TALENT ACQUISITION STRATEGY HAS COMPLETELY CHANGED

Sourcing process is no longer led and driven by employers who can pick and choose talent as per their requirements only. It's an employee market too, says Srinivaas R Katkoor, Director, Human Resources, SAS India.

- Aanchal Ghatak

With a rapidly changing tech scenario and a continuous upgradation of skills, how is the industry able to cope up with the issue of employability of new engineering graduates?

As per India Skill Report 2021, less than half of the Indian engineering graduates are employable. In order to enable these students cope with the widening gap, institutes are encouraging more campus recruitment training as well as more Industry-Academia interaction for students to interface with some of the challenges of the real world. Companies are working with universities/ colleges in industry-specific curriculum by looking at current and future industry talent needs to minimize the gap between industry skill requirement vis-à-vis graduates competencies.

Towards this end, SAS has also collaborated with premium institutions like IIT Kanpur, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT), NMIMS, Goa Institute of Management and others to craft out curriculums to skill students and current working professionals. More recently we have partnered with Rajiv Gandhi Center for Advanced Technology to aid young job seekers and help prepare them for the future by equipping them with the new skills necessary in an increasingly digitalized economy

How employable are talents from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in terms of meeting the new-age technology requirements?

Students from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are competent in performing basic IT roles, but they need to be further upskilled with advanced technology skills along with variety of professional skills like adaptability, empathy, teamwork, communication, and active listening.

The dynamics of organizations has changed, and the expectations are two-fold one is a technical skill and the other one is professional skills which help to work within the organization and helps in interacting with customers.