Finding My Role at Infosys
In a company with over 225,000 employees and a presence in 45 countries, I thought it would be easy to get lost in the fold. This was not the case at Infosys. They make a concerted effort to find a role for all their employees, and utilize each employee’s skills accordingly. This is the story of how I found my role within the technology consulting giant that is, Infosys.
I graduated from a small liberal arts college in May of 2018, with a degree in communications and a minor in business. Throughout my four years in school I mainly focused on journalism and broadcast journalism. Towards the end of my education, in a quest to be more well rounded, I also studied marketing and public relations.
Like most kids fresh out of college, I was eager to find a job and start making money. Shortly after graduation, I hopped on the computer and started the job hunt. I visited the typical websites: LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, etc. I had done internships and extracurriculars to build my résumé, so I thought it would be a breeze to find something. Well, I was wrong. I was sending out résumés left and right. I went on interviews, even got some offers, but the positions were just not for me. I wanted something challenging, something different.
Months had passed since graduation, I was delivering pizzas and teaching swim lessons for money. My parents were on my case about finding a “real” job. Then, I got a lead from a friend. He told me that he worked for a company that was hiring a large number of people. Next thing I did was hop on Google and look up this company called, Infosys. The first hit was, “Infosys pledges 10,000 US jobs.” I saw this and my eyes lit up. I immediately wrote up a cover letter, attached my résumé, and sent it over to my friend.
It was about two weeks later when I heard back. I was invited to Infosys’ New York City office for an interview. During the interview we talked about what they did at Infosys, and I was asked the typical interview questions. I was definitely intrigued by the opportunity to work for Infosys, and was hopeful to hear back.
Another couple weeks went by, and I was still waiting to hear back. I eventually got a call from someone in human resources at Infosys. She said that with my résumé, I would be a great fit for this new design program that Infosys was doing with the Rhode Island School of Design, which I came to find out is the top design school in the world. I had absolutely no idea what RISD was at this time and knew very little about design (except for some experience with Adobe). Despite that, I told her it sounded like a great opportunity and she set me up with another interview.
At this point, it was the end of October and the program started on November 12. So, things moved pretty quickly from this point on. I did the second interview and got the job. In a matter of two weeks, I went from recent college graduate living in my mom’s basement in New Jersey to experience designer (with no design experience) living in Rhode Island.
If you know me, I am an extrovert (just ask the PVD office). But, full transparency, the first day of training I was extremely nervous. New place, new people, and a new job (that I was not even sure I was qualified for). Like most new situations, the first thing we did was introductions. So, we start going around the room and all the people are saying these terms I had never heard. Not even kidding, the first thing I wrote in the notepad they gave us was, “What is UX/UI?” I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Thankfully, there were two other people from non-design backgrounds in my cohort. So, I was not alone, but I still was wondering why I was there.
As the training went on, I learned a lot about design thinking and complex systems. I learned that design is not necessarily a set of physical skills, but a mind set. For the sake of word count, I will not get into the gory details of the training, but it was confusing, thought provoking, and enlightening all at the same time.
During the training, we worked in teams for a majority of the exercises. Playing sports my whole life, I had plenty of experience working in a team situation. For a team to do well every player has to find their role, and be great in that role. Like I said earlier, when the training started I had no idea what my role was or why I was there with a bunch of designers.
As the training progressed, I slowly began to figure out my role. Someone (I forget who, but shoutout to you) said something to me during the training that really stuck with me. They said, “What good is designing something, if you can’t talk about it.” Bingo, that was it, that was my role. Using my communications background, I could talk or write about the amazing things my coworkers were creating. While also using the strategic design skills I obtained through the training with RISD, to assist on the creative side.
Fast forward to the middle of January, when I was working on my first project after the training. I was part of a team that needed to create a slide deck for a client in a short amount of time. So, we did a lot of research and began creating the deck. We had people working with creating visuals, people working with the layout, and I was one of the people working with verbiage. Since we all knew our roles and stuck to them, we were able to quickly complete the project and get it to the client.
Long story short, what Infosys gave me was an opportunity. An opportunity to start my career and discover my role within their organization. As the new innovation lab opens in Rhode Island, I am excited to see what the future holds. The lab is slowly beginning to discover its role within Infosys. I am hoping that we can grow into our roles together, and be an asset for change within the company.
