Other avenues, please

Excerpts from an article in Deccan Herald : IT biggies on hiring spree; one lakh people to join workforce
New Delhi, Feb 14 (PTI)
Switching over to robust recruitment mode after a dormant 2009, Indian IT players will hire nearly one lakh people in the coming months amid improving global economic conditions.
Coming after a forgettable year of hiring freeze, layoffs and salary cuts, the recruitment drive in the IT space is led by biggies such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys. An analysis of the hiring plans announced by various Indian IT companies shows that headcount in the industry is expected to go up by more than 98,000. Last week, the country's largest software exporter TCS said it would increase headcount by 30,000 in next fiscal year while Infosys announced plans to hire 16,000 people this year. Of the 12 companies which have announced their hiring plans, BPO giant Genpact said it would hire 10,000 people. Besides, IBM is looking at recruiting 5,000 followed by Infosys BPO (2,000), Accenture (8,000) and Mphasis (2,000). Going by Gartner estimates, the domestic IT market is expected to grow by 19-20 per cent in 2010, a sharp rise against a 2.6 per cent growth in 2009. "IT companies usually hire to meet their next 18-month requirement. The actual hiring is always higher than the announced hiring as the companies also do lateral hiring besides fresh recruitments," Chakraborti said. "As economy started improving the IT infrastructure contracts started moving to India. The jobs in IT industry is gaining pace but for us to have a booming 2008 job market will take some (more) time," Info Edge National Head (Marketing and Communications) Sumeet Singh said.

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What I think about it :

EC grads, Computer Science(CS), Information Science(IS), Telecom, Mech, Civil, Instrumentation, Biotech (ok, all the branches of Engineering) guys are all welcome to participate in the recruitment process. After spending four years studying something else, people enter software field. I personally know a mechanical engineer from a premier institute like BITS-Pilani working on S/W projects related to banking, and an MSc-Physics from the same institute developing code. Only about 25pc of the people recruited by the IT(Information Technology) companies are from software background. And let me tell you, most of the NCS (non-Computer Science guys – jargon in the software field) don’t really have a problem working in this field.

Most of the companies train the fresher for about five-six months. In this time you are taught more than a computer science grad studied in four years. And few companies have an extremely rigorous assessment process, which even the CS and IS graduates find difficult to clear. Even if you marginally fall short of the required cut-off mark (say, you have a CGPA of 3.99 and the required grade is 4 on 5), you are given an ‘exit’ (euphemism for being thrown out of the company).

My point here is, if most of the engineering students land up in software field, why study something else for four long years? We have more than a hundred engineering colleges in Karnataka alone offering various branches in engineering, churning out more than 70000 graduates every year. And at present, a lot of people take up courses related to IT at coaching centers, while doing their graduation, to improve job prospects.

I have this concept.

- At present a large amount of resources is diffused over various courses that don’t really produce employable graduates.

- The IT courses do not require as much physical infrastructure as the other branches of engineering do.

- Why can’t we have colleges that teach only IT related subjects instead of all the colleges offering IT courses along with other branches? People interested in jobs in IT industry can straight away join these colleges.

- Consequently, we will have a smaller number of institutes offering NCS courses. The capital thus saved can be directed toward improving the infrastructure and encouraging more research in the NCS institutes. And, a student can focus on his/her field of study alone than studying CS in parallel.

Our media gives us more news related to recruitment in the IT industry; gives a fancy name ‘techie’ to coders; talks big about their lifestyle.( All of this is true) This influences readers/viewers to assume that IT is their/their ward’s ultimate destination. Most of the work in the IT field is service based, and is predominantly dependent on the core subjects. It is high time we concentrate on research and development than take pride in having huge number of programmers in the country and their fat (or, should I say obese?) pay-package.

PostScript: IT guys, no offence intended all right? I’m only trying to say that there are a lot of other avenues to be explored.

At the peak of incongruity!

There have been many instances when I've been off-key. Sometimes this has put me in embarrassing situations . I recollect a few of those here.

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1. Sixth semester - someday: I was at the Internet café filling up an application form which was taking a lot of time. After about three hours' time I felt for my Honda Activa’s keys. I did not find it. Then I rushed to my bike which was parked outside. The key was sitting pretty on the bike’s belly. Heaved a sigh of relief. Anybody could have easily stolen my bike that day!

2. 2008 - I was purchasing some articles for Sankranti(South Indian festival) celebration. As I was selecting the mango and neem leaves I realised that the my Activa's key was still on the bike(yeah, again!). I rushed toward my bike which was parked a few feet away. Fortunately, the bike and the keys were safe. But, I still had the leaves in my hand and I had not paid the vendor yet! I returned to the shop to pay him the money. Fortunately(again), he was busy with other customers and had not noticed me walking away with the leaves. Otherwise he would have thought I was some kleptomaniac on prowl!

3. Final year of Engineering - someday: I was supposed to pick up my friend en route to college. I had totally forgotten about that. She must have stood there in disbelief when I rode past her without even checking if she was waiting there! This meant she had to walk back to the bus stop which was a little more than half a kilometre away. Consequently, she was late to class.

4. Eighth semester final exams: I think it was Embedded Systems paper. The invigilator handed out the attendance sheets to me. As I was signing I felt I was signing on more pages than I did for other subjects. ECE students were supposed to sign only on the first three sheets. I had signed across some Computer Science student’s USN on the fourth page! The invigilator later resolved the issue.

5. Best friend’s birthday last year: That evening, I was chatting with her on phone just as on any other day. After the chat ended, another friend asked me for her contact number to wish her. It never occurred to me till then that it was her birthday! Then I called my friend; except a sheepish ‘happy birthday’ I did not know what else to say.

6. A couple of months back: While riding my bike I asked my brother if the new footwear shop in our locality sold good goods. There was no answer. I repeated the question. Still there was no answer. Then I pulled up and looked back. Bro was not there. Where was my little brother? I was scared to death. My eyes were moist. Since I had forgotten to carry my cell phone, I could not even call home to find out if he was there. I rode back as fast as I could. There I saw him laughing at me.

He had got off the bike before I started to ride and I hadn’t realized that. You can’t blame me for this. He practices stealth techniques of martial arts. I could not have known when he got off.

7. Last month: After a twenty minute walk from my hostel room to training centre at the workplace it struck me that I had forgotten to carry my I-card. Since I did not have enough time to go back to my room and get the I-card, I proceeded to attend the lecture and swiped in late at lunch break.We are given attendance based on the number of hours clocked between swipe-in and swipe-out. Since I had not clocked in the required minimum number of hours that day I lost a day’s leave.

Nowadays I spend a few seconds to check and re-check to make sure I have not missed out on things :)

Quality Service

How often has it been easy for you to find a plumber, electrician or a carpenter who did a fine job? Most of us are not really happy with their work. We either get the job redone spending lot of money, but seldom satisfied, or just put up with mediocre service.

When you construct your house, how sure can you be that the mason has mixed the cement, sand, water and gravel in the right proportion? That the mixture has not timed out? If it did, its strength would reduce by a considerable degree. How sure can you be that the walls are accurately vertical and strong enough?

We have often seen fire outbreak due to slipshod electrical work; buildings have collapsed because of second-rate construction. A premier space organization like ISRO is not spared of such problems either. Its compound wall collapsed, just one year after construction!

We should have a national institute which offers quality courses in various fields like masonry, painting, gardening, and all the vocations mentioned above(you could add more to the list). The institute should certify that the concerned person is qualified in a particular field.

The advantages I see from such a system:

-safety

-we can be sure of not being swindled

-job well done

-less expenditure

-saves time

-organized labour

This means you are happy