Game of Skills

Tahseen Ahmad
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

Recently a video of ‘AIB Honest Placements’ came out and there was a scene where “Mass-recruiters set a deal for 3 LPA for certain Kg mass of students”. Even though we thoroughly enjoyed the pun intended, but it still ignited the thought that reality of placements in India is not far from what’s depicted in the video.

So here is the Algorithm/SOP followed by esteemed IT companies (or mass recruiters as categorized at the time of placements). They hire people in big numbers (in thousands sometimes), they train them on a particular technology/framework/project for 3–6 months and then they get to make a selection out of three options.

Option one is to assign the person to a project/team,

Option two is to “bench them”,

Option three is to fire them or in their terms, “let them go” (sarcasm intended!).

When you look at this from the company’s perspective, It’s a perfectly designed “Game of scale” which reduces their risk and helps them maximize their results. But let’s analyze this from the employee’s perspective.

This is an employee whose career has been picked by his company, not him (in most cases), where he has developed the negligence towards the impeccable fact that college is something that you go through for only 3–4 years whereas your Job or choice of career actually decides the course for rest of your life. Secondly, they get a limited scope of learning based on their project/team/technology and they really don’t get chance or exposure to acquire skills beyond that (In most companies).

I recently read a report by NASSCOM that states that Indian IT companies would have to re-skill its 3.9 million employees to meet the demands of fast growing technology space. But if I take rough estimates of the cost required for training all these people, I can safely extrapolate that at some point in ‘X’ years(x depending on a lot of factors), the market will be flooded by freshers who can be trained easily(since they are not already biased by their previous experience) and at a lesser cost(as their base package will be less that of experienced professionals).So, technically speaking, it would be profitable for companies to hire and train new people instead of up-skilling or re-skilling the existing lot.

Also, when we talk about salary package of these IT professionals, they usually start at 2–3 LPA and its growing up to a maximum of 3–5 LPA in next 2–3 years. Although there are numerous possibilities through which this growth, both in terms of knowledge and compensation can be increased manifolds(in the range of 5–8 LPA, at least) by getting trained themselves in modern technologies, these employees find themselves in a dearth of time, money or guidance to acquire those skills.

To conclude, it all boils down to a “Game of Skills”. Professionals of today have a choice that either they can up skill themselves to continually grow in their careers and stay relevant to the technology domain or wait for the time where automation or freshly trained young employees take their place. The best part about this paradigm shift is that there are multiple platforms (like this) which are available for getting the relevant industry skills and moving too fast growing-future oriented careers. There are even platforms which help you make the transition from your current profile to a new job with better prospects. All you have to do is make the effort to prepare for the battle to come.

I am not funny, I am just trying to make you laugh.

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