This morning i woke up to the news about TCS planning to recruit 50,000 employees in 2011. The announcement comes close on the heels of similar such predictions by other Indian IT-BPO majors in the past few weeks. Great!!! Things are certainly beginning to look up again for the industry!!!
The IT-BPO sector has brought glory, greenbacks and growth in abundance to the country and its people. Yet, it has also been singularly responsible for bringing one particular species close to extinction... the direct sales person!
Due to their humongous manpower requirements, year after year the IT-BPO companies fight a virtual "recruitment war" on college/universiy campuses to hire freshers. As a result, almost all final semester students in the metros and surrounding tier-2 cities of India have more than one job offer on hand even before graduating!
Unless someone wants to pursue further studies, every student - the brilliant, the above average, the average, the below average - has a job to go to the day after finishing college. On the face of it, the newbie couldn't have asked for anything better - iconic employer, fancy salary, swanky office, gen-y colleagues. It's an extension of college life... only it's more "hip n happening". And one gets paid handsomely as well.
With this kind of a lifestyle being offered on a platter, who would ever want to go out there in the hot sun or pouring rain and knock doors to sell products and services? It is no surprise then that the direct sales person is almost on the verge of extinction... atleast in the IT-BPO hubs of India.
Will the species survive? Only time will tell.
