Copious cups of tea, a biscuit or two, persistence and a headset: that’s all a student caller needs to get through a calling shift.
Universities around the UK employ anything from 20 to 100 students to call alumni and persuade them to contribute to the scholarships and bursaries that the university offers its students.
With 77% of students now having to work to fund their studies, the role of student caller is seen as an attractive one, with shifts taking place during evenings and weekends, often on campus. For every phone call made, it’s one small step closer to financial security for both the student making the call and the students they’re raising money for.
When I applied for the position of a student caller, I had no experience, but the wage was great and I wanted to start saving money for life after university. I expected my friends wouldn’t want to join me – they favoured face-to-face positions in cafés or shops in the city centre. Yet, with BT recently hiring 1,000 more staff in the UK, with plans to double that number by April 2017, the demand for employees in this sector is rapidly raising.
Before I started, people said, “I’d find it weird calling people I didn’t know”, or “I wouldn’t want people to be rude to me over the phone”. Being a student caller will be awkward, they told me. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The experience was invaluable and the conversations thought-provoking.
Being a good conversationalist is the key to making lifelong friends at university, and a student caller position teaches you to sustain a dialogue. You understand the constructs and logistics of a good natter, allowing you to forge closer ties with classmates and flatmates.
You meet a whole new collection of potential friends too: other student callers. Spending most evenings together, you form a close-knit community, praising someone for securing that monthly donation, raising the spirits of the person who has broken the record for most answerphone messages left. You are building your social network and support system at university, and that’s vital in helping you to fulfil your potential academically.
Not only does a calling job improve life during university, it can benefit you post-graduation. Employers will value the skills you picked up in your evenings on the phone: communication and recall, confidence with people whom you’ve never met, persistence and understanding. And of course, being able to fundraise successfully demonstrates the invaluable attributes of selflessness, passion and persuasion.
Some of the alumni you speak to are truly inspirational. I came across a woman who had been a teacher her whole life and was beginning to teach the grandchildren of the pupils she taught in her very first classes. Another alumnus had won prestigious awards for the businesses he founded.
Jessica McKenzie, 19, a student caller for Bath Spa University, says she “really enjoyed getting to speak to amazing people and hearing their stories from their time at university”.
Atlanta Yeatman, 20, also a student caller there, says: “It gave me a sense of hope that there are prospects for us when we leave university.”
You have to expect the unexpected working as a student caller – power cuts, donations from just an answerphone message, receiving pictures of a tapestry sewn by an alumnus – but that’s part of the pleasure of an unexpectedly worthwhile job.
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