Indian call centres recruit UK graduates

Graduates from UK universities are being employed by UK firms to work in offshore Indian call centres on Indian salaries in an attempt to bridge the culture gap between agents and customers.

Some of the recently qualified students are lured to India by the prospect of a CV-enhancing overseas 10-month placement with a blue-chip company and the opportunity to then pick up a rucksack and travel around India for two months on full salary at the end of it.

They can earn from between 11,000 Rupees (£132) a month at entry level to 40,000 rupees (£480) a month as team leaders working in Indian call centres supporting UK customer service operations.

In terms of the cost of living in India, that would rank the UK workers at a similar level to teachers and other young professionals.

Delegates at the Offshore Customer Management Conference in New Delhi this week said there were two or three recruitment agencies now starting to target this market. The graduates are able to help Indian staff understand the cultural nuances of UK customers.

One of these agencies is Launch Offshore, which has just signed a deal for a pilot of six UK graduates to work for HSBC in its operations in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Colombo in Sri Lanka. It also has a successful project with 10 UK graduates working for global contact centre firm GTL in the Indian city of Pune.

Most of the graduates already have experience of travelling and their typical age is 21 to 25 years. They usually go out to India on a 12 month contract, working for 10 months with an additional two months' salary paid for them to travel the country. Accommodation and flights are also paid for.

Tim Bond, founder and managing director of Launch Offshore, said his firm is more involved in recruiting graduates with previous travel experience than backpackers. He told silicon.com: "The cost of living in India is so low. The graduate call centre agents are better off than they would be doing it in the UK. One of the attractions is also the travel experience."

Online travel company eBookers was one of the first to pioneer this approach and has spent the last few years recruiting staff from its Scandinavian offices to work at its Tecnovate call centre operation just outside New Delhi supporting foreign language customers. Although the staff also work on Indian wages eBookers told silicon.com on a visit out to India last year that they have no shortage of volunteers wanting to spend a year or two in India to experience life and travel there.