Utopia Talk / Politics / Skill gaps impeding Indian prospects IT

Camaban The Overseer	Thu Mar 14 05:45:56 If anyone knows anything about how useless Indians are, IBM does. I was SME for the Indian team operating a major financial company for a while. I wouldn't use them under any circumstance now. I've seen too much. Pretty sure I also managed to get another team fired, suggesting that they could hire homeless alcoholics and get the same result for even less money. Not on a banking client. Anyway... Skill gaps impeding Indians’ prospects in tech jobs: IBM chief https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/skill-gaps-impeding-indians-prospects-in-tech-jobs-ibm-chief/article26520288.ece The chief of the American technology giant IBM, Ginny Rometty, Wednesday said India faces the typical problem of job applicants lacking the required skillsets for tech jobs, affirming jobs are available though. Rometty, the chairman, president and chief executive of the company, added the same problem is faced in other markets as well. The USD 180-billion domestic software industry directly employs over 4 million. In remarks that come amid similar concerns voiced by other tech leaders domestically, Rometty, said, “in India, you have the same issues. Open jobs, (but) no matching skillsets. “You have got to believe in a few different things than I think you believed in the past. One is to believe that skills are perhaps more important than a degree,” she said speaking a company conference, amid reports of huge unemployment among qualified engineers who when employed at the entry level are paid much lower than those semi-skilled with experience. There have been reports that nearly three-fourths of the millions of engineers and B-school graduates are not simply not employable at all, speaking volumes about the quality of both the academics as well as the admission process in the country’s education systems. According to private economic think tank CMIE data, as of February, there were as many as 31.2 million youth actively looking for jobs. This is in a country where over 60 percent of the 1.35 billion population are under 35. “It can be that you can have folks with less than a university degree, but participate well in this industry,” Rometty said. Contrary to perceptions of jobs being in short supply, she said there are jobs aplenty and an equivalent number of people looking for them, but the skillsets are not matching, which is the real problem. She said businesses and governments have to work together to solve the issue at hand, underlining that we cannot have a world of the haves and the have-nots in this new world where certain people know how to work in the new technology-led era and the vast majority of others do not. Posing a question on whether tech will kill jobs, she said the nature of jobs will undergo a change and also spoke about her company’s social sector projects, especially those aimed at educating women. Two years ago, the head of a leading European tech player had alluded to similar concerns as Rometty. He had said over 65 percent of the Indian IT staff is . “just not re-trainable”, and had taken potshots at the Indian education system also he blamed the tech companies for not doing enough. “For some unknown reasons, we call it a knowledge- driven industry. If you have that kind of talent, and then making them learn the existing technology itself is such a huge challenge,” he had wondered. Traditionally, the Indian IT sector has been thriving on labour cost arbitrage, but the changing technological landscape, including automation, has led to uncertainties. Industry lobby Nasscom last month stopped its 25- year-old practice of coming up with yearly growth estimates, citing these changes.
Hrothgar Member	Thu Mar 14 17:53:50 In my experience, it's the skills gained through experience that absolutely trump the college education for employability in the typical IT job in the US. This seems the case for nearly all small to medium business sized companies. Once you start getting into the wanting to work for the big companies - say Google or Apple then the degree in addition to the experience becomes really nearly required. And certainly for the engineering companies like Intel the degree actually has very critical education involved to being able to do the job. But for just keeping a networked medium sized US company's computers running? Working one's way up from the bottom with no degree to a really quite significant middle class income is totally possible in IT. Especially if you earn some certifications to add to the experience.
Camaban The Overseer	Thu Mar 14 18:53:38 I'll give that a yes and no. The theoretical knowledge is useful. Particularly for the early jobs. I don't think anyone past my second post-uni job has given a tinker's damn about it. This includes interviewing for Facebook and LinkedIn. There was 0 interest in the degree. Ten years on, however.... The last fellow to interview me for the next job asked me what I thought about my degree. I replied that the theory was useful, but that they didn't seem to know what they were doing. Everything was too new and changing too rapidly. It did teach me to stick at a thankless task for years, though. I think this is half the problem with teaching IT at the moment. Everything's moving so fast that by the time you've figured out what you need to teach, what you've figured out is outdated. It's maturing, but we're a while off yet. In the Indian case, though... It's like they're unable to learn new skills. When I was SME, the team I was being the expert for did everything in a completely manual way. I was teaching one fellow how to automate, but while he was keen to learn, his management would shoot down any attempt to make things more efficient.
The Children Member	Fri Mar 15 02:51:43 u can bring a monkey to a river but not make it drink. it was always ridiculous 2 think some pisspoor 3rdworlder is gonna frogleap 4 decades of improved learnin bypass superior overseas asians like myself and suddenly become sillicon valley hotshots earnin 6 digits or more. fuck that shit. start at the bottom at quickiemart like everyone else.
chuck Member	Fri Mar 15 06:46:33 Complaining about Indian IT? What's next, Dilbert cartoons? If you're spending your time interacting with bad IT, you should get a better job. Places that outsource to bad IT usually don't have great on premises IT either. Also, never be the best person at your job - you learn by working with better people, not being bored by an easy job and dicking around all day. Study, practice for interviews and find somewhere that makes their money from people doing your job very well. I've had luck with this strat as a programmer. It helps that there's an arms race for decent tech people. I make a multiple of what I thought was an amazing salary three years ago, and lol more than what I made when I started working a decade ago. Don't sit in the dumb row of the class bitching that it's full of dumbasses! Figure out why you're there and move forward.
Camaban The Overseer	Fri Mar 15 06:51:07 Who's complaining? I think it's awesome that they're useless. Their inability to provide serious competition equals money.
Camaban The Overseer	Fri Mar 15 06:54:20 Also, I've had about one job change per year on average since graduating in 2010. It took my wife up until a year ago to realise I actually like this.
	show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message: