New Delhi: In his final year at Jaihind College in Mumbai, Moin Danawala worked for Infosys BPO Ltd for a stipend that amounts to just a few movies and dinners out.
MOIN DANAWALA: Age: 20; College: Jaihind College, Mumbai; Goal: To be a research analyst in the short term and a leader in entrepreneurship in the long term. Photograph: Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint
But he didn’t do it for the money. The business process outsourcing, or BPO, arm of Infosys Technologies Ltd asked him to be a campus ambassador while he was in the college’s placement cell. He found ways to get final-year students to attend informational and myth-busting sessions on working in a BPO.
Earning just about Rs5,000 for the year, his efforts still paid off grandly: Brokerage firm Edelweiss Capital Ltd ended up hiring him as a junior associate.
“Handling tough question-answer sessions was a challenging task, but the opportunity to influence batchmates’ career decisions was gratifying,” he says. “That, along with my experience at Infosys’ campus gave me the confidence to handle the various interviews I have been through.”
Like Danawala, campus ambassadors may not be inclined to join the company represented, but they have become a crucial part of recruitment for BPOs that are trying to win over talent. Infosys has been growing its campus ambassador programme, or CAP, to shatter myths, such as BPO being a bastion of mediocre students full of only call centre jobs, or void of career growth.
“The aim,” says Raghavendra K, vice-president and head, human resources, Infosys BPO, “is to give final-year graduate school interns, a first-hand feel of the fast growing ITeS industry so as to reduce the disconnect between students’ aspirations and industry’s expectations.”
PRAPTI DOSHI: Age: 21; College: Christ College, Bangalore; Goal: Do an MBA from a renowned university and lead a marketing team in the fashion industry. Photograph: Hemant Mishra / Mint
The campus ambassadors, as they are called, helped the company mobilize hiring drives in their cities — and then some got offers themselves. Offer letters were given to top performers like Chandigarh’s Kshitij Minglani, who joined the corporate planning division of the company in Bangalore this year. Having held the post of vice-president with the global student networking group Aiesec and interning with the corporate and social sectors made the transition easier, he said.
Along with home-grown companies in IT and BPO, which have been using ambassadors for some time now, several multinational firms are also experimenting with this concept in India.