consultants that I go to for hiring are rejected because of their poor communication skills. When they are given a feedback, most of them go back home wondering as to what is it that they lack in. They have been speaking good English throughout the interview. These are certain questions in the minds of these interviewees that are never answered.
What does “Command over spoken and written English” mean?
If you are not good at English, does joining a ‘Spoken English’ course help?
Spoken English does not mean that you can put together a few English words and create a sentence. English is a language based on sounds and not words. Most of us who speak English are good at joining words to create a sentence. We have a tendency of thinking in our mother-tongue and translating that into English. This is why at times we err in grammar. Our sentences are not properly framed though they convey a meaning.
BPOs and Call centers largely cater to the western market. This mostly consists of English speaking population who would not understand a sentence framed in the way I spoke above. This creates a language barrier thus affecting the satisfaction and service being provided to these customers, which is normal. Even I as a consumer would not want to speak to someone who does not understand my language or, speaks something that I do not understand.
So “Command over spoken and written English” would mean understanding the way English is spoken and speaking it properly. It also means that you have to have knowledge of the written aspects of English like grammar, sentence framing etc. This would hence mean that joining one of those “Spoken English” courses which promises to enhance your English speaking skills in 30 days or, lesser will not help. Promises from lot of these institutes, that they would help you get into a BPO job is baseless because BPO is not what it was 5 years back. The hiring now is much stricter and quality oriented because of the huge attrition that these companies have to face.
So what do I do if I am not very good at English? We would discuss this aspect in a later post.

I faced this couple of years ago and I am sure there would be lot of people who would have faced the same situation.

A friend of my father came with a marriage proposal for me uninvited. The proposal was for his daughter. He had got to know from somewhere that this son of this proud father was working in a multinational company, earning a handsome salary. He went after talking a lot about his daughter, not listening to what my father had to say only to come back the next day and inform my father that he would not be interested in considering a proposal with a guy working in a “CALL CENTER”.

The job in a BPO has always been considered inferior. But the question is why is it being considered inferior?

Wouldn’t I want to speak to a competent person when I call up a customer care? With phone based customer care and phone based sales offers gaining importance; that too just because I would prefer to sit at home or, office and avail of these facilities, a good customer care representative is what anybody would want to speak to when he calls a toll-free number.

So when these representatives are involved in a ‘Service’, how can that job be inferior? It is indeed not inferior but is comparable to any other white-collar job in the society. It is at least better than those jobs where the name is given to ‘Service’ but ‘corruption’ is the name of the game. These representatives at least do not have that option.

We need to accept that a career in a BPO is like any other career and should look forward to tapping those hundreds of thousands of opening that the BPO industry has to offer. The Myth that we have had about this industry has to break and we need to participate in the growth that this sector has to offer our society and economy.

Working with a BPO has lots of attractions attached to it.No wonder the youth gets attracted towards it.But the real charm and advantage of a BPO is yet to be understood by these prospective employees.Probably this is one reason why people joining this industry tend to be skipping around looking for better options.In doing so what they never understand is the fact that what they are considering a “BETTER PROSPECT” is infact not a ‘better prospect’ but a ‘lesser prospect’.
BPO brings with the tag of ‘working with an MNC’.Hence the culture you would find in most of the BPOs is an MNC culture.But where our youth at times falters and consequently brings about a bad name to the industry is in trying to imitate the lifestyle of the West.If only we had the ability to adopt everythings that is positive in the Western culture and inherit the rest of the things from our culture, we would probably have been the most sought after.But nevertheless, that is not what it is meant to be.
The MNC work culture gives us a lot of things;

• 5 Day work – Indians were used to working 6 days a week till our markets opened up. Globalisation brought the 5 day work culture to India and only the MNCs follow it. A tiring weeks work ideally requires 2 days off and the MNC BPO culture offers this.
• Opportunity for graduates – Graduates now get an opportunity to work in comparison to what used to happen about a decade back.Not only do they get an opportunity to work but they get paid handsomely as well.
• Good-bye to the ‘Sir’ culture – The MNC culture sees very less use of the term ‘Sir’. Though there are a bit of those ‘rogue’ bosses in the lower-middle management level, the bosses in the upper management are somebody you would love to work with.
• College atmosphere – The atmosphere you would find in a BPO is similar to that of a college. This is what attracts most of the young graduates to this industry.
• Entertainment facility – One would love working in BPOs with the various entertainment facilities and options available in the organizations. You would find gyms, games facilities and much more in the best organizations in this industry.
• Learn while you work – There are lots of opportunities for learning available in BPOs.People who are focussed can learn the basic art of selling – not just selling products but the art of selling their skills. BPOs also have tie-ups with various institutions and gives you an opportunity to study further.
• Best place to be groomed – It is normal for any organization to be seeking only experienced professionals. But BPO is one place where you would join as an absolute fresher and would be groomed and mentored to be the managers of tomorrow.

Employees in BPOs keep skipping jobs just because they get a better paying job, rather an alternative with a different BPO.What such employees need to understand is that in doing so they are loosing an opportunity to get groomed to become managers. There is a whole world of opportunities out there for people who stick to one organization.It is just about exploring them.In addition to sticking to one organization, there are certain basic things that are expected from any such employee which would be discussed in my further blogs.

My career in a BPO now spans more than 5 years and I have learnt a lot in these 5 years. Starting from the basics to the specialized in computers, leadership skills, management skills, oratory skills, public speaking skills, and the list could be never-ending. This would not be a great thing for someone, but it is indeed great to learn all this in a span of 5 years. Before I joined a BPO, my little experience and what my father taught me made me think that a career, if you are not a doctor, chartered accountant, advocate or, into any other profession, would be joining a company at a junior level and slowly progressing to reach a middle management level in the next 25 years and you retire as a manager at a middle management level. But then the time required to learn management skills and for people to recognize these skills in you was more than 20 years, unless you were exceptionally good. It also meant that, management skills were something that you learnt with experience and exposure, not something that can be taught or, groomed.
But BPOs have changed this thought. You do not have to be in a management institute to learn management skills rather you would learn it in a better way in a BPO. In addition to that, if you think you need a qualification almost all good Companies in this sector would offer you a chance to enroll and study it, some of them even bearing the expenditure of a Rs. 90,000 course.
But then the real story is, not a lot of people know about this. What they know is a story as is shown in a cheap movie like, “A life in a METRO” or, as in a book like “A night at a call center”. We prefer to see these or, read these, enjoy at the cheapness of the content and go home. We then would profess at the ills and devils of working in a Call Center and would keep away from anyone working in a Call Center. Only if we could ask a few questions before we brand a Call center with a culture destroying tag, we would have done some justice to this fastest growing industry.

1. Is this the only industry which witnesses these immoral acts?
2. Why is hype being created for everything that happens in a Call center?
3. Is it that only Call center employees get murdered?
4. Is it that only Call center employees drink and drive?
5. Is it that only vehicles carrying Call center employees meet with accidents?

The answers to all these would obviously be “NO”. And when the answer is “NO”, then why do we want to re-brand this industry? Why is it that a movie showing a man growing to riches from rags on a BPO job, not made?
The reason is obvious.
We human beings hate everything that grows at a faster pace than we grow at. We hate to see the next door neighbor earning 3 times more than what we earn with a much lesser qualification. We hate to accept that our child will still get a respectable and good career, even if he is not amongst the brilliant of kids, because the society would compare our children with their doctor and engineer children.
The choice is your. You have a choice to drive your children to a suicide because of the pressure of studies, or help him groom to build a career, a career which is like no other.
Is “A life in a METRO” and “A night at a call center” the real story or, would you prefer to hear it from someone who has gained a lot from a Call Center? The choice is to everyone who would want a similar gain from this industry.