According to a recent survey, jointly carried out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the World Bank, 64 percent of surveyed employers are "somewhat", "not very", or "not at all" satisfied with the quality of engineering graduates' skills.
Read More
"Mere 25% of graduates that India produces every year is actually employable." --Jeffrey Fuller, principal advisor of Human Capital, a consulting arm of Mercer
Read More
It is common knowledge that formal college education in India fail to eqip the students with marketable skills necessary to seek employment opportunities after graduation. So we are witnessing a profileration of "Finishing Schools" in India promising to the fill this gap of employable skills (both technical and soft skills) not taught in formal college education. While I do not devalue the role of the finishing schools to fill the skills gap, I doubt if a few months course can make up for a few years of lost learning opportunity in college!
Not getting a decent job after graduation can be very demotivating for the students. So I think the best way out for the students is to take proactive steps to start learning marketable skills necessary for employment while they are in college (as opposed to wasting money in finishing schools after graduation).
Here are a few tips to help the students in IT proactively prepare for a good career:
- Do not wait to acquire industry relevant skills until your final semister or after you graduate! Start as early as you can (preferably from the first year in college).
- Theoritical knowledge is sufficient to pass exams. But hands-on programming experience is essential to develop software. If you aspire for a good career in software development, you should write a few thousand lines of code by the time you graduate from college. Contribute to an open source project if you can. This way you will have something worthy to show/discuss for during your job interview. The interviewer will also ask less theoritical questions if you have something worthy to show off!
- You can learn multiple programming languages which are mandated by your university syllabus. But do not stop there. Select a language you like and get in-depth programing experience using it (preferably on an open source project of your liking).
- Find somebody who is already working in the IT industry and is willing to help you acquire industry relevant skills. Consider this person your guru and mentor. This will complement your theoritical knowledge that you have leaenrd from your professors in college.
- Read relevant online journals, blogs and news on IT. There are many free resources on the web to enhance and develop your skills.
- Watch Podcasts. You can download them on your iPod or any other MP3 player and listen at your convenience. I strongly recommend the Career Tools Podcast.
- Read good books on programming and design (whether they are part of your college syllabus or not).
- Last but not the least, you can contact me if you already know Java and willing to try working on some open source projects. I can be reached at saurabh.banerjee@acclaris.com
Engineering Graduate Talent Pool in India, Highlights of Research Report, Nasscom, 2005
The Evolving Global Talent Pool - Lessons from the BRICS Countries, The Levin Institute, State University of New York, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment