Have a Degree but No Job: Engineering Special
Almost 70% of the Indian industry layers are facing difficulties to find the right talent as about only 25% of the talent pool which consists of educated youth is employable. We produce about 1.7 million engineers in India every year and unfortunately only 15-17% of them are employable. Further, as per various surveys done outside India on employability, Indian students did very well academically but they were ranked quite lower in employability when compared to students of US, UK and Germany. Indians were found to be taking longer learning time when they join organisations and hence less prepared for jobs.
It is important to understand what leads to a situation where the talent available is in plenty but very few takers of the talent. After having interacted with students from a lot of institutions over the years, here are some of my inputs on how we could prepare students better for taking up and succeeding in jobs at a faster pace.

Domain knowledge
Domain knowledge and performance in academics is very important as far as recruitment and selection process is concerned. This is because academic performance is an index of the student's involvement in his studies, which is supposed to be his core activity during student days. It also indicates the student's focus on goals and achievements, which are quite important in today's organisations which are fiercely competitive. Reasonably good marks are an indication that the student has concentrated on the core purpose of being in the institution.

Communication Skills
One of the biggest issues with our young graduates is - they technically do really well, but cannot communicate their ideas sufficiently. This is not only, but largely, in reference to English language but also the ability to articulate even in their mother tongues. With more and more work happening in teams in organizations where people have to learn to work with each other, lack of communication skills can pull a person down. Communication skills are important for conveying a point of view, influencing stakeholders to get approvals for proposals, appreciate the work of others, build proper relationships, explain failures, give feedback to others and receive feedback, among other things. Like air we breathe, communication is so vital for anybody's success in their professional careers. Good institutions have recognised the importance of communication skills and training students in subjects such as English language and soft skills such body language.

Body Language
A lot of students need to develop effective body language which conveys confidence and maturity so that they do not stand out for the wrong reasons at work. Culturally, Indians have some issues in this area. For example, respect for elders is one of the virtues of our culture and hero worship has been the central point of all our scriptures. Some manifestations of those are - we don't feel comfortable to look into the eyes of our seniors, we do not ask questions very often fearing that it could be misunderstood as defiance. We obey rules and directions without many times having the slightest idea of why we need to follow them and whether something could change keeping the contemporary scenario in mind. Appreciative enquiry is a healthy professional habit and we often fall short on that thereby losing the opportunity to expand our thinking and take all round perspective at work. We also end up suffering bad leadership due to this mindset.
Many students coming from rural background are devoid of confidence and in fact are nervous in the way they present themselves even though they have very good knowledge. Lack of exposure makes them feel inferior and that is visible in the body language like shaking legs, twitching of fingers, excessive use of hands to express their point of view, defeated look on the face, defensive statements like "I am from a poor background", "I have never seen a city in my life", "I have struggled a lot to reach this stage", etc. which may all be true but give the impression that the student wants sympathy for his achievements. Most selectors understand the struggle of students very well and do not make choices only on the basis of how "smart" a student is and therefore the more at ease the student is, the better is the perception of the selectors.

Extracurricular Activities
It's quite important to involve in activities other than studies which have a social impact such as sports, quizzes, innovation clubs, reading clubs, student exchange programs with institutions outside India, AISEC, SPIC MACAY,... etc.  These activities develop personality in a very positive way as they teach quite essential skills such as - skills of working together, sharing things and knowledge, complimenting each other for success, expanding one's thinking and many more. As a result, the young person with additional social inputs and better interpersonal skills can think more innovatively, therefore feels more confident. This social and cultural capital provides the enough confidence and ease, which can impress the selectors.

Practical Knowledge
There are numerous employment opportunities in manufacturing sector but the biggest obstacle is that the young students do not possess hands-on technical knowledge to fit to those jobs. Many engineering and vocational institutes lack infrastructure, allocate limited time slots to learn in workshops. Students know more from books than the practicals, which means they don't understand the subject much. Good companies lay a lot of emphasis on sound practical knowledge.

Summer Internships /Winter Internships
One of the biggest challenges for companies is to make the young hire and make them productive at the earliest. Almost all good companies run boot camps for new joiners to help them understand their company and their entrusted responsibility in detail. This is to compress the learning time as much as possible so that fresh recruits start delivering value in the organisation.
Indeed students can bring down the employers' burden by earning corporate experience during their studies by taking up summer and winter internships. It doesn't matter even if they are unpaid. These internships usually last for 6-8 weeks where the student works in an organisation on a live project and has to deliver results within that short time. This gives a phenomenal exposure to the student on work life and the complexities and challenges of working in organisations. Such internships prepare the students for the life ahead and therefore, when they join an organisation, they will have a soft landing and can adjust much faster compared to the greenhorns. If the organisation is happy with the student, chances are very high that they offer employment to the student.

Provide Adequate Infrastructure
The foremost thing an institution can do and must do is to ensure that their facilities match the number of students they intake. For example, there is no use of admitting students and providing them lab facilities for 1 hour in a day or a week. A lab is a place to experiment and if the student has limited access to it, how can we expect the students do develop innovative mindset? Crucial infrastructural facilities include would mean a lot of things like class rooms, seating capacity, inspiring library facilities, recreation facilities, open spaces for collaboration, internet facilities for communication and learning, hygienic toilets, canteens, etc.

Quality of Faculty
Institutions have to pay attention to the quality of faculty as this will either create a positive or negative perception, which will go viral among the student community. It's heartening to note that several colleges now have implemented a feedback system of faculty and their engagement with the institution depends on their performance. Once an institution hires a faculty, it's their job to groom them, give them more learning and consultancy opportunities to broaden their perspectives of application of theoretical knowledge. Teachers too need opportunities of reward and recognition too like any other professional to feel motivated to give their best.

Industry-Academia interface
Of late, this aspect is becoming a very important aspect of academic institutions. Academic institutions are meant to provide education and conduct research to fulfil the societal needs. Research helps to develop a spirit of enquiry and tests hypothesis of various phenomena in the world around us. It's very important that this happens on an ongoing basis to establish relevance of whatever is being taught and professed at academic institutions.
In any subject, live insights come for practice. The question is - are institutions interacting enough with the industry to update themselves? It's also important to involve the corporates in curriculum development, validating existing syllabus and pedagogy to ensure its relevance and effectiveness. Faculty must get exposure to corporate world to ensure their efforts are helping build students to gain knowledge and experiences, which in turn will fare them better at work.

Alumni Meets
Alumni of an institution who are doing well professionally can play a very important role in helping students to prepare for the future. Academic institutions are slowly realising this fact and start creating Alumni bodies. These Alumni are the brand ambassadors of the institution in the professional world.
Making oneself employable is therefore an all encompassing subject, which comprises the roles of the academic institution, industry support, students' motivation, intervention of experts and alumni to create the desirable change. If Indians can build and launch Mangalyaan successfully and can win the Noble prize, it fully endorses the fact that we have a strong head and heart and our youth can achieve anything they set out to with the support of proper ecosystems.

"We cannot change our past but we can make a great future by being powerful,
knowledgeable and confident
in the present"
 
"Those students who take the initiative and manage to do some practical work during their course out of their own interest are definitely more preferred during selection process"
Smt. Uma Rao,
Vice President,
HR, HIL,
A C K Birla Group Company