The constant question I get asked by senior communicators is the one about talent. But I’m convinced now that of the 1000 senior professionals I know personally less than 1% are serious about solving the problem. That is about seven to eight people.
I was part of conceptualising and creating India’s first school of communications. And we have been able to establish a brand against all odds in the last two years. We are getting ready to admit our second batch of a dozen students next month and sadly there has been neither support nor concern from most of the 992 people from the 1000 I referred to above. I’m not making this a rant or calling out what is not expected of people. For a profession that has just about come of age there is a lot of support needed from professionals who have completed over a decade and have faced the issue of finding and retaining talent. SCoRe offers a world-class programme in less than one year. It will take atleast half a dozen batches to see the results of the effort.
We are a two-member team supported by our mentors who also double up as investors. We get asked by several of the thousand as to how the school is doing but not more than 5 or 6 have asked how they can contribute and see it through. Several offer to teach but when the time comes to enter the classroom they back out based on lame excuses. Well, bygones will be bygones. There are only three ways one can help solve the talent problem.
- By volunteering to teach an entire course – which is a commitment that can range from 20 to 30 hours over a trimester.
- By offering meaningful and high-quality internships in the winter that includes a certain degree of mentorship and a decent stipend that works as a fee buster.
- By supporting the programme through the institution of scholarships. If even ten of the top 30 firms supported one student each we would have 100 great professionals in a decade.
But despite all efforts none of this has happened. There is still time. And one can raise their hand to do one or more of the above.
The real way the programme works for students that are hand-picked to look at a two-year horizon, where in the first year they are investing time and money and in the second year they are investing time and earning the money back. Our fee is nominal at Rs 2.5 lakh + GST for the entire programme which gives them access to the best of learning, the exposure at PRAXIS, a compulsory weekly blog that is supported by a content director and many other avenues of learning and growing that are not normally available to communications students.
If you know someone who needs eleven months of polishing and can be a great PR professional for the future refer them to us and we will mould them at our campus in Mumbai so you can recruit them a year from now and slowly help solve the good talent problem.
He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).
He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.
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