By Ranjan Guha, President North America, Interra Information Technologies Inc.

 

The rate at which the Information Technology (IT) sector is growing, organizations will need existing employees upgrading their skill sets or reskill themselves according to the current demands of the industry. IT companies hiring new talent will also need to look at what kind of skill set the talent possesses. Some companies are also looking for skills during hiring which can match up to the demands for the trends that will prevail for years to come.

 

According to an industry report released by Aspiring Minds, research reveals that about 80% of engineers, especially newcomers, in India do not possess the talent required to be part of the industry. The report also reveals that about 3% of the engineers possess current industry technology skills like Machine Learning (ML), cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI).  It is also researched that only a handful of engineers have proper coding skills. There is only 4.6% of engineers in India who can correctly code as compared to 2.1% in China. But there is a large gap if India is compared to the US (18.8 %).

 

Where does the gap lie?

It is very important for educational institutions to align the curriculum according to the changes the industry is going through.  Due to the lack of exposure to the current scenario, a lot of students find it difficult to find the right job or company during their placements. Having the right talent, which will only come through the right kind of knowledge received during their degree, will play a major role in  addressing the issue. It is also necessary and important for students to have hands-on experience during their academic year.

 

Since innovation is the key, students should be allowed to come up with their own projects helping them later in their professional career. It has been researched that about 40 % of engineering students work as interns during their course. On the other hand, only 36 % undertake projects apart from the ones which are part of their curriculum and less than 50 %  attend industry talks.

 

Need to reskill employees

The constant change in technology has made an impact on the jobs that are available in the market. In order to be in that market and meet the expectations of the partners and clients, organizations need to constantly make an effort for its employees have that skill which the current industry demands. The importance and need to reskill existing employees has been the primary goal of organizations in order to help newcomers who join the industry. The engineers currently working in the IT industry has seen no such improvement in the development of their skills which creates a huge gap for the new age skills as well as for the generations to come. IT companies do need to organize in-house training sessions for different sectors or send them to institutes so that can upgrade their skills.

 

Career skills

 

In the current  job environment, it is essential that employees or potential candidates must have interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary knowledge. Engineering and tech students need to have the following in order to succeed in this competitive, changing and challenging environment:

 

Think out of the box

In order to survive in this ever-changing technological world, bring out innovative ideas to create disruption.

 

Be more creative

In order to have an innovative mind, creativity needs to be one of the primary skills, which means not only one should have the ability to create new products but also to create new and better updated of the products/services which are already available in the market.

 

Be up-to-date

Employees working in a tech companies needs to be aware of the trends that can bring about a change and which can be implemented for the clients/partners. It is also important to know what the competitors are working on.

 

Have an inclination

It is important have a knack towards the industry one joins.

 

Communication

It is necessary for employees existing in an organization or when hiring fresh talent, to see that the person can communicate ideas and thoughts easily, whether internally or with clients/partners.

 

Problem solving ability

When innovating disruptive solutions, it is necessary for engineers to have the ability to solve problems or have the thing of solving dead ends.

 

 

Tech companies thus require to keep themselves updated in terms of skilling  in order to keep up with the current developments taking place in the industry, so that existing employees can help the future techies of the nation.