Michael Backman on India’s Employability Challenge

Am currently reading “The Asian Insider: Unconventional Wisdom for Asian Business” by Michael Backman (Backman), published by Palgrave Macmillan. Blackman is a well known business analyst and expert on corporate governance practices in Asia.

The book is a must read for those who want to know more about the political environment and business practices in Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and China. I personally found the book to have some incredible insights peppered with facts and interesting anecdotes experienced by the author during his travels.

With regard to the author’s observations on India, I would like to highlight one particular observation. In a chapter on India’s software revolution, the author writes about one challenge that could affect India’s software sector. He writes, “Furthermore, there is a quality issue when it comes to India’s graduates. Engineers from elite institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology can be regarded as world class but they make up only a small percentage of India’s technical graduates. The rest tend to be trained in a rote-learning, inflexible environment and lack the skills and self-confidence that multinationals require.”

Well…this book was published in 2004 and the author’s observation is still very relevant in the current scenario.

Faking IT

A few days ago, some newspapers carried a report that Wipro Technologies and two other Indian IT companies had initiated efforts to create a database of candidates with ‘fake CVs’.

I had co-written a small case study (that was compiled from published sources) on this problem back in early 2006. It seems no more like a one-off issue and the problem has only worsened.

So now in addition to the challenges faced by Indian IT firms from the strengthening rupee and fears of a sub-prime led recession in the US, there is this growing problem of fake CVs right in our own backyard.

What’s disconcerting is that the fake CV racket has become a “well-oiled machinery” or “cottage industry”. Talk about using our ingenuity in the wrong direction.

Even NASSCOM has initiated the National Skills Registry to try and counteract this growing menace.

Of course, everyone agrees that embellishing one’s CV is ethically or morally wrong. But then why do so many resort to it?

‘Everyone does it’ is a usual ‘excuse’. In this highly competitive world, ‘getting the job’ is all that matters, even if it means getting a false work experience certificate or enhancing ones academic grades through Photoshop.

Job seekers, especially freshers, say that they are left with no option but to get these false certificates as they have no ‘real’ work experience. Makes me wonder as to which is more effective in convincing recruiters, just a plain work experience certificate or the learning experience they gained while on a project or at work.

I think even our education system is partly responsible for this. The lack of proper application oriented training and a focus only on testing how well one has memorized bookish knowledge is bound to put our students at a great disadvantage in their job quest.

Some people even say that we have to be realistic. It really doesn’t matter if the candidate has faked his/her CV as long as they contribute on the job. All I can say is that it’s the company’s call. But personally, I believe that honesty and integrity are paramount. An honest person who is an average performer can be coached and reskilled. The main concern with an employee with questionable integrity is that in the back of our minds we lose our trust and faith in them. And in data sensitive sectors like IT or banking and finance, this is absolutely critical.

The choice to fake one’s CV or not is actually upto the individual. Personally, I believe that it’s always best to be honest and upfront. Keeping morals and ethics aside, it’s actually more to do with your effectiveness in the interview and your behavior at work after you get the job. You can be confident that what you have put in your CV is correct and this really gives a huge boost in the way you interact with the panel members and your coworkers once on the job.

To conclude, amidst all this debate of whether one should be ‘realistic’ by Faking It or be honest and stick to their ethical / moral principles, one fact is clearly evident- Fake CVs will continue to remain a problem just like corruption or black money laundering.

It means that the only ones who have no complaints about this growing menace are the background checkers/ CV verification service providers, and of course, the fake CV operators. Both will continue to see their business grow.

The Unemployables

If unemployment was the main problem during the License Raj years, unemployability has become the major concern in India’s post-liberalization period.

So it came as no great surprise when I read yet another news item / report on the growing unemployability problem in India. A recent study “India Labour Report 2007: The Youth Unemployability Crisis,” by TeamLease Services, a leading staffing services company in India, states that unemployability among the youth is a far greater problem than unemployment.

What’s disconcerting is that India’s growth story may not be hampered by just the oft cited poor roads and infrastructure or corruption, but much more due to its growing number of ‘unemployables’. Moreover, the problem of ‘unemployables’ will continue to grow given India’s young demographic profile and an ineffective education system, both at primary and higher levels.

It’s clearly a paradox situation where in companies are competing with each other for talent, when the number of unemployable youth is ever increasing. How long can companies hike salaries, and increase perks before their high employee costs impact their competitive advantage.

So what can we do to overcome this challenge?

Unemployability is a huge monster that has to be tackled on many fronts. It is a crisis, but also seems a good opportunity for entrepreneurs to bridge this demand-supply gap in skills and competencies.

On a more immediate basis, I think we need to look at the graduate and post-graduate level professional degree programs. The main concern is that most of the knowledge imparted is bookish in nature and does little to prepare the student for what he/she may encounter on the job in the corporate world.

In this regard, many corporate entities like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, etc. have initiated industry-academia partnership programs to impart more practical education to students, train the college faculty, and make the curriculum more attuned to the industry needs.

But I believe that the efforts of a few corporates may not be enough to address the full scale of the unemployability problem. There are over 2,000 colleges (many of which teach the engineering discipline) and around 1,400 management colleges (as of end 2006). Corporate entities may select only a few of the well known colleges, which leaves out a large majority.

Entrepreneurs are needed to address this opportunity by providing employability training programs and workshops that develop life skills. Also college administrators and faculty members need to initiate changes in their curriculum and change the nature of pedagogy.

Above all else, I feel that students themselves need to understand that they have to take a keen interest in their personal development, identify their skills gap, and take action by forming self-help groups or attending personal development programs. This will not only help them become employable, but also enable them to get better growth and earning opportunities throughout the course of their career.

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