Over 80% of engineering graduates in India unemployable

[Lord Nemesis]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...a-unemployable-Study/articleshow/50704157.cms

This is so true. The quality of engineering graduates has fallen so steeply (I can vouch for at least the computer sciences and IT) over the years. In fact, it feels like 99%+ would be a more accurate figure for being unemployable.

Personally, I would not even blame the quality of education or the colleges. It was like that even 10~15 years back, but it never stopped students with enthusiasm for the subject from building their knowledge and skills on their own. This is no longer the case. Most of the candidates that are that are hitting the market these days don't seem to be fit for anything except to increase the head count stat at one our IT services companies.

I have been doing interviews for last one year to fill two openings at my work place and we are yet to fill even one of them. I have gone through countless candidates and they have constantly surprised me by taking the bar to even lower heights. It makes me surprised that these candidates even have a job at any company at all with such poor fundamentals and skill deficiency.

In fact, my interview count over my entire career is close to 300 and only 4 candidates have got cleared, which puts my accept ratio at 1.3%. This is so pathetic that its depressing.

People need to realize that getting your degree is no where near enough for getting employed.

 

[bssunilreddy]

Its not the Quality of Education that has fallen but Quantity of Employment Opportunities that has dried up which led to 80% of Engineering grads doing odd jobs.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

^^ You are missing the point. The article says that 80% are unemployable, not unemployed. It means that even when there are opportunities, these people do not have the skills worthy enough to get employed. The only companies which have no problems hiring are the IT services biggies which focus on quantity and cost rather than quality. Companies that focus on quality (with remuneration to match) are having a very hard time filling vacancies. My company could not hire a single person after visiting over 25 Engineering campuses. I myself could not find a single person good enough in close to 100 off-campus interviews that I did over last year and not to mention that I wan't the only guy doing the interviews.

To be honest, IT services biggies are in part responsible for this situation by being lax and irresponsible about the quality of their hires. They have been offering jobs to a lot of unqualified people and they almost never fire them and so, there is no incentive to skill up or perform unless they are trying to move to a company with better pay. I was actually horrified by the skill level of the people in these companies often despite 8~10 years of work experience.

Unfortunately, the business model of these companies is also tuned for that kind of mentality. They take a 1 month project, put 50 or 100 people on it and turn it into a 1 year project so that they can bill the client for all that head count and bloated duration. Further, if the work delivered is ridden with defects, they can possibly score a maintenance contract as well.

Overall, this is not going to bode well for the software sector in the country or for any of the other engineering disciplines if this is going to continue like this.

 

[vishalrao]

I seem to remember this type of news/articles ages ago. It looks like this is reported every year "XX percent of grads are unemployable".

 

[bhaskarvyas001]

@Lord Nemesis Same story with or company...
We have been doing interviews for last 4 months now...
Not a single hire.. :-(
Hence, we have lowered our bars and have decided to take someone who at least shows good attitude so that we can get work done by them..
Shocking that people with 8-9 years of experience do not even know basic things like difference between a web server and an app server..

 

[nimod]

..difference between a web server and an app server

Really Shocking!

 

[adi_vastava]

To be honest, IT services biggies are in part responsible for this situation by being lax and irresponsible about the quality of their hires. They have been offering jobs to a lot of unqualified people and they almost never fire them and so, there is no incentive to skill up or perform unless they are trying to move to a company with better pay. I was actually horrified by the skill level of the people in these companies often despite 8~10 years of work experience.

Another part of problem is the mushroomed engineering college in some parts of country. Anyone can get admission; and will pass it with okay grade. Creating too much supply than the real demand; and that too of really inferior quality. We were once blamed to ask out of syllabus question in one of the top rated CS engineering college in India. The recruitment panel had balls to tell us that they will block us from next year if we do not hire more.(we hired one)

 

[Lord Nemesis]

Shocking that people with 8-9 years of experience do not even know basic things like difference between a web server and an app server..

Out of the last 100 odd candidates that I interviewed with experience ranging from 7~15 years, only 3 candidates were aware of the term "Time complexity" and they too could not give the time complexity of a basic search or sort algorithm. In fact, leaving alone the matter that none of them could reproduce a basic bubble sort on paper if their life depended on it, most of them had confusion between what search or sort means. Couple of them had the audacity to question why knowledge of these basics are even relevant for the job.

When questioned how they would resolve performance issues without knowledge of even basic concepts of algorithm complexity, those who did at least answer had only one solution to give. Just add more servers. This mentality is very apparent from how they try to write code because even presented a very basic problem that can be solved in linear time complexity, they would attempt to come up with a solution that uses 3 or 4 nested loops.

For me, knowledge of libraries or frameworks is irrelevant. Regardless of experience level, What I look for first and fore most is strong programming/design fundamentals coupled with ability to translate problems or requirements into a programming or design solution. People who have the fundamentals right can easily pick up any new programming language and deliver solutions as needed. Trying to gain knowledge of the hottest new library or framework without even having a clue about fundamentals is absurd.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

e were once blamed to ask out of syllabus question in one of the top rated CS engineering college in India. The recruitment panel had balls to tell us that they will block us from next year if we do not hire more.(we hired one)

This is exactly why my company decided to stop going to IITs and any other college that tries to impose recruitment quota's like you have to hire a certain minimum number of candidates. This is not meaningful at all. Why should a company be forced to hire sub standard candidates. The fact that they have such quota's is itself for me a bad indication.

 

[swatkats]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...a-unemployable-Study/articleshow/50704157.cms

This is so true. The quality of engineering graduates has fallen so steeply (I can vouch for at least the computer sciences and IT) over the years. In fact, it feels like 99%+ would be a more accurate figure for being unemployable.

I second. 9 out of 10 don't know why they chose the stream, Do not know the basics.Neither they are Straightforward as to why they want to work in that specific field.

Prolly because of Vo Jaha ra hein hum bhi picche picche jaa rahein hein.. (Don't remember the exact dialogue from Tamasha movie) perfectly nailed the situation in India.

 

[suds]

I think we are going through this situation because lots of engineering student never done their engineering project on own. Right now everyone has mentality to outsource their project from somewhere and clear the test. This may be due to our education system which never ask us to research on topics or projects.

 

[drkrack]

I seem to remember this type of news/articles ages ago. It looks like this is reported every year "XX percent of grads are unemployable".

Precisely, I have read the similar article at least 3 times in last 5 years.
An independent survey shows only 8% of engineering graduates of undivided AP are employable.
This is the lowest 3yrs ago, only 3% employable (2012).

http://m.thehindu.com/features/educ...ent-engineers-are-jobready/article2987626.ece

Partly the education system at fault , but majority candidates are undecided on their aptitude and focus.
Indian parents support (Read pampering) also makes them relatively useless ; if they just pay for fees and ask them to arrange everything else on their own (help getting a loan, part time job etc) , things might improve.
Necessity is the mother of invention & hard work.

 

[Mr.J]

What else is to be expected from a system based on rote learning? Especially when the ''''engineers'''' are unwilling to learn anything at all on job.

@bhaskarvyas001 What was the position in question?

 

[nRiTeCh]

Every gulli and moohallah you will find engineers in alternate household so kachra was gonna happen some day...
I always felt there's no other field like engineering and other fields are like committing crime or seen as cheap or not worthy type of.

People mentality was/is: either climb the ladder being a engineer or stay grounded and work in a bpo.

 

[asingh]

This is what happens when you teach a parrot by rote.

 

[ssslayer]

The point is that India doesn't have 80% unemployment.
Does it?
So all these "good for nothing" guys DO end up getting employed somewhere.

Somewhere where they get their worth's salary and the employer is willing to spend even that much as a salary because he is making profits on them/their work.


I would not get too alarmed. This is what the market demands, and this is what the market is getting.

 

[nRiTeCh]

..and now ISIS started recruiting such engineer people (unemployed)

 

[ssslayer]

..and now ISIS started recruiting such engineer people (unemployed)

Again nothing new and alarming.
Unemployed people have always swayed towards extremist philosophies and organizations.
OR to reframe it in politically correct words: It is easier for extremists to influence the unemployed.

 

[thirumalkumaran]

Guys!!! Think about narrow field... Like Advanced Manufacturing... (Aerospace, satellite components)
AFAIK... I'm the last of the kind in my generation... (Really sad and I'm already 32)
We recruit some engineers but after 4 weeks they try to move to other field like documenation design etc.. they cannot understand... even though we try to teach...
Noone at my age or below mine knows the complexity of metal cutting in aerospace...

 

[iPwnz]

I read this particular news a year or so ago i think, it was about an "engineer" who committee suicide. He was unemployed (no reason was stated) and took to farming instead and because of the bad climate his farm couldn't produce anything. From an engineer to a farmer, its unbelievable. And the typical mindset of a majority of Indians is they consider engineers, no matter how good or bad they are, to be above every other profession or learning. For example I know of one person who claimed to have finished her CSc engineering but didn't know the answers to some basic fundamental questions. I'm not saying that I'm better than many of these engineers but i did my Bachelors in History! XD

In fact, my interview count over my
entire career is close to 300 and only 4
candidates have got cleared, which
puts my accept ratio at 1.3%. This is so
pathetic that its depressing.

Real life Hatake Kakashi spotted. IF i ever become the PM of India and want to hire you as the Officer of Engineering studies or something will you accept? Lol.

Right now everyone
has mentality to outsource their
project from somewhere and clear the test.

I'm not suprised. Many people still consult Google for small class projects. No basic knowledge or originality so much that I had a teacher in my old college who told us that if we copied the answers off the net she will reject them and deny us any marks.
So to conclude I'm not surprised by this news.
But I have a question, can't these companies hire better foreign students?