Get Ready Fast for NO

When NO- Next Opportunity

Pre-COVID it was predicted that 2025 will see India add over 80 million net new job seekers. COVID has brought the economy to knees, most of the sectors have got impacted, millions have lost jobs however there is foothold gaining back so yes there is a temporary snag which may not fully recover. Two industries which are still going strong are Pharma/Healthcare and IT, IT will become the strongest link in the chain to enable many other industries but the fact still remains that thousands of people are losing jobs especially in the IT sector- And there is a reason which is not fully attributed to Pandemic Impact

Yes we do have a Problem even earlier because of dwindling budgets, because of lack of competency and now most impacted by this Pandemic but there is a huge ray of hope if we do things in the right manner, look the interesting point is there are many IT job opportunities which are waiting for the right skills

Losing a job is still fine but not able to find another is a big pain, I can empathize with those who lost their jobs and are still looking out for, think about their EMI’s, running the household, educating their children, future plans, dignity of living, some people had reached the middle of the bridge, some had just started- no one deserved it, what to do next- should they get into a different industry…. . Agreed we are going through a very bad phase but Be Optimistic and ignore reports which predicts the KODAK death of Indian IT industry, which says that more than 2 lakh will lose their jobs in 2 years, one report said 95% of engineers in India are not fit for IT industry- such a ridiculous report, well it is a fact that there is decline in quality but does it mean that all graduates and institutions are fools- my advise is reject those reports better don’t even look at it.

Millennial’s make less money than baby boomers did for the same work, at the same age. They’ll also have to save twice as much for retirement as the previous generation. The cost of a college education has been rising steadily for decades and is now out of reach for many and that college education doesn’t even guarantee a job for a majority of college students.

.A major factor behind this trend is the uncertainty surrounding employment directly after college. Most of the 2 and 3 tier universities and colleges just aren’t providing the value they used to do earlier, which is to say they’re not actually preparing millennial’s for life in the real world, nor are they conferring practical skills.

While students can be partially blamed for not equipping themselves with new Tech skills but the major culprits are the colleges who still take tons of money to teach JAVA , it is collective responsibility for all of us which includes educational institutions, Govt, IT companies and including the Sr executives of IT industry to prepare them for jobs and guarantee a job, the sheer size of layoffs, uncertain financial security, bleak future are the main metrics of a country’s retarded economic growth.

I was watching a program which covered unemployment in Kerala especially focusing on engineers, most of the Private engineering colleges are just money making outfits, only 1/3rd of students from these private institutes get relevant jobs but many languish and then resort to taking up jobs as receptionist, rickshaw drivers or other low wage and sundry kind of jobs, the donations and fees they pay for securing admission to these notorious colleges takes its toll.

The interesting insight is that most of these graduates don’t know to speak English properly and that is a setback if you need to get into IT companies of course all other below skills are lacking still. Focus on the below points and rest assured you don't have to look back and let me tell you STRESS is integral part of our body- I mean these are just chemicals so don't be tricked by anyone who says that for Stress management there should be good work life balance or eat these supplements or get some anti-depressants- NO NEVER do it, you are the master of your mind and mind is the master of your body, these chemicals can be controlled by you and only by you- Domesticate Stress, Don't immerse in tensions(Tensions will come and go just like how we get mouth ulcers, dandruff, seasonal fevers...), only if you are strong your family is strong, your near ones and friends are strong- have faith in yourself .

1.   General Awareness/General Knowledge: If you are bad at this, it is difficult to stand a chance anywhere in today’s world. It is a skill which has become inherent to an individual and hence is of paramount importance that you start developing it as soon as possible! Of course most students in Kerala even elsewhere have sound Political knowledge and participate in Strikes, Protests… later realizing that precious time was wasted.

2.   Willingness to learn and learn fast

3.   Passion and Respect for the work, Salary/compensation cannot be taken for granted, it is not your right, it has to be earned.

4.   Teamwork mentality

5.   Willingness to research

6.   Always regard others as customers whether it is your colleague, boss, client so that customer service instincts emerge and make you a much sought after person.

7. Automation Hype- Please do not again worry about automations, if these claims were true then most IT industries carry an operation staff of 30% whose only job is to import reports, collate it, DON’t analyse it, keep on chasing- well so there are some automations which were always there isn’t it, like digitizing travel , expenses, payroll, central staffing, project management…. But did others lose job because of this- Automation is more about increasing productivity, promptness, looking for some unmanned activities- BY THE WAY Banks have automated/digitized a lot and maybe that is the reason they release 1000’s crores to frauds without any checks- they claim that all compliance is in place. Yes there will be automation always and that is what drives Aerospace,Airlines,Transportation, smart plants, gadgets,medical devices, defence and many other industries but for it work you need coders, you need designers, architects, project managers, testers hence do not be SCARED of term AUTOMATION, do not use it as an excuse to say that you lost job because of it.

8. Legacy technologies like Java, SAP,Oracle, MS will not go away, online learning institutions nowadays scare us by saying that reskill yourself to datascientist, AI, Android developer, datalakes, cloud- Of course cross-skilling is good BUT do not use the word RESKILLING- not sure who invented this word for IT, ARE WE reskilling from IT to Snipers or to Medical profession- A code is a code so people with legacy technology experience can easily cross skill into any new technologies.

9. All you need to do is put passion, sincerity in your work, put in quality, ownership in your work, aspire to be the best coder, best engagement manager, best architect, best BA- No one will lose their job and even if you lose your legacy Passion which you have it in you will get a new job – lot of jobs there sir.

10.   Respect commitments and deadlines

11.   Take up whatever work comes your way even if it is not fully aligned to your qualifications/skills, gradually you can make a way to do what you are skilled in.

12. While there is increased focus on emerging techstack, legacy technologies will not go off because companies invested millions and it is working.

1. Some of our Mid-level and Sr level colleagues want to continue doing the same backoffice operations job, do the same Bossy job of Service Line and Practice leads, do the same traditional project management jobs- they are not willing to shift their gears and learn the emerging technologies and methods nor are they doing their existing jobs with sincerity, with responsiveness, with perfection and not willing to generate revenues for the company.
2. The issue with most freshers(40% are extremely good of course) is they walk into the IT world with the dream of a comfortable job, work in a campus with Gym, large cafeterias, fun at work with lots of gossips, whatsapp chats and window surfing, sadly most are unaware of what lies in the future- they are not willing to stretch, not willing to work in AM projects, give them projects and they will start citing reasons to not get into it like health issues, family issues… And when the Axe falls they will cry foul, I understand even some good performers also get axed but that is because of business slowness and these performers will certainly get jobs somewhere else.
3.  Only very few companies focus on retraining resources but sometimes it is a high level agenda rather than creating an aggressive plan to ensure that all their resources get trained, there are SWAT teams who will take up a small team and ensure their teams are trained and fit for jobs- many jobs don’t get fulfilled just because of non-availability of skilled resources leading to revenue loss, companies need to lower their profit margins too and run most projects at fixed prices to provide job coverage.
4. Clients can contribute by agreeing to take up junior resources , some amount of inexperience, slowness needs to be accommodated for Digital, BI, CSD or Packaged apps projects, of course clients contribute the most in this area than anyone else but request is to stretch a bit more.

Nano Business Model to increase competency , create more jobs

Companies should open up Nano Business unit Revenue model which means have all your mid/sr level ppl become internal Franchisees for a set of technologies so for e.g. a Franchisee for BigData/Machine Language, for Node.JS/React/Progressive Apps and so on(Don’t confuse it with Practices or Competency lead, I am talking about SALES UNITS) , let them manage a small team of 10-50 resources(NOT more than 50), their KPI is to sell the skills of their team to upcoming projects, I repeat it has to be like a P&L Micro/Nano Department (so no Operations work, no Pyramid optimization, no financials work- you have shared services to do all of these) and their only focus should be to make their small teams powerful enough to be taken by projects, their compensation comes from the revenue earned

Now some may get confused that all IT companies have Service Lines, Business units, but here we are not talking about large kingdoms with couple of kings who sometimes don’t let go off their thrones—we are talking about Nano/Micro business units of not more than 10-50 team and of course micro-business units can collaborate with other business unit and do business. Once this Micro-Business venture comes in then we have a competing spirit, we become business minded, they are empowered to leverage organizations tools to do business, they become true business owners rather than lamenting about Top management not doing anything for them, they don’t get lost in the crowd waiting to get a monthly pay- It will be PAY FOR YOURSELF and FOR YOUR TEAM. If the Micro Business Unit owner fails to provide jobs to his team for more than 6 months then he/she has to leave. This model can assure jobs for most for sure.

If resources of a Micro-Business unit use their extra bandwidth(Uberization) to work for other micro-business units/ Projects then they should be paid(Overtime) for the same rather than just appreciating or thanking for their help.

Job loss of one person also affects economy of other people too like the milkman, grocer, cabs, maids, electricians, shops.. and even govt loses revenue on services. Progress cannot be selective and cannot be just for few people, both the employees and companies should walk up to the middle of the bridge to make the economy healthier and while Companies often cover 2/3rd of the journey to reach the middle of the bridge, the employees don’t take that effort and that is the reason for losing jobs.

Please try to be skilled in the following hot technologies if you are not a Salesperson or the CXO of a company(Now even CXO’s open their sleeves as they need to lead by examples). The above Micro-Business model anyways would make everyone a salesperson.

1. Cloud and Distributed Computing- Edge computing

2. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining(Big Data/Machine learning/Datascience)

3. Web Architecture and Development Framework(Node.Js, Angular JS, React, Progressive web Apps)

4. Middleware and Integration Software

5. User Interface Design- This is now becoming Edge

6. Network and Information Security- Cybersecurity jobs more than 1 million open positions globally

7. Mobile Apps- It is moved beyond traditional mobile apps, now it is convergence of AI, Nosql,multi-integration, speed, contextualness, user experience…

8. Data Presentation- Presenting BI reports is not an easy job, I will tell you with confidence that understand heatmaps, bubble charts, trends, digging microinsights and presenting them to top business executives is hugely challenging job and there is lack of talent in this case too.

9. End2End Engagement management, thoroughly driving Contribution margins, developing high performing team, understanding financial impacts, revenues, making projects healthier so that everyone can take home their bonus. Some will say but that is what project management is and we are PMP certified,Prince certified- Sir do an immersive dive and be the owner, an engagement manager is an entrepreuner so run it like your own business and this is where managers and above hugely lack.

10. Make effective presentations not only powerpoint but orals presentation, there is lack of good presenters who can articulate the use case, present the POV but for this you need to read a lot, interact with lot of people on the business and technology side, grasp the key trends, understand how to present metrics[ DO NOT PRESENT TEXTUAL Case studies]

11. SEO/SEM Marketing- Agreed old technology but now emerging once again because rankings, insights, online selling, branding has become more important than earlier times.

12. Storage Systems and Management

13 AI/Robotics of course but it is complex and not a cup of tea for most.

1. I am very optimistic that there are jobs for everyone in IT(so many startups have come up, really admire these guys who are creating jobs for many) and in other industries, agreed that in some cases business growth is slow, in some cases businesses have shut down but market will always seek hardworking, sincere, knowledgeable, passionate, positive attitude people- if you do these things rightly your confidence itself will lead you to taking on any challenges. India is growing so naturally we all have to adapt and it is not that difficult, VITAMIN-H is only vitamin you need for survival which will push your serotonins to take
2. I believe we all have the talent , no one is smarter than the other person, it is just that we don't push it more or take efforts to bring out our strengths and it lies hidden or ignored.
3. No one can help if we are not ready to help ourselves, don't blame it on system,professors, teachers, leadership,politicians....