Last Updated on August 5, 2023 by Vishnu Nambiar
Skill development holds an important place in the present job market! Sadly, majority of Indian graduates are not ‘skilled’. They just hold a Degree and possess textual knowledge! When it comes to industry-specific skills, they hardly possess job-specific skills.
The problem
The present college education system in India focuses on theoretical learning. Performing well in this area can help you score well in exams and get an impressive Degree certificate. But in this age of cut-throat competition, employers look beyond an applicant’s Degree certificate and academic qualifications. The first thing that they look in a candidate is – is the candidate industry-ready?
Let us take the engineering education system into account. In the past 10-15 years, many new engineering colleges (mostly private) have popped up across India. These private engineering colleges (self-financing ones) are managed by private charitable and/or educational trusts.
These colleges have helped large number of 12th pass students realize their dream of pursuing engineering education (courses like B.E. or B.Tech.). It works like this – the more the number of engineering colleges become, the more the number of engineering seats become available. And more seats mean that students who have average or below average scores in entrance exams may secure admission into an engineering college.
As a result, more than 1000000 engineering graduates are pumped out from these colleges each year. The problem is – an alarming proportion of engineering graduates don’t possess meaningful set of skills, which will help them get employed! Usually, graduates emerging from second and third tier colleges are the ones who fit this bill! Due to lack of skills, they are either forced to take up low-paying jobs or remain unemployed. Many of them go for higher studies, with the hope of landing a decent job after acquiring a PG Degree.
Steps taken by employers
Employers in India have access to a large number of raw graduates. But their main issue is – majority of these graduates are raw products. There exists a need to polish these raw products and turn them into skilled employees.
Employers in India have explored this path and tasted some amount of success. It is a well known fact that big IT players recruit raw graduates and provide them with skill development training. Once the training process is over, the ‘skilled’ and ‘polished’ candidates are fit to be deployed!
Times have changed now! Many recruiters are finding it hard to train graduates for long periods of time. Training cost is the main factor that’s making medium and small scale recruiters think again about the process of recruiting raw graduates and training them (before deployment). As a result, they have turned their attention towards experienced professionals who possess the required set of skills!
The solution
Graduates may use skill development programs to enhance their skill-set. You need to understand the fact that being industry-ready and obtaining a Degree are two separate things! Possessing a Degree from a college won’t necessarily make you industry-ready! Take any industry into consideration – IT, banking, automobile, pharmaceuticals etc – textual knowledge about these domains won’t help you thrive at work! For a thriving career, you’d need practical knowledge, domain-specific skills and training.
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As I mentioned before, the best way to acquire domain-specific skills is by enrolling for skill developing PG programs. These programs are available in different learning modes such as – online mode, offline (regular) mode, part time mode etc.
Evolving job market
Technology plays an important role in our day to day lives. Banking, governance, commerce, education, entertainment, healthcare – it has had a positive and surprising influence on these (and many other) domains.
Thanks to this impact of technology, the job profiles associated with these domains have also undergone a change! Keeping this fact in mind, one should try to upgrade his/her skill-set at regular intervals. The only way to survive and thrive in this dynamic job market is by keeping oneself up to date with the latest developments taking place in a sector/domain.
I am Vishnu Nambiar a career and educational blogger from India. I am also a full time educational consultant having more than 12 years of experience in the educational sector.
I share articles related to courses, colleges, careers, exam tips and more here.