A new school of thought

Why would a management graduate opt to work for an NGO at the beginning of his/her career? It certainly may not be a conventional career move but experts say that the management lessons learnt and the practical experience derived during one’s tenure with an NGO can equip you with the skills required to overcome corporate challenges with tact and enable you to be a better manager. After all, it’s among the very few sectors that trains you to be a persuasive people manager as it’s the only one that can convince people to work for free, right?

By Vinnie Bhadra

Meet Aniket Bose, an MBA student from XLRI who very proudly boasts of working in an NGO (nongovernmental organisation) before he hopped onto his corporate job with a financial consultancy in Delhi. He belongs to the new breed of corporate newbies who are going the extra mile to gain practical experience by working with a grassroot level NGO. He volunteered to work with an NGO for an internship as he felt the exposure and knowledge that he would gain during his tenure would help him, when he moved to the corporate world and he was right in making this career move. Gone are the days where only straight A’s got you the best job the moment you step out of your MBA institute. Practical experience of the things that you learn in the classroom is as important, because only then will you learn the real meaning behind the words that you hear your professor say, right? Many students today, are opting to intern or work with an NGO or NPO (non-profit organisation) before entering the corporate world. But there is a catch here; the students prefer working with a grassroot level NGO where they can interact with people at the truest level. Working with an NGO is one thing, but why do these students opt to work for an NGO at the grassroot level as opposed to an NGO based in the city? “The reason is simple: students want to work in a grassroot level organisation because that is where the real skills are tested as there are limited resources to work with,” says Leena Joshi, director, Apnalaya, an NGO based in Mumbai working towards the upliftment of the poor.

 “Since NGOs provide an experiential form of learning as opposed to a cla