Got Talent? India Needs You
Are you a recent college graduate looking to maximize your talent? Are you tired of moving from one gig to another scraping for money while you wait for that elusive interview call? Then its time to think out of the box. Most of us have a home bias that guides our actions whether its looking for a job or making investments in local stocks. Human beings are hardwired to take comfort in the close and familiar.
Yet even as you click that “apply” button and send your resume into a black hole, there are blue chip companies and hot startups in India that would love to hire you. They are more than happy to hand you a boat load of responsibility and give you opportunities to pick up amazing skills on the fly. All this while paying you handsomely to save money and explore your new surroundings.
India faces an enormous talent shortage with companies willing to shell out big bucks for anyone from native English speakers to app engineers to data scientists. In the last 5 years, a dynamic startup ecosystem fueled by a flood of VC money has been willing to pay top salaries for high caliber talent resulting in top dollar salaries. The chart below from the Wall Street Journal shows the explosive growth of Indian startups and the investments dollars pumped in to fuel this growth.
You might be wondering how a country with a billion people faces talent shortages. The answer primarily lies in India’s antiquated education system with its emphasis on rote learning that ill equips graduates for tasks on the job. India also faces a severe shortage of good universities with motivated faculty, unlike the extensive network of high quality institutions in the West that foreign graduates take for granted. Depending on which survey you look at, anywhere between 50–70% of employers in India can’t seem to find the right talent.
To illustrate how dire the shortage is, let’s take a look at the two extreme ends of the employment spectrum — the humble welder and the highly educated data scientist. You would think that welding is a pretty low skill job that anybody with a pair of hands can pull off. But welders go through a rigorous 300 hour program before they get anywhere close to a welding gun. There is such a shortage of skilled welders in India that it had to actually “import” anywhere between 10–20,000 welders from China, Eastern Europe and Russia over the last year.
Ok the welding example might have been a bit extreme (with due respect to welders). I’m not suggesting you swap your laptop for a welding gun :). Talent shortages exist in more white collar and niche areas like data science as well. Take data science for example where everybody from big conglomerates to high flying e-commerce startups are sitting on heaps of historical data with limited means to generate insights from them. McKinsey estimates that India needs 200,000 data scientists in the coming years. If you have half decent skills in this area, then you have a golden opportunity to be one of the early thought leaders/experts in this emerging industry in a big country like India.
While both examples above pertain to niche areas, the demand/supply mismatch remains the same across the board from app developers to graphic designers and even traditional sales and marketing roles. At BrainGain we help you find these opportunities while making your transition to a new country as smooth as possible. There has never been a better time to jump start your career in an emerging economy.
What are you waiting for? India needs you!
This post was written by Vikram Kondur, BrainGain’s Head of Business Development in India
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/11/09/indias-talent-shortage-is-driving-up-startup-salaries/
http://computer.financialexpress.com/magazine/big-data-talent-shortage-how-to-bridge-the-gap/12133/
http://www.asianage.com/business/talent-shortage-forces-india-get-foreign-welders-053
Originally published at www.braingain.co.
