Issue 1 - ICTACT.IN

magazine
Employability-an Industry Perspective
Vijayalakshmi Rao
COO & Director, Scope eKnowledge Center P Ltd.
President, Empowering Women in IT
Fact #1: Indians are among the youngest in the
world-about 60% of the population is below 25 years of
age.
Fact #2: India produces about 3 million engineering
graduates per annum, accounting for nearly 25% of the
global output.
little idea as to how to actually apply it in the workplace. In
my company - for instance, we recruit engineers across all
disciplines, from colleges all over Tamil-Nadu for content
related work. We find most of these students very good in
their concepts and attitude. However, their application
orientation, communication skills and basic grooming
leave a lot to be desired.
Fact #3: Our state of Tamil Nadu alone produces
75,000 engineers-double of what the entire US produces
annually. These demographics are certainly impressive;
albeit, when reviewed superficially. The actual truth is
hardly as pleasant as these statistics.
According to HR experts, the nation is heading
towards a talent crunch. While millions graduate every
year, only a small percentage of them are immediately
employable. The rest need to be trained or retrained for
prolonged periods in various skills before they are fit to
take up employment.
Job-readiness is looming as a major issue across the
manufacturing and service sectors. This is especially true
of the ICT sector that depends almost completely on
‘human’ resources to largely meet the stringent
requirements of the global marketplace. While campuses
beckon, most companies are finding that they can recruit
only a small percentage of graduating students. The
majority, either do not meet the companies’ requirement
or companies envisage where a long drawn out training
process should be put in place to make the candidates
‘job-ready’.
The biggest reason is that engineering colleges are
not yet fully attuned to the requirements of the industry.
While the faculty consists of good academicians, not too
many are constantly in touch with industry
developments. Also, the focus of the syllabus is on
textbook-based learning rather than on hands-on
knowledge. This results in a situation where we have
engineers who have a sound knowledge of the subject but
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Employability skills are the basic skills necessary for
getting and retaining a job and performing well in a given
role. ICT companies, necessitated as they are to constantly
keep an eye on margins and ROI tend to look for the best
value-for-money when it comes to employment. Once an
engineering graduate is recruited, he is required to
immediately start functioning in his/her role with very
little investment in training. Companies are quick to sizeup
prospective employees. While the CV is a giveaway
more often than not, the test/interview is a sure indication
on the candidate’s job-readiness.
Academic and domain skills retain their slot as the
most important factor in determining employability.
These are the most basic hard skills, and reflected by the
marks scored, subjects/ electives covered, area of
specialization, etc. While the job may not necessarily
utilize that knowledge (for example, an IT firm may
recruit a non-IT engineering graduate for a programming
job), the candidate’s knowledge and comprehension skills
are likely to be assessed. Projects/internships undertaken
during the course, which are of relevance for the position
applied for, carry a premium.
Higher order thinking skills also play a key role in
employability. These include analytical skills,
lateral/creative thinking skills, etc. Companies typically
judge this by the nature of projects independently
undertaken, participation in technical competitions,
papers published, etc. Candidates with such skills are seen
to require less training than those that come with academic
credentials alone. They may also have the potential to
take up value-added roles faster.
ICT CONNECT MAGAZINE