I do not know about many others, but this is a constant fight which eats away into my time continuously.
Identifying, Recruiting, Training, Retaining seems to be a constant fight, more so when you realize that there is an ever decreasing pool of talent available on a particular day, week.
And why is that? Mostly because the curriculum laid down by the HR ministry and taught through the degree & professional colleges are not in tune with the corporate requirement that keeps evolving with the changing business and environmental needs.
So by the time, someone graduates, they are already out of sync except probably in the consulting, finance etc. where theory would be consistent.
That really brings me to the main question:
Why can’t corporate help bridge the gap between skills & expectations.
Job are disappearing globally but less so in India at this point in time. However the real concern that with 15 million youngsters hitting the job market every year any prolonged slow down in job creation is bound to result in social discord which some faced and was visible over the past couple of years.
Whilst not an expert, personally I see no reason why transformation of professional education for the services industry BPO-KPO, hospitality, health care, retail, media & entertainment should not be feasible
Industry should constantly come forward with internship opportunities, projects, whilst colleges & universities should insist on at least 30% of practical work experience.
Skill gaps not huge, and corrective action today will build base for improvement in employability in years to come, which would be of great use to the young generation as well as cut down the learning curve for Industries as well.
But, unfortunately except some of the Indian MNC’s who have initiated this, nobody really wants to invest time, effort and money in this.
I write, review, rant, rave, on a variety of personal things. Call it Mindcasting. The written word has been my long time friend – jotting down thoughts based on what I read, heard, saw or recording my own experiences for later reference.
Anaggh,
Employability is an area I have spent significant time over the past 4 years and with large data about candidate capabilities. While I look at it in a statistical manner, there are many startups that have mushroomed in this area. So it’s not just corporates that hire who train but businesses built around this need.
I don’t know when all this will translate into an employability gain in quantum. Right now I’m amazed at the mediocrity that I’m forced to employ 🙁
Anaggh
We tried the internship approach, it was more a “lets get cheaper resources” strategy than an altruistic strategy of increasing their employability. What we noticed that these guys were better equipped with their skills after the internship. We expended huge amount of time in teaching the interns what their courses did not even touch upon.
At the end, we hired a lot of them full time only to lose them to other companies which gained great employees at our expense.
This year we havent taken the internship step as on the long run, employing ready employees turns out to be a cheaper proposition.
What do you think?
Gaurav
Rightly said sir.I am a fresh graduate and could easily notice that much of what i learnt in college is put to no use in industry. Industry should come forward and make partnerships with educational institutions and help in bridging this gap.Educational institutions should also include more practical work in Curriculum.
Chief
This is an issue close to my heart and I have written about it on LinkedIn. I think the issue is primarily one of Customer apathy. Today’s customer i.e. the Corporate is continuing to pick up unfinished, low quality product from the supplier i.e. colleges, and year on year, is raising his willingness to pay for shoddy workmanship.
In some product categories i.e. MBA and Engineering, there is an auction process by which the Top 20% get paid astronomically over their NPV, however, this serves to increase the cost of the bottom 80% significantly to an even higher NPV.
The day corporates will go back to ENgg colleges and MBA colleges and refuse to hire. Or drop joining offers, there will be some rationale!
I agree. But seriously do not see this happening over the next decade or two.
Gaurav – it’s a % game. The idea is to hire 10% -20% more bench strength depending on industry as well as budget AND more importantly this would need to be done for 3-5 years before it starts paying off.
That is where the problem lies. Theory has the maximum points and then graduates are expected to learn the practicability themselves 🙂