About the role:

Zeltis works on large-scale public communication and outreach mandates, carrying schemes, initiatives, events, and priority messages to people across the State. Work of this kind runs on accurate, current information, what is happening across the city, how initiatives are landing, what is being said in the press and online, and where things need attention. We are looking for Associates who can handle a broad brief: moving between coordination, on-ground engagement, media and news tracking, data upkeep, and reporting, and doing each reliably.

This is a generalist role, and it suits someone who is comfortable not doing the same thing every day. A week may involve time at the desk tracking coverage, maintaining trackers, and drafting notes, as well as time across Kolkata meeting stakeholders and seeing situations firsthand.

What holds it together is accuracy: the information this role produces feeds into decisions taken above it, and a figure entered carelessly, or an impression passed off as a finding, undermines everything built on it. The role also involves handling internal material and unreleased assessments, which makes discretion and confidentiality non-negotiable.

Experience:

- 2 to 3 years of prior experience in client-facing, coordination, media monitoring, or field-level work.
- Candidates from consulting and research firms, media monitoring and PR agencies, newsrooms, survey and market-research agencies, NGO or development-sector programme teams, public outreach programmes, civic or municipal work, business development and client servicing, or policy research units will be strongly preferred.
- Familiarity with Kolkata, its neighbourhoods, wards, and local institutions is a significant advantage.

Key Responsibilities:

- Support the day-to-day execution of assigned programmes and mandates, coordinating between internal teams and external points of contact.
- Track print media daily—Bengali, English, and Hindi newspapers— by identifying relevant coverage, clipping and logging it, and flagging items that need immediate attention.
- Monitor news across television, digital news portals, and wire services, maintaining a current picture of what is being reported on subjects of interest.
- Track social media conversation across platforms — posts, comments, trends, and shifts in tone — and identify what is gaining traction and what is worth escalating.
- Maintain media and news trackers in Google Sheets, logged consistently with date, source, subject, and tone, and compile daily and weekly coverage summaries for internal circulation.




- Undertake regular visits across Kolkata to engage with stakeholders, address on-the-ground requirements, and gather first-hand information relevant to ongoing work.
- Interact with a wide range of people — institutional contacts, local functionaries, community representatives, and members of the public — and build durable working relationships with them.
- Capture what is gathered accurately and completely in accordance with the prescribed format, maintaining assigned IDs and area-wise tagging conventions without deviation.
- Compile area-wise and subject-wise reports and notes in the formats specified by the team — numbers first, followed by qualitative observation and insight.
- Distinguish clearly between what was reported by others, what was observed directly, and what is the Associate's own assessment, and never present one as the other.
- Flag urgent or escalating situations — on the ground or in coverage — to the reporting manager immediately rather than holding them for the next scheduled report.
- Support verification and follow-up wherever information needs to be confirmed or a location revisited.
- Assist with logistics, documentation, and coordination around events, programmes, and time-sensitive assignments as required.
- Maintain strict confidentiality on collected information, contact details, and internal assessments, and ensure such material is never shared outside authorised channels.

Essential Skills and Requirements:

- Language proficiency: Proficiency in Bengali is essential — the ability to converse comfortably with people across backgrounds, to read Bengali newspapers and online content fluently, and to read and write Bengali well enough to record what is said faithfully. Working knowledge of Hindi is required. Working English is needed for reporting formats and internal communication.
- Media awareness: Follows the news closely out of habit. Familiar with the Bengali and English press in the State, the major digital outlets, and how conversation moves on social platforms. Able to tell a significant item from noise.
- Generalist aptitude: Able to switch between coordination, engagement, tracking, data work, and writing within the same week, and to pick up an unfamiliar task without needing it broken down step by step.




- Mobility and on-ground comfort: Willing and able to travel regularly across Kolkata, including to areas outside the usual commercial circuit, and comfortable working outside an office setting for parts of the week.
- Interpersonal skill and maturity: Able to build trust quickly, hold a conversation with anyone, remain patient and respectful in difficult interactions, and stay composed under pressure.
- Google Sheets proficiency: Able to work confidently in Google Sheets — data entry, filters, sorting, basic formulas, and maintaining a shared sheet without breaking its structure. Comfortable working on a mobile device when away from base and a computer at it.
- Reporting ability: Able to compile clear, structured reports to a prescribed format, summarise findings in plain language, and write for senior readers who need the picture quickly rather than the detail exhaustively.
- Accuracy and detail orientation: Meticulous about names, numbers, dates, sources, locations, and classifications; understands that a wrong entry travels further than a missing one.
- Integrity: Reports what was actually found, including inconvenient or negative findings, and never fabricates, pads, or estimates entries to close a target.
- Institutional sensitivity: Appreciates the sensitivity of the mandates this work supports and conducts themselves accordingly — no commitments made on behalf of any client or institution, no public statements, no representations beyond the mandate given.
- Commitment and availability: This is a six-day-a-week role. News and ground situations do not keep office hours; candidates must be comfortable with a six-day working week and willing to work beyond designated hours, including early mornings, evenings, weekends, and public holidays, when required by schedules or time-sensitive developments.

Positive to Have:

- Prior experience with media monitoring, clipping services, or coverage analysis.
- Familiarity with social listening or monitoring tools and with platform analytics.
- Prior experience with structured formats, questionnaires, trackers, or data-collection tools.
- Experience in municipal, civic, or public programmes.
- Working knowledge of Google Docs and basic presentation tools.
- Ability to capture clean, well-labelled photographic documentation.
- Two-wheeler with a valid licence, for coverage across the city.

Location: Kolkata

How to apply:

Send your CV along with a short note describing an assignment you handled end-to-end — what it involved, whom you dealt with, and how you reported on it — to [email protected] .

📌 Associate - Programme Support & Coordination (Kolkata)
🏢 Zeltis Consulting
📍 Kolkata