The 7th and 8th Skill that you cannot do without, if you seek your dream job

7. Sales and Customer Service

Real Case Study

Mahesh and Anil finished their MBA in 2010, and both got a job in a company manufacturing and selling goggles, both started their career at a salary of INR 12000/, Mahesh wanted to get into back office operations so he became the MIS Coordinator. Anil was taken in sales. Anil used to go around the market, builds new relationships with retailers and service existing business partners; his target was to increase sales. Mahesh used to maintain MIS of inventory, record of total sales, revenue generated and outstanding payments on the company’s software. By 2013, Anil’s salary is INR30000 whereas Mahesh is getting INR15000. Mahesh at times cribs about the low salary he is getting in spite of the tremendous inflation we have seen over last 3 years. Dipping profits, thin margins and the macroeconomic environment forced the management to downsize the organization.

Now, if you head the management and you have to show the door to any one of them, who will you choose between Mahesh and Anil. Who should get the pink slip?

Obviously Mahesh, reason Anil is connected to people and the market, he has been networking with human beings, he is the one who gets business and generates revenue; businesses cannot do without their Anil’s. If the management did fire him a sizeable chunk of business can be taken by Anil to the competition.

Mahesh on the other hand dealt with systems and software’s, he had an expertise in computers, but at the same time he is expendable. You can get a 2013 graduate who will definitely be better and faster on spread sheets, having better computer knowledge and will be willing to join at INR10000/-.which will be 2/3^rd of Mahesh’s salary. Remember these words, in any organization all Mahesh’s are expendables whereas Anil’s are indispensables.

I remember a bank coming to Evolve XL to conduct interviews for MIS Coordinator wherein the salary that the bank offered was 12000 per month, about 80 people turned up for the interview and we were about to wind up the proceedings at about 4pm when this slim, lightly built guy came and pleaded that he was coming after having given 3 interviews and got delayed, requesting for a chance to be interviewed. The HR manager relented and interviewed him, he was knowledgeable and did rather well, but the moment he was about to go out of the room he did something which got him the job, he turned and told the HR manager “Sir, I desperately want this job, salary is not an issue even if I get 9000 I am ready to join from tomorrow.” You know what, he got the offer letter that very day and since then that bank has pegged the salary for this profile from 12000 to 9000. Why would any organization pay more when they can hire at a lesser amount?

95% of the youth I meet dreads three words “Sales, targets and field” and all those people who can be called successful are doing all three, remember if you ever want to drive a Mercedes or dream of having your own sea facing pent house, don’t shy from these three words. And I will not be mistaken if I say that 90% of the MD’s in the world came up the ladder from sales.

Let’s see an interesting statistics here.

70 Cr are searching for jobs, 95% of that want backend jobs, that means approx 66 Cr people want back end jobs, 5% of employees in any organization consists of backend profiles, now imagine the intense competition, and that is the reason no organization is willing to pay more than 10-12000 per month for these jobs because of the sheer numbers available. Further the moment you apply for a 15000 job you see that you are competing with CA’s and CFA’s.

MBA finance tells me I want a finance job in a bank, Let me clarify here there are no finance jobs in a banks. The nature of entry level jobs along with their respective percentages available in any bank are 85% in sales, 10% in credit 5% into operations.

Suppose you get INR 15000 per month that means that the company/bank you are employed with, will expect you to contribute INR 60000 per month to their bottom-line or net profit. How do you think someone can add that amount in the bottom-line, simple you have to sell something to do that, so sales becomes an intrinsic part of banking which each employee in a bank branch is supposed to do, even a teller has CASA and Insurance targets in the new age banking.

At Evolve XL we have hardcore operation jobs as well but candidates should understand that software’s have removed human intervention. All that the banks need is someone to just punch in the data and these jobs may not be able to give you the growth or the money most candidates aspire for. Further these data entry jobs are the most thankless job in a bank and people working in this profile end up working for 12 hours a day with no appreciation or pay hikes. Since most candidates might not like the nomenclature of data entry operator so some smart HR in some banks/ companies name it glamorously eg. Data Analyst for which many youngsters fall. A vogue I see in HR functions happening is coming up with new innovative names which can attract candidates. 

Let’s understand this phenomena in simple terms “Who is the decision maker in your family?” Most of you would answer “Dad” or “Mom”. My next question is “Why are they the decision makers?” The answer to this is your dad is the decision maker not because he is the eldest but because he is the revenue generator, he gets the money, the day you start earning more than him you will be the decision maker. We also see non working mothers having an equal say in the decision making process. That is simply because mother’s can assess the risk, so their decisions are given equal weight age, rest everyone in the family has a supporting role to play. Understanding that our family is like an organization, putting the same principal in a company/bank which is a profit driven organization. Who calls the shots in a bank? It is the sales because they generate revenues along with the under writers or chartered accountants who assess the risks, rest all functions be it HR, operations etc are support functions. What role do you want to play? I leave it to you.

8.  Basic Managerial skills

 “All of the top achievers I know are lifelong learners … looking for new skills, insights and ideas. If they’re not learning, they are not growing… not moving towards excellence.”- Denis Waitley

We have covered the first 7 skills which are critical in your search for your dream job. Since the unemployment in India is at an all time high and the competition is fierce, employers are spoilt for choices, so they emphasize and search for the under mentioned skills. A smart candidate will understand that it becomes extremely important for him/her to acquire these skills and abilities apart from their academic knowledge and demonstrate them in their resumes and in their interviews to get the employment offer.

These skills vary from industry to industry and company to company. Hence candidates need to research about the industry and company as to which are the must have skills to ensure selection.

The candidate needs to be organized, strong time management skills and personal efficiency are the key to success. At a typical day in office a professional will deal with an irate customer, an intermittent technical question from your boss, process delays, sales targets, hr issues involving a sub-ordinate. And that’s to say nothing of social media, personal growth, leave planning and a whole host of other things each one critical to someone.

When you get into a profession, remember priorities and business needs you to move fast and change fast, you need to have the dynamism to be able to handle it all, all at once. Companies today want multi-taskers.

Soon will be back, with the last two of this “Critical10 Skill-set recruiter want in you.” Till then “Happy reading”