Graduate work?

Do you really need a degree to be answering the telephone in a call centre? I think not! Many UK firms have jumped on the band wagon and are outsourcing their call centre work to India where eager graduates flock to earn 'good money' and deal with bad tempered Brits who don't like the idea that the person they are talking to is thousands of miles away. Even if these graduates have undergone training to eliminate any trace of an accent, and to gain familiarity with British culture, I still maintain that they are vastly over qualified to do this work. Call centres are the equivalent of battery cages for hens - with targets for answering the phone, dealing with the query as quickly as possible, and then going straight onto the next call, all under constant 'monitoring'. Graduates have lots of transferable skills that employers want - burning them out in their mid twenties isn't the way to treat your workforce. Nor is making them work shifts that don't correspond with their time zone to answer queries about motor insurance, billing errors etc from people who would genuinely be horrified at the thought that they weren't talking to a local call centre. Perhaps firms should stop looking at the cheapest option, and think about genuine customer AND staff care. Free those graduates!


Painful truth of the call centre cyber coolies