Job opportunities at call centers and BPOs

This week was an abridged week – I had to leave the project site to attend to a medical emergency in the family.

On the project front, there were some productive outcomes in the first few days. An Indicorps staff member who had prior work experience at a call center provided some great contacts at call centers and BPOs. These contacts mentioned that there are job openings on a regular basis. The vast majority of these jobs require some command of English, although of a few of the regional call centers (e.g. the Jaipur branch of the mobile operator Hutch) do require Hindi speakers. There is a stark gap in the payscale between jobs that require Hindi versus jobs that require English. Hindi-only jobs range from Rs. 3,500 to 5,000 per month, whereas English jobs start at Rs. 8,000 per month. The main computer skills call centers and BPOs are looking for is MS Excel – ability to edit existing spreadsheets.

One thing that I learnt from The Mira recruitment agency in Jaipur was that there is an incredibly strong demand in the booming retail sector in India. However, computer skills requirements are quite minimal for these jobs. While this may be a good lead for the livelihood sector, it falls outside the scope of GDL Technology.