The Great Indian Career Crisis

Why is there a silent career crisis in India and what can you do about it?

First up, no I am not talking about the lack of jobs, this is a problem much deeper. Let us get to the bottom of it -

1. Past 2 - 3 decades have seen India prosper and flourish, both in terms of opportunities within the country and opportunities for Indian outside.

2. We had IT (Engg) and MBA Jobs going for us. Just do one of these things, or both of these things from any place and you were practically guaranteed a 'good future'

3. When there is a large workforce doing well and growing, all other affiliated industries also do well - whether it is real estate, automobiles, travel and much more. The Bangalores, Gurgaons and Hyderabads have come up largely because of these new age jobs.

4. When everything is going well, nobody questions or wonders, everybody just keeps going.

5. People moved cities without question, bought homes with 20 year loans, bought fancy cars and essentially upped their lifestyle.

6. Cut to present day, there is an uneasy unsettling air around jobs and careers in the country. Nothing's really wrong, but something isn't right. People aren't getting jobs as easily as they were available at one point. People aren't growing as easily as they were at one point. Things aren't entirely moving like they were at one point.

7. When one or some wheels of a large machinery stop moving, everything begins to slow down. The impact of such a slowdown can be felt on every other related industry.

Why is all this happening?

1. An Engineering Degree or an MBA is barely enough today to 'guarantee' a 'good future'. Unless you are brilliant, or come from one of those brilliant colleges, you really have to struggle your way to get a good job.

2. Automation, or some technological advances are taking over. You can keep contesting or debating this forever, but if you think hard enough you will realise there are so many things in your life that have now become automated / technically enabled - thus reducing the reliance on humans (eg train tickets, bill payment, phone recharge)

3. Well we are a complacent lot. Ever since we are kids, we've been taught to mug and learn and get good grades and find a nice placement and then keep working hard. NOBODY taught us to KEEP LEARNING once we started working.

4. Even today when people hit a career hiccup, they first try to get another degree to add to their CV, and not really think about skills. The future of career is SKILL driven. There are far too many managers out there, far too many people with basic IT skills. What companies and the world now wants is specialization, true skill based performance

5. There are fewer jobs available now and require a higher skill set, something few people manage to achieve. Unfortunately your jobs may not 'teach you relevant skills' and you need to learn things outside your job.

6. Jobs have also become tougher because our cities are becoming tougher to live in. What was once a calm pleasant experience is now a day and life full of traffic jams among other things like water shortage. People are naturally getting fed up.

7. Startups, while being a wonderful thing may only end up causing more harm than helping for the professionals seeking jobs. With exorbitant salaries, people get used to the idea of getting paid more than they deserve, not realising that all that money is simply coming via some funding, and the salary will dry up along with the same.

8. Because of extreme job dissatisfaction, many have taken to the freelance route-turning content writers, bloggers, designers, trainers and so on. While that is a brilliant thing, what it leads to is too many people on offer for a limited requirement, leading to lowered price of all such services - meaning people having to work for lower fee per such engagement.

9. Put all these factors together and you get one or some of the following situations - people unable to grow in their careers, people unable to find suitable jobs, freelancers unable to 'make it work', growing stress because of too many loans and liabilities, an increasing pressure to maintain the 'good lifestyle' and some more.

What to do and how to get out of this?

1. Lower Your Expectations - You may do better than you are presently doing, but you need to begin by lowering your expectations - about your job, salary, quality of living and everything else.

2. Skill Up - Like seriously skill up. Learn something brand new that the industry needs, add it to your skill set and grow. If you think you have reached a saturation in your industry, you can even think about learning something new and switching fields. Better late than never.

3. Choose Wisely - You can go for the high risk high paying startup job. You can even startup yourself. Just be sure about it, and know that the trade off is stability.

4. Your Salary may not stay the same forever - Sorry but the changing times mean that jobs will come and go, the type of opportunities will change, and it could mean a drastic change in what you get paid at what stage in your career.

5. Be open to change, and change - Whether you like or see it, times are changing faster than ever. You need to learn to adapt and adopt. Be ready to get out of your comfort zone. Be ready to start something fresh.

6. Learn to work with / under a 'Junior' - Technology means younger work force getting smarter than the experienced lot. You need to learn to work under people younger than you, for it is them who will drive things around in the time to come.

There is no clear way out, but if you are really serious about your long term career prospects, then you may want to take some of this discussion seriously. Start now and you will be able to secure yourselves for later.

All the best.