‘Companies want employees who can interface efficiently with all stakeholders’

Several organisations are working towards improving the access to dignified work opportunities for youth. Zoomdojo, a Us-headquartered organisation, co-founded by Ritu Banga helps young people get closer to work opportunities. In an e-mail interview, Banga shares insights on what concerns job-seekers. Edited excerpts:

What inspired you to set up an organisation like Zoomdojo?

I inadvertently got involved with education through committee and policy work at my children’s schools in London, Brussels and New York. Realizing that I found it incredibly fulfilling to work with institutions which shape the future, I got even more involved with the field through board and chair positions at various educational organizations, which led me to see up close how important it is not only for our youth to get an education but also to navigate successfully into the world of work afterwards. During the financial crisis and its aftermath, it was heart-breaking to see the levels of youth unemployment around the world, and especially in the US where I live. It was worse than overall unemployment and the more so for first generation immigrants and those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. However, during the same period, there were over 3 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. – difficult to believe but true. The main problem was that those seeking jobs did not know where these jobs were. The other problem was that after college, a lot of young people only wanted to work in a handful of “cool” cities – New York, San Francisco, London. But those cities are not necessarily where the jobs were at the time. My Zoomdojo co-founder, Carol Rattray, had this same realization through her own deep involvement with education via her board and advisory positions at various universities.

Together we decided to address this “information arbitrage” through online databases of jobs, internships, employers and cities to work in. And we decide to focus our efforts on the most vulnerable cohort – youth, especially those from less-thanadvantaged backgrounds. And thus was born Zoomdojo.

What are some of the challenges that young people starting out in their careers should look out for?

In addition to our online career databases and Résumé Creator, Zoomdojo does “offline” work such as career-focused panels and workshops for universities, student organizations and nonprofits, e.g. Cornell, Columbia, City University of New York, etc. One of the biggest challenges that young people tell us about is that they “don’t have a network.”

As a result, a lot of Zoomdojo’s programming and consulting work focuses not only on exposing students to 21st century careers and giving them the tools to succeed, but also on helping educational organizations build networks that would benefit their students.

Another issue that we address with young people is the criticality of strong communication skills. Whether a job is in customer service, sales or software programming, companies want employees who can interface clearly and on message with clients, co-workers and bosses. Often students have all the technical skills and qualifications but are unable to understand what is being asked of them in a task or job situation or are unable to communicate clearly what they are doing – both of which are two sides of the same coin. Especially with non-profits which work with high school systems, many Zoomdojo programs address this challenge.

How can young women plan their careers better especially in the wake of structural challenges of representation and workplace diversity? Any insights from your professional life that you’d like to share?

My most important piece of advice is that a young woman should always try to grasp any career opportunity that comes her way – make her default answer “Yes”, unless she finds that it definitely has to be a “No”. Once she has said the “Yes”, it becomes much easier for her to figure out how to make that opportunity work out – but if she says “No” at the first cut, she’s already closed that door. Overall, men are much quicker to say “Yes” to opportunities. Not only is saying “Yes” critical in job assignments but also in “unofficial” opportunities like speaking on a panel, asking a question at a townhall, participating in corporate volunteer opportunities, reaching out to co-workers in other departments to have a chat or coffee together, mentoring trainees – officially or unofficially.

Even Zoomdojo – I had no background in either education or technology. But by saying “Yes” to opportunities in education that I could never have imagined would come my way and by jumping feet first into the unfamiliar waters of technology and software, today we have an innovative educational company and engineering and software talent that works for us.

How can students or young professionals use online tools more effectively for planning their careers?

A significant development in the last few years has been the use of online recruiting tools by employers, either via their company’s own career pages or through third party platforms, and especially so for early career jobs. For a young job-searcher, it makes it easier to apply for jobs; but it also means that larger numbers of applicants send in résumés for each job opening and, as a result, many companies use automated résumé processing and application tracking systems now. If you are able to tailor your résumé as precisely as possible to the experience, skills, qualifications, and certifications that the job posting asks for – without embellishment or fabrication, of course – you can greatly enhance your chances of getting a “match” to the job posting and therefore getting into the next round of the selection process. Zoomdojo’s Résumé Creator tool can help you create and track many iterations of your “master résumé” and save them for various jobs that you apply for.

Often students have all the technical skills and qualifications but are unable to understand what is being asked of them in a task or job situation or are unable to communicate clearly what they are doing – both of which are two sides of the same coin

RITU BANGA, Co-founder, Zoomdojo