Employability Landscape and Need to Carve an Educational Pathway in India

Dhananjay Parkhe
Sep 8, 2018 · 14 min read

By Hon. Prof. Dhananjay ‘Jay’ Parkhe

Summary:

Skill availability is an ongoing challenge to Corporate India, compelling HR Departments to turn to newer talent sources for recruitment.

Word Count 3551

The Employability Landscape in India

HR Departments Recruit and the Employees today are expected to deliver right from day 1, and deliver to speed, to outpace the rapid Industrial Revolution 4.0. Technological Innovations and Global marketplace. Equipping with the right skills , whether technical , functional or behavioural has a huge Development Gap. The superficial coming together of Corporates and Universities or Farm to Lab initiatives and Identification of Skills Gap across Sectors and Entry Level job creation need with the help of Skills Development Councils is often found inadequate and unsatisfactory. In past 4 years the Ministry as 3rd new minister at helm and Employment generation is a huge far cry and a wake up call for Modi Government if it aspires to return to power in 2019.

The number of talent pools, to quantitatively and qualitatively, be able to hire correctly the Policy planners depend on informative sources like ;the National Employability Report put together by Aon Co-Cubes and similar. These capture the State of Employability and industry-wise perspective, offering a unique view of the graduate-level talent pool. (This article has taken many statistics and observations from this report).

India needs to enable and re-skill forty crore individuals in next four years and HR executives estimates it’s going to utilize about Rs 5.5 lakh Crore on it. Ministry is pumping in funds to build training capacity however misuse of these makes the task complicated. To cease that and enhance employability of skilled labor, it has also installed a regulator (NSDA).

India has a really narrow time frame to harness its demographic dividend and to overcome its skill scarcity, as the aging of society skill there can be more individuals older than 59 than in the working-age inhabitants by way of 2040. India’s present means at over 14000 Industrial training Institutes ITIs is a way lower than the 1.5 crore people it should educate every year. About 3.6 crore people are skilled under a variety of executive-funded programs in past four years. The government observed it doesn’t have records on placements as various capabilities programs have distinct structures. The employability of loads of our graduates is negative,”

The State of Employability Skills Development in India.

In order to understand employability, it is important to understand Definition of Employability. According to Aon Co-Cubes report on employability of engineering graduates, a candidate is considered to be employable for majority of the entry-level white-collar job roles if the candidate possesses

1. Basic cognitive ability along with

2. Knowledge of computer fundamentals. In addition,

3. Specific domain skills are required for specialized jobs such as, say,

4. Software programming or

5. Mechanical design.

To be employable based on the requirements of the job, a candidates have to be well versed in the following three Silos:

1. Cognitive Ability Skills: This constitutes Analytical Reasoning, English and Quantitative Ability skills.

2. Computer Fundamentals: The world of work today is highly virtual. Employees must, therefore, be adept at basic computer fundamentals and also at coding (mostly in technical roles).

3. Core Domain Skills: Domain knowledge and expertise is a pre-requisite to be able to perform the job well.

Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship

· India is in quest of to boost the aspirational cost of jobs reminiscent of plumbing, carpentry and beautician to make extra individuals employable in a market with some of the world’s greatest working-age population; altering perceptions towards handyman jobs and lengthening practising ability are the pursuits of India’s abilities software, Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship officials are visiting institutes to discuss with students the significance of acquiring vocational skills and apprenticeship programs.

· Developing alternatives for the young body of workers is a key pledge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he prepares for elections next year. Failure to try this risks at once turning the nation’s much talked about “demographic dividend” i.e. more than 60 per cent of the inhabitants is in the working age 15–59 years bracket — into a disaster and stalling the existing world-beating tempo of economic boom, “How many of you have been to convocation ceremony of a vocational Institute?,’ PM Modi asked in one of the conferences and sadly no one had gone. ‘How will it turn into aspirational then?’ Mr. Modi asked.

· “Acquisition of capabilities isn’t aspirational. It’s a very deep situation with roots in our caste system, individuals would rather become clerks, peons in executive places of work than hairdressers. The paradox is a hairdresser will in fact earn more than a peon,” The Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship ? “We are now carving out educational pathways.”

Let us therefore examine What is Employability. How is it Conceptually different in another country ( we have taken an example of University of Edinburgh, Scotland here)

What is Employability?

The term employability is used in different contexts and in different ways.

Here we explains what the University of Edinburgh means by employability as a comparison with Indian Definition.

A set of achievements — skills, understandings and personal attributes — that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy

Professor Mantz Yorke (2004)’Employability in Higher Education: what it is- what it is not’, Higher Education Academy/ESECT

This definition reflects the University’s view: employability is not the same as gaining a graduate job, rather it is about the capacity to function successfully in a role and be able to move between occupations, thus remaining employable throughout their life.

What employability is and is not ( University of Edinburgh,Scotland) is compared with Indian Context here:

Employability is not:

1. simply getting a job

2. a list of skills that can be ‘taught’

3. the sole responsibility of the Careers Service and the Employability Consultancy

4. the same as Personal Development Planning (PDP)

Employability is:

1. ongoing success for now and in the future, whatever career or career(s) a student chooses

2. drawing on a range of skills, abilities and attributes that are developed in a whole range of settings and that vary from individual to individual

3. a University-wide responsibility

4. an ongoing developmental process that benefits from active reflection

5. more important now than ever before in light of the world graduates are entering

Career-EDGE model — Developed by Pool & Sewell (2007) and based on a range of employability models and theories, the Career-EDGE model provides a useful summary of five essential elements that aid students’ employability:

1. Career Development Learning — the knowledge, skills and experience to help students manage and develop their careers.

2. Experience — work and life experiences help students develop a broader range of skills and are attractive for prospective employers

3. Degree subject knowledge, understanding & skills

4. Generic Skills

5. Emotional Intelligence — “the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships” (Goleman, 1998). This is particularly important in recruitment situations and in developing effective working relationships.

All five elements are important and missing one can considerably reduce a student’s employability. Each element is important in its own right, but all five overlap and are integral to each other.

Employability in India: A Skill-Scape

A close look at the talent pool in India reveals a significant gap in talent needs versus the available capability. In India, Candidates are classified as

· “Unemployable”,

· “Readily employable” and

· “Employable with some training”.

A large skill gap means that a majority of candidates fall under the “unemployable” category.

In fact, only 22% of candidates have skills which can get them a job in most of the sectors (i.e. readily employable), whereas around 25% need some kind of training input to become employable.

In India, At current skills level, 53% college graduates fall short on employability scale.

A closer skill-based view of these statistics shows that Analytical Reasoning is the skill on which majority (69%) of the college grads perform well enough to get employed. However, the weak point for candidates in the cognitive ability section is Quantitative Ability, with 52% of candidates showing up a skill gap there. Surprisingly, the true nemesis seems not to be behavioural or cognitive skills, but technical skills. As an example on coding, one of the most highly sought after and well-compensated skills, — only 4% of the candidates are at par with the desired capability level in this area. It is no surprise then, that this gap in domain/coding skills makes graduates unemployable for core engineering jobs.

Why is employability important — to students?

To be employed is to be at risk, to be employable is to be secure

Peter Hawkins (1999)The Art of Building Windmills

· ‘A degree is no longer enough’: Following dramatic increases in HE provision in the UK and fundamental shifts in the graduate recruitment market, a degree is no longer enough to guarantee a graduate a satisfying future career. This is all the more true in light of the current economic climate. In many sectors, recruiters are looking for ‘work-ready’ graduates with clear evidence of job specific skills in addition to high level graduate attributes. To have the competitive advantage in the job market, students need to have developed their employability throughout their time at university.

· Return on investment: One of the main reasons students choose to study at university is to enhance their career prospects. This becomes increasingly important in view of rising costs of education and levels of debt on graduation, so individuals want to ensure it has been money well spent. This is even more of a driver for international students.

· Engaging in the educational process: Innovative teaching, learning and assessment methods help students engage in the education process and have the added benefit of also helping them to develop attributes which make them attractive to potential employers. Students’ interest is more likely to be maintained if they can see the relevance of their studies to their future careers and life beyond university.

Engaging in the whole student experience: Students who make an effort to fully participate in the total student experience (academic, co-curricular, extra-curricular, including work experience) benefit from a well-rounded education, contribute fully to the life of the University and community and hopefully have fun in the process.

Why is employability important — to academic staff?

Employability draws on attributes that are developed and used in multiple settings and vary from individual to individual. This page highlights the importance of employability to academic staff.

To academic staff:

The things employers generally value in new graduates are things that most teachers in higher education generally value

Harvey & knight (2003)Helping Departments to Develop Employability

· Employability plays an important role in the implementation of the colleges’ Learning and Teaching Strategies. It is part of good learning practice. Students who engage in developing their employability are likely to be independent, reflective and responsible learners.

· Innovative learning, teaching and assessment methods which promote students’ understanding and help them to engage in ‘deep’ learning will also enhance their employability.

· Involving employers in the education experience, for example, through placements, case studies, delivery of guest lectures, can help students appreciate the relevance of their course and learn how to apply theory and knowledge in practical ways in the workplace.

· In some subject areas, employability links to requirements for accreditation from professional bodies.

Why is employability important — to schools and the University?

Producing graduates equipped for their future is a key part of higher education. This page summarises the importance of employability to schools and the University.

To your school:

Although a student’s experience of higher education cannot guarantee a ‘graduate level job’, the nature of that experience influences the chances of success

M. Yorke (2003)Encouraging the Development of Employability

· Employers target universities where they have successfully recruited in the past and where they recognise that courses are continuing to develop and innovate to produce graduates with the knowledge, skills and attributes relevant to their needs.

· Employability coheres with the concept of PDP (Personal/Professional Development Planning), encouraging students to become reflective learners and present themselves effectively.

· A focus on employability can encourage student motivation, leading to better results and higher positions in national subject league tables.

To the University:

· We aim to produce graduates fully equipped to achieve the highest personal and professional standards

· University of EdinburghStrategic Plan 2012–2016

· Producing employable graduates forms part of the process of educating. It encompasses the full educational spectrum of values from imparting knowledge and understanding to developing skills and attributes. Work has already been undertaken in embedding a set of graduate attributes, progressed in line with institutional developments on the previous and current Enhancement Themes: ‘Graduates for the 21st Century’ and ‘Developing and Supporting the Curriculum’.

· Focusing on employability helps the University attract and retain high quality students and maintain its competitive advantage in the global market.

· Employability is of strategic importance to the UK and Scottish economy and in particular to the Scottish Government’s skills agenda. For more information on this see the link below:

The Gender Lens to Employability

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) forms an integral part of the talent strategy nowadays. Hence it is important to don the gender-lens while understanding employability. A gender split of the employability statistics reveals that except for core engineering jobs, females are more readily employable than males. On a whole, females (24%) are more readily employable than males (21%). In fact, female readiness outnumbers that of males in jobs related to BPO and KPO, Sales and IT Services. This may serve as an important input for HR to up the D&I agenda while weaving in the right policy changes to provide a fair chance and equal opportunity to females.

Employability in India: Industry Specifics

An industry-specific look at the employability statistics shows that employability is much higher in some specific areas. BPO tops the list, with 70% of the engineering college grads being readily employable in this sector.

This is followed by Sales and IT Services, with 48% and 30% “readily employable” resources respectively. However, if organizations do decide to provide some training, the status improves, with Core R&D also emerging as an employment-ready area for college graduates, with some training- 23% of graduates are “employable with some training”.

Employability for IT Product jobs is the least, with only 2% of graduates being readily employable, and 2% more being employable with some training. For Analytics/KPO jobs, 20% of the graduates would become employable with some training while 21% are readily employable.

These findings indicate that organizations operating primarily in the field of IT Product offerings need to rejig their talent strategy because of the dire shortage of ideal talent.

Poor English, computing device expertise make graduates unemployable

Of the five million graduates that India produces annually, only half are employable in any sector of the knowledge economy. Insufficient English and computing device advantage are key components holding back students, mainly those from smaller cities.

The country wide Employability report by way of Aspiring Minds, an employability options business, printed this, based on the laptop adaptive look at Indian graduates. The college students verified had conversation talents in English, computing device talents, analytical, cognitive advantage and fundamental accounting capabilities.

Based on this document, girls reveal equivalent or greater employability compared to guys, and many of them scoring less than guys on many parameters barring English or analytical potential. Predictably, arts circulation had the optimum percentage of women, adopted via commerce. Science. About 16% and 14% of the graduates had been employable in sales careers or operations jobs, respectively. These require communication, cognitive expertise and personality features reminiscent of friendliness and agreeableness and in the latter numerical ability too.

The Way Ahead

Clearly, much is to be achieved in India if we are to rely on national level talent for our corporates. HR and L&D may need to rejig their talent strategy depending on what are the core competencies for organizational success.

Educational affiliations in India:

For industries with extremely low supply of skilled personnel, even after training, it may make sense to associate with educational institutions to build those skills at the college level itself. Such companies must treat colleges as “skill-building factories”, preparing candidates ready to be lapped up into the corporate as “Day 1 productive employees”.

Redefine learning:

For sectors where there are more people who are employable with some training (Core R&D), HR must relook at the L&D strategy and incorporate modern learning means to encourage skill-building on the job. Start training at the outset, so as to gain speed to productivity. For example, offer a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) as a part of the onboarding module to ensure that new employees start delivering quickly. Similarly, coaching and mentoring, mobile learning, social learning, microlearning and such processes can be institutionalized in such organizations.

Competency-based assessments:

Role profiling should be done basis the competency framework and the competency framework should be incorporated into talent assessment processes such as hiring tests and interviews, so as to know where the skill-gap lies. Devise concrete, proven assessments for skills such as coding, domain knowledge, quantitative ability etc. where most graduates are seen to lack.

Policymaking for D&I:

Consider catering to the unique needs of women employees and incorporate these into policymaking. Diverse viewpoints can go a long way in building innovative and relevant solutions.

The gig workforce:

We are seeing the rise of the gig economy. Dig into emerging talent pools such as freelancers, returning mothers, returning entrepreneurs, ex-servicemen and veterans, consultants, part-time workers etc. Today a significantly skilled chunk of the workforce can be found in these unusual places. The key is to keep looking for talent proactively, and where least expected.

HR professionals must be on the continuous lookout for talent because the talent is the key differentiator today. At the same time, they must strive to be an employer of choice, through employee best practices. For this, they must not only be aware of the talent trends in the industry, both at a micro and macro level. Only then can organizations harness the best of people, and be the best themselves.

Hiring intent revives in 2018 and Employability in bigger training raises from 33% to 45% in 5 Years — India capabilities document 2018*

Launch of Wheebox, a worldwide skill assessment company, PeopleStrong, a number one HR Tech business and Confederation of Indian industry CII Of Niti Aayog along with secretaries of Dept. of Commerce, Micro, Small & Medium corporations MSME, Ministry of Labour and Employment MoLE, Ministry Of Rural development MoRD, Ministry of skill construction and Entrepreneurship MSDE, Chairman-AICTE and Founder & CEO, of Wheebox in Delhi.

With the need is to Scale the skills demand and provide document that Backed by companions like Pearson, United international locations construction Programme, AICTE, AIU and a number of state governments, the fifth version of India potential document, captures insights and tendencies forms the largest employability outlook to Universities and Skills and Knowledge Development associations in India. They reached out to over 5 lakh college students throughout 29 states and seven Union Territories on the skill supply facet, together with Indian hiring intent — a main analysis survey on the skill demand aspect that reached out to over one hundred twenty+ employers throughout 12 predominant trade verticals for talent demand.

Wheebox states that employability has enhanced tremendously in the past 5 years. while in 2014, the percentage of employable inhabitants was a paltry 33%, it stands at a decent 45.60% now, it is still not the most wonderful news. The key domains of growth in employability are Engineering, Pharma, MCA and different concentrated knowledgeable courses. It has been discovered by Wheelbox, that concentrated vocational classes are creating extra jobs than established courses. additionally the lessons in functional journey and internships, were covered in formal course content material are faring better. What is alarming is reduction in employability amongst MBA students. There talent is considered to be declining, which needs govt attention.

From the demand aspect there is a positive indication as companies demonstrate a revival in their hiring intent. As per the India Hiring Intent survey, organisations across sectors predict 10–15% boost in hiring intent from last year to this year. whereas Retail, Banking, monetary features and coverage sectors are anticipating an increase, tempo of hiring in Sectors like ITES, application, Hardware and IT also foresees, average change in hiring numbers.

This year the Wheelbox report has laid special focus on future jobs and the effect of automation to see jobs evolving in keeping with expertise and innovation. The results are impressive: 69% of the respondents certainly foresee the influence of automation, 24% employers indicate Analytics and 15% foresee artificial Intelligence as possible new jobs avenues.

Sources:

1. National Employability Report 2016–17 by Aon CoCubes.

2.

3. Career-EDGE model Developed by Pool & Sewell (2007)

4. Professor Mantz Yorke (2004)’Employability in Higher Education: what it is- what it is not’, Higher Education Academy/ESECT

5. Emotional Intelligence — (Goleman, 1998)

6. The country wide Employability report by way of Aspiring Minds

7. India capabilities document 2018*

8. India Hiring Intent survey

Dhananjay Parkhe

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