The job that Revathi Udayshankar has landed in Michigan, the United States, goes to bust many a myth about international placements.
She is neither a software engineer, nor does she have a management degree from any of the Indian Institutes of Management. Yet, she has got an international placement with a pay package of Rs. 23 lakh a year.
Technical specialist
A B.Tech. in food processing engineering from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and an MBA from Sasi Creative School of Business, 24-year-old Revathi has just received an offer letter from Yem Foods LLC, the U.S., to work as a technical specialist in the food process development department of the company.
Expansion
“The Indian company, which specialises in manufacturing Indian instant food, develops, manufactures and markets Indian food in Michigan. As part of their expansion process, Yem Foods was looking out for a food technologist who was well versed in Indian foods, with technical and financial expertise. When we identified her to the company as part of campus placement activity, Revathi was chosen for the job,” Rajdeepan Swaminathan, Managing Trustee of the B-School, says.
According to him, the interesting aspect in this placement is that she did not get the job merely for her educational qualification, but for her innovative ideas that she had projected through her projects she undertook as part of her course.
Passion
For Revathy, food has always been a passion, in the scientific way. During the course of her engineering study she knew her heart was in instant foods and designing equipment for food processing. It was this technical orientation towards food that drove her to take up a job in the research and development (R&D) section of a fast food company in Coimbatore after her engineering. Her very first product – instant gulab jamun mix – was launched by the company. She went on to make instant ice cream, rasam and coffee mixes.
Management course
Though she was doing what came to her best, she felt that she had to be better equipped in terms of the financial aspects and that made her take up MBA with specialisation in production and finance.
“In addition to the routine project, our B-School encourages us to take up a project based on an original innovation, which can be offered to any company. Since my interest was in instant foods, I did a project where whey, a byproduct of cheese and paneer, could be incorporated into corn flakes. Athletes and other sports persons consume whey as a drink for muscle strengthening,” Revathy says.
In the course of the interview that was held via seven conference calls, she was only quizzed on her projects at TNAU and Sasi School. After that she was also given a project on developing and marketing frozen sambar to test her innovative bent of mind.
According to Mr. Swaminathan, the company will benefit largely because of Revathy. Her innovative ideas would help the company that was planning to come up with newer products to cater to Indians in the United States, he said.
