The other day afternoon, my mobile rang playing the Nokia tune. I picked up the phone, a familiar voice answered the other end. It was the lady from an overseas education consultancy. She took my contact details when I attended interview with Kingston University in The O Hotel, a five star luxury in Pune. Like most of the talkative consultants, she is suave and smart in persuading students. Speaks English effortlessly and fluently. Just get her started with any topic related to international universities or admission application and you can’t stop her.
She quickly spoke, “Hi Sridhar, Did you check your email? You must have received an email from me which has a list of Universities in UK that are suitable to you. Go to the sites of each of the universities and find out more about the masters course that you are looking for. “
“Ya, I saw the mail. I wanted to ask something very important”, I tried to interrupt her.
She continued confidently as if she didn’t hear me speaking, “Once you are done with that, short list five universities and tell me. We will start the process of application.”
“I have an important question”, I said again as if I was desperately trying to grab the mike and speak in a loud group discussion.
“Yes tell me Sridhar. What’s your question?”, she answered as if she has the answer to every question on the tip of her tongue.
“I wanted to know about my career prospects in the UK. What is the status of recession in the UK? After finishing my masters, will I be able to find a decent job?”
She snapped my question, “Listen Sridhar, there are plenty of jobs in the UK. Till now none of my students who went to the UK contacted me telling that they have problem with employment.”
As she spoke, I got reminded of words of a senior lecturer in a seminar in the Education UK Exhibition conducted in mumbai. The speaker clearly said that the UK’s economy was weakened by the recession and has started to recover. He expressed his hope that it would recover soon. He never asserted in a tone that this lady was speaking. Even the other professors who I talked to in that exhibition told me that the job situation is weak at the moment. This is so contradictory, this lady is clearly lying me.
She continued with a parental tone, “I always tell my students not to look at the education in terms of Job prospects. You should try to get a good percentage in your college. Improve your employability, make yourself compelling candidate for selection in job interviews. Rather than looking at the number of jobs available, students should look at their skills and try to improve themselves.”
I got reminded my conversation with one my ex-school mate, who went to the UK in 2008 for pursuing Masters. He said that he, like most of his Indian friends who came to UK to study Masters, was jobless and was still living in the UK with the money he earned from part time jobs. He said that it has been already 6 months since he graduated, and still has found no job. He like many other international student graduates, is in the hope of getting a job.
“I get annoyed when students ask me about job prospects.”, I suddenly came out of my flashback reel. She was spitting fire. “Some students don’t even know how to speak a single sentence in English properly, even they ask me about job prospects overseas. I tell them to first improve their English speaking skills, get a good IELTS score first and work on their technical skills. They will get placed cent percent surely. “
I was surprised how fluently she was lying me about the job scenario. I thanked her and hung up the phone telling myself never to believe these consultant representatives.
Feel free to share such experiences that you had with these consultants as comments below.
About the Author: Sridhar Jammalamadaka is the editor of this blog, Interview Mantra. He is a professional blogger from Pune, India. He is an experienced programmer with expertise in Java, C and Micro Controller programming. He enjoys playing cricket and piano. Through this blog, he wishes to gather a large online community of aspiring Indians - students and working professionals. You can find him on Twitter at @sriavr 