Bridging the Gap Increasing Employability Challenges. Methods. Opportunities Bridging the Gap Increasing Employability With specific references to Engineering graduates

The Talent Crunch India is on the verge of an apparent talent crisis Progressive changes in the Industry Lucrative sectors and multiple opportunities The supply of competent workforce is unable to keep pace Talent acquisition and retention pose major issues

Key Developments in Sectors High Economic Growth – New Jobs The country’s high economic growth created new jobs in the IT and IT enabled services (ITES), pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and engineering design sectors. New Economy Sectors Emergence of new economy sectors Sectors such as finance, consultancy, insurance, organized retail; aviation, hospitality, animation, media, real estate and infrastructure opened up a wide variety of job opportunities Global Labour Market Many Indians being hired for jobs overseas. At the same time, Indian companies are also hiring foreign nationals. The Indian job market and its opportunities are now lucrative to people from other countries Narrowing In Skill Pyramid Due to technical changes, most jobs in both manufacturing and services sector are clustered at the low productivity end, while some are at the high productivity end, with the middle narrowing down. Thus, a majority of the work force is engaged in jobs requiring basic skills or specialization.

The main questions that come to one’s mind are Which skills do employers consider important when hiring new engineering graduates? In which important skills are the graduates falling short? How satisfied are employers with the skills of engineering graduates? What measures are being taken to improve the skills and make the engineering graduates match the expectations of employers? Who is taking these measures and what have been some effective measures?

The Labour Market Voice of the Employers

India Today Can India rely on its demographic dividend to give it its skilled manpower?

What do we have? K Ramkumar, Executive Director and Head of Operations & Human Resources at ICICI Bank, in an article for the Forbes wrote : ” For the next 35 years, close to 70 percent of India’s population will be between the age of 15 and 59. By 2050, India will have 100 crore employable people. This is presented as the dividend against USA’s 27 crore employable people and Europe’s 45 crore.”

The Gaping Gap A felt need of adequately skilled workforce Inability of supply to match needs and demand Low absorption of supply into workforce due to ‘insufficient capabilities’ India currently has an annual skilling capacity of 4.3 million, less than 20% of the industry requirement of 22 million skilled workers.

Employability of Graduates Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President, NASSCOM said, “Our engineers are not unemployable, they just don’t have industry-ready talent. In other words, they lack the skills required for the jobs that are available to them.” Employers in India are trying to broaden the talent pool and develop a recruitment philosophy to hire for general ability and attitude rather than specialized domain and professional skills (Wadhwa, Kim de Vitton, Gereffi, 2008). Industry required Skills Possessed Skills

Comparative Evaluation

Trepidation for our Future

SKILLS AND EMPLOYABILITY

What skills do they look for? Domain or subject area expertise Technically adept Practical competence Analytical power Creativity Innovation Out- of- the box solutions Willingness to learn Impressive and confident Communication skills Ability to adapt Team participation and initiative Leadership Problem solving Sensitive to other cultures and different groups

Relative importance of skills In a survey conducted in India and the USA, Employers in both countries rank team-work, applying math/science/engineering knowledge and communication skills high Skills related to knowledge of contemporary issues, system design, and design of experiments were ranked low. However, some skills are ranked differently, such as lifelong learning (valued by Indian employers and less by US employers). Source: Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated Engineers in India-The World Bank (Policy Research Working Paper- April 2011)

Emergence of ‘Soft Skills’ The National Knowledge Commission report (2008) also emphasizes the importance of soft skills as one of the survival skills for individuals. One of the reasons that employers perceive Soft Skills more important than Professional Skills might be that stronger Soft Skills, such as willingness to learn, lead to continuous improvement of Professional Skills.

Bridging the Gap Noted management author Peter Drucker had said that the fastest growing industry would be training and development as a result of replacement of industrial workers with knowledge workers

Training and Development

Power Workers Specialization and ability to perform multiple tasks with efficiency Super specialization in his domain at a later stage Ability and agility makes him a star performer. Expert people skills Can help turnaround sick processes and units. Potential to lead

Challenges in Development Learner Planning Implementation Learning Reception

The Way Forward Accessibility Interaction: Switch from instructional methods Accreditation Infrastructure Implementation Evaluation Improvement Upgrading Sustainability

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