Essay for a job application.

Below is an essay that I have to submitt for a job in "Teach for India" campaign, wherein they select 100 applicants from all over the country to teach unprivileged students in India for 2yrs. Read the essay and please give me your honest opinion, would appreciate critiques:



I am a young professional, working for one of India’s best travel company “Makemytrip.com” as a Sr. Sales Executive. My job is to meet various corporates in Delhi/NCR and generate business from them and increase profitability for our organisation. When I tell this to my friends, relatives and my parent’s friends or colleagues; they all feel very proud of me and wish me all the success in life. Being in sales they mostly empathize with me, because apparently sales job requires a lot of effort both physically and mentally. This is true to a certain extent, but after working in sales for some time , I have come to realize that selling is no ‘rocket science’, the core attribute required in sales in ‘manipulation’ with a tinge of lies and sugar coated talks. The day I realized this, I asked myself ‘is this what I want to do rest of my life?’ Sure it pays well and as I said earlier throws a good impression, but my job does not reflect me because this is not who I am.

I started looking for jobs in educational institutes hoping they might require a candidate who has good communication skills, and can contribute towards soft skills and personality development etc. But soon I realized that qualification is more essential than ability and will to teach, because due to lack of qualification in teaching field I wasn’t even considered. Then I expanded my horizon by looking for jobs in NGOs, but here also I faced two major hindrances. Without experience in this field, NGOs did not consider giving me a paid job, I was open to volunteer work, but soon realized that I would not be able to survive long with an empty wallet.

Henceforth, I joined my current organisation and continued working in sales, but recently I have realized that I am doing injustice in two ways.

First to my organisation, because I do not enjoy my work (not that I am bad at it) or fell connected to it, therefore I am not giving my 100% and receive an undeserved paycheck at the end of every month. Second to me, because I am simply not satisfied with what I do, this leads to frustration and in turn affects my family and friends too.

So when I heard about Teach for India, I decided to apply and try to become a member in this campaign. So ‘why do I want to be a TFI fellow?’, because unlike other institutes or schools, TFI delivers education to many unprivileged children in our country. The institutes I applied for do not aim towards change or simply imparting education, but their target is their business through education. Furthermore, I believe that this generation will bring significant change towards new India in the times to come, and I want to be a part of it.

“Why is now the right time in my life to do so?”

Well, because currently I don’t carry a burden of responsibilities on my shoulders. I am young and ‘now’ is the only time when I can change my path towards education and consider changing my career goals. I am not only looking at the two years with TFI but plan to continue this line of work in the future. At this stage of my life I am very content with the remuneration offered by TFI, because at this age monetary interest is aimed towards my survival only, hence is not my top priority; as opposed to building a foundation for education. I am sure Teach for India is the right platform for the same.

I would like to conclude with a saying by Aristotle, that “Pleasure in job brings perfection in work” and sales is not what brings pleasure in job for me, but education sure does.