[Gansan]

Regarding the low employability of fresh graduates, about seven years ago, I was attending a parent - teacher meet in my son's school, when he was in 11th std. I got talking to another parent who was there for the same reason. He was working for Oracle in Bangalore, and I got the impression he was a head hunter, though I didn't ask.

He also mentioned about this low percentage of employable graduates churned out by our plethora of engineering colleges every year. He in fact told me the maximum number of engineering colleges black listed by top IT firms - where they have decided not to go for campus interviews - was in Tamil Nadu. And the second largest number was in Karnataka.

I myself have seen a total muff holding an engineering degree. This fellow was working in the office of the msme where my wife works. In a clerical position, for a salary of 10k a month. He left after a year and moved elsewhere and I lost track of him.

[arnabbhagabati]

Thanks for your reply.
I understand the pain an employer will go through if someone who has been trained for several years jumps board. Probably trying to understand why such folks are trying to leave and fixing some things might help. I have 0 knowledge of aviation industry, maybe profit margins just cannot justify their demanded salaries.

This business (aircraft maintenance) is verry different than what I was talking about though (IT services).
What you are dealing with is far more specialized and complex engineering than what a fresher would deal with in the IT services industry.
Expecting freshers to be employable in such fields straight out of college would not be fair I believe.

But then, lets agree to disagree.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by arnabbhagabati

...
Surely you saw that something was lacking in the fresh graduates' knowledge/skillset. What was it?...

Where do you want to start? I can speak to it having been through the whole cycle; starting as a student, through college, an under-equipped entry-level worker, acquiring exposure/experience/expertise over time, to hiring/training/managing others. I'm in no way unique to the cycle.

Our education curricula are terribly outdated, esp. in but not limited to technical domains. Look at what's being taught in engineering and tech diploma courses: electronics, electrical, civil, mechanical, computer science, you name it. Non-technical education doesn't fare much better. Go even further back to what's being taught in our schools.

Outside of a handful of premier institutions of any skill stream - and even those are no guarantee of an up-to-date education - pretty much nobody comes out anywhere near 'industry ready' solely off of their formal education. Students are often forced to learn on the side, of their own volition and often their own expense too (a huge factor for the less privileged).

The internet has made it easier today to access vast knowledge material and resources cheaply, but that wasn't the case even just 15-20 years ago. Even with what's available today, not everyone is equipped to structure it into a viable education and self-learn. 'Information overload' is very much a thing, and even internet/infrastructure penetration and funding for such is still a significant problem in remote 'unprofitable' areas.

Even outside of domain-specific education, we do a horribly inadequate job of equipping our youngsters with TWO most FOUNDATIONAL life skills: communication and critical thinking.

I'm not referring to language fluency or the ability to follow rules; those are often mastered reasonably by repetition, but the abilities to communicate effectively, create and express clear plans/targets/goals, manage expectation & conflict, and keep the whole thing together are needed in every productive aspect of life, are NOT easy skills to acquire, even more difficult to maintain.

Yet, they're also the skills mostly taken for granted, an 'I can follow a user manual and am self-sufficient, what do I need communication or critical thinking skills for?' mindset is fairly common, and communication gaps and lack of critical thinking often play a vital role in outcomes: whether it's a coder struggling to read/fix stuff written by another, a supervisor trying to keep his team productive and efficient on an assembly line, an entrepreneur trying to manage his customers & sundry stakeholders, a pilot/ATC trying to keep a plane safe in the air and on ground, or even just us trying to debate something on an internet forum .

TL;DR: There's no simple answer to your question, no one thing employers like Narayan or others can point to and say 'Fix that and we're golden!'. We need a grassroots reboot, and it's unviable to depend solely on employers to manage employability indefinitely.

An employer will often teach what they need to run and optimise their business, and it's rather unfair to expect much beyond that, though some do invest in extra-curricular programs. We've relied too much on this model, and it's become a huge problem because everyone upstream from it just got used to kicking the can down the 'their employer with teach them all they need' road.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Our education curricula are terribly outdated, esp. in but not limited to technical domains. Look at what's being taught in engineering and tech diploma courses: electronics, electrical, civil, mechanical, computer science, you name it. Non-technical education doesn't fare much better. Go even further back to what's being taught in our schools.

I too believed in this popular idea once, however I don't believe it to be true since long.

Here is what I said back in 2009:

Originally Posted by Samurai

Don't confuse engineering with technology. The guy who drives a juggad Jeep on a regular basis would have lot better understanding of automobiles, than a guy who drives the latest SUV. I know this one by first hand experience. Your syllabus may be teaching you Jeep so that you can easily pickup the basics of automobile engineering. It will setup the foundation to understand latest automobile technology. Therefore, don't reject everything that is old, there are merits in old stuff. On the other hand if they are teaching chariot building, then you have real cause for complaint.

And why should you expect employers to fix it? Every employee has the resources to fix it, only will is required. As I said again in 2009:

Originally Posted by Samurai

But forget all that. You can't change what your colleges do. The real question is what are you doing? Unlike in my times, you have lot more options to update your knowledge. All of you have powerful home PCs with broadband connections. There are open source projects/products in every possible field. All the RFCs are freely downloadable. Pick an area you like, learn some interesting stuff, experiment on your PCs, and then add that to your resume. But 99% of the students don't do anything outside of their syllabus. So stand apart, get noticed.

Once you get into that habit, it can really help you throughout your career, provided you work for an employer who respects that. If they don't, keep looking until you find one.

I am not just talking the talk. I actually did this even without having Internet or home PC. I took on a teaching job for 7 months, just to get access to a PC. Then I self-taught myself assembly language programming, and I built a TUI library for providing text based UI on DOS PCs. Almost no one used Windows then. I got my first software job thanks to that.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I was self-trained most of my career. I got my first software job by showcasing a TUI library I developed in x86 assembly language. I even had to donate that library to that company as pre-condition to be hired. It became their primary interface for the next few years.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

And why should you expect employers to fix it? Every employee has the resources to fix it, only will is required.

100% For most IT jobs, there is no dearth of resources to learn and get hands-on-practice that won't require an employer to invest in training on a large scale. And it doesn't stop at the college or first job level. We'll have to do this continuously or risk losing our jobs at several stages in our careers.

At one previous job, we had a very generous allowance for training that we could use as we wanted. For the first year that it was introduced, people abused that privilege and bought sports equipment, magazines (not related to the job), etc. When HR tightened the requirements and made it only for industry-related learning resources, the utilization rates plummeted. I didn't fully utilize it either, just for a couple of conferences a year. But I remember two colleagues who would max out that budget yearly and learn whatever they could. Their careers have taken off relative to the rest of their contemporaries, all through self-learning.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I too believed in this popular idea once, however I don't believe it to be true since long.

Availability of information and tools to self-learn doesn't mean the questionable quality & relevance of formal education is not true.

The internet has made the availability part vastly easier, but the willingness and ability to viably self-learn amongst the student community needs work, esp. in non-urban areas (said so in my previous post, quoted below). Some exceptionally bright prospects who can benefit greatly from having their abilities pointed in the right direction.

For employed people, their learning and progression paths are in their own hands, 100%.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

...Even with what's available today, not everyone is equipped to structure it into a viable education and self-learn. 'Information overload' is very much a thing, and even internet/infrastructure penetration and funding for such is still a significant problem in remote 'unprofitable' areas.

Also agree about the employer dependence, again quoting myself below.

...it's unviable to depend solely on employers to manage employability indefinitely.

An employer will often teach what they need to run and optimise their business, and it's rather unfair to expect much beyond that, though some do invest in extra-curricular programs. We've relied too much on this model, and it's become a huge problem because everyone upstream from it just got used to kicking the can down the 'their employer with teach them all they need' road.

[d.w.w.]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

First, yes, it is true that IT companies in India have used our ample half trained engineering/computer sciences labour market to keep starting salaries low for the last xx years...... the under-graduate passing out in India is barely employable, needs at least a year of on-the-job training to get to the point of being useful and they attrite like there is no tomorrow.

I agree to your point, but the cost of living and education has increased many fold during this period. When I was fresher many many years ago, when it reached month end, the bank balance was almost zero and it was a tough battle to survive the last few days.(same was the case with almost any one I knew) I cant imagine how fresh graduates who is staying away from home survive now with almost the same starting salary and has to pay for accommodation+ food+ transport (+ education loan in many cases)

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Second, who is to say what is an ethical wage? If the employee is willing to work and the employer is willing to offer a job at wage X then that is it - the market wage.

This is what happens when the supply is more than the demand. If all the freshers refuse job offers for such salaries, companies will be forced to increase the starting salary. But will it ever happen? No. Someone is always willing to take up the job for what they offer or even less.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Third, nobody, but nobody is forcing any one to work for these cruel, exploitative, unethical, godless, heartless, profit seeking IT companies. Fact is engineers from every discipline flock to these IT companies because of the lure of the wages, foreign assignments, better marriage market prospects and working in an air-conditioned office with free, or subsidized, food. *

Yes, There is no use in complaining after being in the industry. If you have complaints, go look somewhere else. There is noting stopping anyone to be with a company, if you have the skillsets someone else will be there in the market to pick you up. If you don't have the skillset and still crying for a higher salary, the problem is with you and not the employer.

On a side note free, subsidized food never exist in most of the cases. In fact even free Tea/ coffee doesn't exists in most companies after 2008 recession. In some cases I had to pay exorbitant amounts for food (mostly in private owned IT parks)

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Fifth, I have always wondered why IT software employees believe that their employers owe them a higher wage as a matter of their right. ...This gives the young and naive IT software coder the incorrect impression that he is worth that pricing rate....This I believe leads young people to believe incorrectly what they are worth. If they were to step out and try and sell their coding services alone or even as a small entrepreneur, they will achieve the nirvana of true price discovery.

Originally Posted by Samurai

This is an extremely important point, which most employees never understand unless they sit in price negotiations with the customers. When they do that, all sense of self worth will evaporate. Why? Because they will realise that customer is not paying for their awesome coding skills. Instead, they are paying for the ability of the IT giant to bring dozens of diverse functions together and provide a consistent service despite high attrition, thanks to their vast pool of resources and deep bench strength.

Most people think why the company cant give them a a nice amount when they are billed at x$/hour. What they don't see is the company expenses. The company has to pay for the admin/non billable staff, security, housekeeping, real estate and maintenance, electricity, water and finally corporate taxed, When all this is factored in, the billing rate will go down by a considerable margin, so if the employee wants to consider comparing the billable rate to salary, he should be looking at this rate and not what is charged to client. And every company is out there to make business and not do charity, if you feel you are not getting paid what you are worth, move somewhere else.

Bench strength is no longer a convincing selling point. Companies are not keeping enough bench strength expecting another recession. My client recently awarded a major project to an Indian IT giant expecting that they will have enough bench strength and resources will not be an issue, but when the work started they realized they didn't had people in bench as showcased on the initial sales call and were depending on external hire to fill up positions.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The aircraft maintenance engineers in India passing out of a 4-year diploma course knew some theory but usually would have zero to very little practise on actually opening up an aircraft.

Something that happens when education becomes a business. Institutions want to keep their input costs minimum, so they influence the authorities to keep a minimal syllabus which does not require purchasing costly machinery for hands on training.

[V.Narayan]

Thank you @d.w.w. for your thoughts. It isn't often one comes across an IT professional willing to look beyond the hackneyed 'that lousy employer' hymn. Not to say that all employers are blameless.

Originally Posted by d.w.w.

I agree to your point, but the cost of living and education has increased many fold during this period. When I was fresher many many years ago, when it reached month end, the bank balance was almost zero and it was a tough battle to survive the last few days.(same was the case with almost any one I knew) I can't imagine how fresh graduates who is staying away from home survive now with almost the same starting salary and has to pay for accommodation+ food+ transport (+ education loan in many cases)

Between Team BHPians here this is a conscious effort by the larger IT companies to help keep costs low and minimize the impact of early attrition, inability to come up the competence curve etc. For today's expectations of standard of living I agree this is about 40% lower than what would be a healthy wage. I recognize this is not a fair comparison: when I started my career with Tata's in 1982 my salary after adjusting for inflation was Rs 27,500 in today's money {Rs ~1500 in 1982 money} and I too was broke at month end. This wage was after my MBA from a top rated institute and having been a Tata scholar for some years. Graduate Engineer Trainees got a little less. After a year the salary doubled and I bought a second hand Lambretta! <personal story ends>

This is what happens when the supply is more than the demand. If all the freshers refuse job offers for such salaries, companies will be forced to increase the starting salary. But will it ever happen? No. Someone is always willing to take up the job for what they offer or even less.

Very true. This will change only in 15 years as the pool available for employment starts to stabilize.

Yes, There is no use in complaining after being in the industry. If you have complaints, go look somewhere else. There is nothing stopping anyone to be with a company, if you have the skillsets someone else will be there in the market to pick you up. If you don't have the skillset and still crying for a higher salary, the problem is with you and not the employer.

My only advice to the next generation in my family is to toughen up, develop some agency and take charge of your destiny. Cry babies who constantly expect someone else to change to solve their pain points are not likely to reach the top or even half way there. Some may say they are not interested but when a third attrite each year they clearly are ambitious to some degree.

Or become an entrepreneur, a self-employed - create jobs for others, own your destiny with the risk that there is no safety net of a monthly salary and bankruptcy is only three steps away. But there is a sweet joy of being your own master and getting kicked in the rear by customers and bullied by OEMs. Samurai San, Androdev, myself all pursued that path as first generation self-employed.

Something that happens when education becomes a business. Institutions want to keep their input costs minimum, so they influence the authorities to keep a minimal syllabus which does not require purchasing costly machinery for hands on training.

The malaise in our education system is so deep and widespread that I don't even know where to start. Some trades such as doctors, chartered accountants, cost accountants, pilots, merchant navy cadets whose courses include significant on the job training are productive-employment ready on day one - of course this is relative to a reasonable level of expectation from a newbie.

In my old trade we used to send engineers to Boeing, Airbus, Bell etc for specialized training. Employees from India would often quit in a year after receiving a global type rating certificate which would have cost the company between Rs 20 to 40 lakhs per person including travel & living. Those from the aviation trade would recognize these are globally valid certifications - like gold. My employees in France, UK, Dubai didn't attrite like this backed only by a simple letter of commitment that they would serve for 3 years.* In India you cannot enforce a bond and the attitude often is get your certificate and negotiate a new job. So, competing employers not willing to spend Rs 40L got away with poaching with an increment of Rs 3L. No marks for guessing in which geographies we invested more in upskilling our people. Based on my experience this attrition culture was/is excessive in India compared to identical units in these 3 other countries.

Phew. I've written way too much on this thread for now. I'll take a break for a while:-)

* In India no certifications Rs 3L p.a.; first type rating Rs 12L p.a.; second type rating Rs 18L p.a. and so on. For folks with only a diploma in aircraft maintenance these were decent wages especially after you earned your stripes with the first rating. Because of being trapped between an incompetent regulator and employees who wouldn't value what you gave them we shifted 75% of our business overseas. India is not a low cost economy any more. Only thing cheap is labour in the lower 2/3rds. Experts, management cost similar to other more developed countries give or take 20%. Infrastructure can be way more expensive. Taxes are comparable. Sharing this so that young employees get a flavour of the thinking of an entrepreneur

[NiInJa]

Agree to all points covered by @V.Narayan and @Samurai

Just my rant! I can only speak on my 14 year old experience in this industry

- The only way one can make it big in this industry is by self-learning and grabbing challenging opportunities, no other industry gives so many of them within the same field. I got paid relatively lower than my peers, but I jumped many ships in the first 6-7 years simply on account of the quality of work assigned and keeping my career trajectory as priority. The fact that I dabbled in various areas has given me the kind of experience that I can pick and choose what I want to work on today (in the same domain, I can work on pre-sales, sales, delivery on different modules, support, content creation etc.).

- Starting salary can be low compared to the cost of living today, in that case, freshers need to prioritize their objectives, the first one is making sure they are fully aware of where they are heading career-wise and knowledge-wise and take necessary actions instead of complaining. I've seen freshers starting at 3L p.a. switching to companies offering 10 to 12L p.a. in two years and that does not happen just because of supply shortage. These people are evaluated thoroughly during interviews and are really smart. (We just rolled out such an offer to a smart individual having 3 years of total experience. Grilled her in 3 technical rounds and while she was not a proper 5 out 5, she presented herself really well, we actually have plans to send her abroad to do some client-facing as well)

- Not sure what is wrong, but today's tier 2 and tier 3 engineering graduates are just not ready for anything! (again, there might be exceptions) I came into IT from a tier 2 college in 2008, but on day one, I was able to build a batch file, automate scripts on windows and write proper SQL queries/procedures. My foundation of Computer Science was very strong. In recent years, I see individuals with IT/CS degrees struggling with these basics as well and demand 'training' for this. I've actually vented this out on my colleague once 'What training for SQL and Batch scripting do you need ??!!!'. Some struggle with Powerpoint, MS Word! The days when we used to install Web Servers/Databases on multiple machines, just googling stuff and reading thousands of lines of logs, tweaking hundreds of XML lines, spending endless nights to make things work, I see this tenacity lacking in lot of freshers today. Mind you, that was the time we did not have generative AI and information on the internet was scarce, heck, we used to fill up most of the forums with information which chatGPT is probably using today to generate answers. In that sense, I can sort of understand why starting salary is so low even today. The smart/intelligent/quick-learner ones can increase their salaries fairly quickly. It is a fair playing field for everyone.

- If IT folks look at their billing rates and start complaining, it is understandable at early stages of career. But, they have two options to deal with it: learn the economics of how a big company works OR start working as a contractor. I've experienced both sides, as contractor for a year, I have made sure that the 40-60 dollar per hour goes straight into my pocket, but again, it comes at a cost, you have to do your own marketing, sales reach out to people for work, deal with politics/negotiations etc. The money looks good, but is not as easy as it seems, it is topic that many long timers will explain really well. Some of my colleagues used that route and are making crores, even set up their own company now.

[neerajku]

Some of the comments , obliquely referring to respected IT companies are not correct. Thought will share the true picture, else anecdotes have their own lives in a world of WhatsApp Gyan. Freshers had a bond, think 75 k. It is still there.Those were IT boom days, not enough CS engineers. These behemoths went to campus and hired anyone with interest in programming , whichever branch. The challenge was, training period was inordinately long. Fresh hires are generally not in a mood to study again and appear in exams. Not an easy task to do all this. To bring in seriousness they took a hammer and decided to have a bond. Intent was to stop the cavalier behaviour and also ensure that they study hard and pick up the skills. Exams were tough but not very so. They usually had 2-4 chances to clear the final one, the last one even bing a viva for marginally failed cases.
The bond was with bank, if you leave in between out of your own volition then the bank will pay to the company on your behalf and you have to pay the bank. Right or wrong step, I dont know enough. In today's time may be not, those years with not as much wisdom , may be yes., But this was not a scheme to enrich the companies for sure. NDA chaps have something similar. Not sure though.
Second one, was to ensure rotation. Right or wrong , again not sure. May be coercive. Option, I am not sure if many were there. So those going on H1 B had one part of US salary converted to INR and kept as retention bonus. If you run away from US to another company you lose it, if you come back you get lump sum, plus currency appreciation :-) Just kidding.

[kiku007]

I agree 100% that starting salaries haven't kept pace with inflation in the past two decades. The input costs (school/university education and living expenses) have shot up exponentially. However, I don't expect the salaries to increase accordingly.

The elephant in the room: On-site opportunities.

As a 0-5 years experience IT employee, got a problem with your employer billing the overseas customer $100/hour and paying you ($100/10)/hour? You've got two options, sit in the same job at the offshore location and crib or ask/beg/plead/threaten to leave and move onsite to do the same freaking job and see your lifestyle and savings jump (x times), even though the cost of living is higher than the offshore location.

After a few years of learning the ropes and building your network onsite you will realize that you don't have to pay the loyalty tax or the lazy tax and you can elect to change your employer and increase your share of the billing rate.

Isn't this the game plan for the typical engineering graduate from a self-financing engineering college in South India?

• People chose the Computer Science group in Year-11 since it was the Visa to get into an engineering college.
• People chose to do 4 years of C.Sc or ECE engineering since it was the Visa to get into an IT company. Pretty much anything they teach in those colleges aren't worth the money paid in fees since it is disconnected to the industry. It doesn't matter though.
• People chose the low-paying salary in the IT company to start their careers because they know it was the Visa to get into high-paying jobs later or get an onsite opportunity that made it worthwhile.
• Not everyone can afford to do engineering in India and then also pay for their masters degree abroad and take that path to migration. It has its long term benefits for sure but its just more expensive in the initial years.

The employers have no incentive to increase the starting salaries unless the supply (of engineers) reduces drastically. The employees need this supply chain to work so they can be employed and sent abroad.

The employers motivation is to keep more people offshore and pay them in INR and the employees motivation is to move onsite and get paid in $. Whom are we kidding? Isn't the system working as expected?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by kiku007

The elephant in the room: On-site opportunities.

After a few years of learning the ropes and building your network onsite you will realize that you don't have to pay the loyalty tax or the lazy tax and you can elect to change your employer and increase your share of the billing rate.

Isn't this the game plan for the typical engineering graduate from a self-financing engineering college in South India?

The employers have no incentive to increase the starting salaries unless the supply (of engineers) reduces drastically. The employees need this supply chain to work so they can be employed and sent abroad.

The employers motivation is to keep more people offshore and pay them in INR and the employees motivation is to move onsite and get paid in $. Whom are we kidding? Isn't the system working as expected?

@kiku007, this post needs to be framed. You have said better in one post that all of us have been bickering about across 3 pages. This sums up the reality from both sides.

[AirbusCapt]

Very interesting thread, especially the last few pages. Good discussion all around i must say!
For those who say the entry level pay is exploitative, all I ask is: if so, why do almost all fresh graduates want to join IT companies? Why some of them go so far as to fake degrees, experience letters and competence to join the software world? Im sure not for only Rs 25,000 per month? Even a cab driver makes that much and more.
If you want an answer peg the exchange rate to read one rupee as one dollar and see how many truly love to code. Its the national obsession of dollars, a "settled in the US", NRI tag which makes most of the youth aspire to work in the IT sector.

[TheRandomGuy]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

Why some of them go so far as to fake degrees, experience letters and competence to join the software world? Im sure not for only Rs 25,000 per month? Even a cab driver makes that much and more.

Its the national obsession of dollars, a "settled in the US", NRI tag which makes most of the youth aspire to work in the IT sector.

In my opinion its because of the growth prospect. A fresher earning 25k will not be earning 25k after 10years in the Industry. It will be many multiples of it. Whereas a cab driver would still be earning the same or less after any number of years.

This sort of growth is the main driver in the IT industry.

[AirbusCapt]

Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy

In my opinion its because of the growth prospect. A fresher earning 25k will not be earning 25k after 10years in the Industry. It will be many multiples of it. Whereas a cab driver would still be earning the same or less after any number of years.

This sort of growth is the main driver in the IT industry.

Absolutely. This is true for all sectors including IT. But we dont see the madness and desperation to be say a civil engineer or a book keeper/teacher /librarian like we see the desire to be a software engineer.

We are the most money minded society and tomorrow if the garbage recycling industry decides to pay in dollars we shall see hordes of people rushing to 'upskill' in garbage collection.


The day we start doing what we truly love, thats the day we shall start developing as a nation.