Important reasons why some fresh Indian engineers struggling to get a job?
There could be many reasons for the fresh indian engineers who are not landing to the right job or any job on a reasonable amount of time. The observer (e.g. a senior professional) can have different view on that. Since I have been interacting with many fresh engineers who studied engineering from varieties of engineering college e.g. Vaish College of Engineering Rohtak, ISM Dhanbad, Kalinga Institutes, Engineering colleges in Haryana, Engineering colleges in Punjab, Thapar College of Engineering Punjab, and Engineering colleges in Rajasthan.
I observed that many fresh candidates are struggling to get the job or a right job, and here are some of the reasons:
1. Staying at home and waiting for the job to come
Fresh engineers are staying at home, and individually working to find the job. However it’s better to meet with relevant people to get the right job.
*Candidates are staying in his hometown than to the city where job is there e.g. Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Banglore.
* Candidates not fixing the appointment to meet with right professionals, by asking the right set of questions and getting the guidance to build the pre-professional image.
2. Simple CV which only tells name, father name, very simple skills and percentage of marks
Most of the fresh CV’s only talk about the – Name, father’s name, address, a very simple academic project and simple skills. This information just put the candidate in a general list or ignore list, as it doesn’t tell anything specific about the individual.
3. Attending a lot of training programs but no efforts on self-learning
Most of the fresh students joined various training program, and whatever taught to them that’s it. But they didn’t study at home back to understand the clear concept of the attended training.
4. Always thinking, that company will provide the complete on job training
Many of the fresh candidates say “why we should study, as company will provide the complete training”. Yes, the company will provide the complete training for what the exact work to do, but to be eligible for that work you have to come with your intelligent ideas, creativity, attitude and the best you studied.
5. Not doing the self-evaluation to understand the gap between the industry and the CV/Resume produced.
It would be good practice if an engineer can see the demand from the various interesting job profile e.g.
*If somebody looking a job on cloud computing area then its better to ask from professionals about the requirements of such type of jobs
*Search the available job descriptions(e.g. cloud computing) from various job sites e.g. dice.com, monster.com, cybercoders.com.
*Search the existing professional(e.g. cloud computing) from linkedin.com.
*Update him-self at-least close to that job profile and provide the clear matching skills/information in a form of CV or resume.This information should be properly organized so that the reader (e.g. employer) can understand that your skills closely match with the applied job.
6. No creativity while applying to the jobs e.g. old pattern CV and simple email
Usually candidates send the same CV to various type of job. It’s better to read the job description before applying the job. Some jobs demand the skills type -A and some jobs may demand the skill type –B. It might be possible that you might have both skills; it would be great if you can highlight your skills which are needed by the employer. So it would be recommended to tune the CV based on the demanded job profile.
7. Always expecting the high end jobs
Always waiting for the high end or high salaried job, However one may start from the low-end job or the job which might be not a interesting one and then continue to next step for the high end or interesting job.
8. No follow up to companies, mentors, seniors
No habit to do the follow up with the mentors, seniors, companies e.g. once the CV sent to one company and then no follow up to the company (e.g. rewriting the email again).
9. Didn’t study well to their academics
Took academics very lightly, didn’t try to understand the basics of most standard subjects of engineering.
10. Didn’t understand the language of English for technical books
Many of them, they didn’t get the habit to understand the engineering’s technical concepts in English language, and always feel a headache while studying in English language.
11. No hands-on practical things
Didn’t try to do the hands-on while studying various technical topics, e.g. it’s seldom to see a electrical engineer who by himself buying the technical component to make his own creative electrical switch/sockets (e.g. operated by remote) Or any other electrical component to present his individual creativity. It’s seldom to see for computer engineers who buy the embedded board or contributing to any open source e.g. solr for search , hadoop.
12. No focus on basic concepts
Many engineers joined the training programs, but didn’t care about the basic concepts of the part of engineering for what they are studying. If consider the case of Computer Science and Engineering e.g. data structures, computer networks, database are few of the main basic topic in computer science but many people trying to learn xyz (e.g. without trying to understand by himself to see what should be learn and what might not) or something else have no idea about the basics of computer science.
13. Expecting a short-cut
Many fresh engineers think that their brother or relative will help them to find the right job. However based on the current industry pattern, only that guy can get in to the company who is competitive and very well in study and work.
14. No idea, that searching the job requires a disciplined approach
No disciplined approach to find the job and always forget the other ways.
*Maintaining a excel sheet to enter the list of companies, their business profile and contact person.
*Following those companies to see the advertised job requirements.
*Checking linkedin or other sites to understand the existing professionals in that company.
*Rather than only trying to your CV get submit to company, also try to achieve the practical knowledge on a specific area to become the asset of that company.
*While approaching to a person for job e.g. Log the details to the excel sheet whenever you wrote an email or made a phone call to a employer/friends/recruiter, and estimate the next follow up time.
*Keep improving the skills day by day by doing as much practical as possible.
15. No idea that filling the technical gap requires a disciplined approach
Not much focus on the technical concepts with no clear objective. If you study C++ every day, say four hours a day with right book, and perform proper programming by keeping some objective in mind e.g. writing the file system API or writing a library by using the BSD socket’s API. Plan for what to be done, what not to be done, and build your CV based on the accumulated confidence.
16. Randomly searching/studying on internet here and there, jumping on link x and then link y.
Randomly searching/studying on internet will help but it will not help always. It may help for some reasons but not always. It may distract you to do the right study not a focus study, because focus study require right book, tools to perform practical’s, and if question arise then search on internet or better to ask from professionals.
17. No efforts to get in touch with professionals
There are various ways to get in touch with professionals e.g. find in your relatives, friends, and neighbors. Rather than just asking “please arrange a job interview”, it’s better to get his or her guidance and see what the actual steps you can take to go to next step.
It’s highly recommended that get in touch with those professionals as early as possible during the start of your academic study.
18. Not willing to update the knowledge
It really requires to update the knowledge step-by-step e.g.
*If you have studied C++ then see the differences introduced by the C++ 11.
*How wordpress 3.8 better than 3.3.
*See from job sites what types of job opportunities are there and based on, tuned the CV or knowledge,
19. Not willing to improve the communication skills
Communication skill is the area where it requires using the way of speaking, way of writing the emails, talking over phone or presenting yourself on various other situations.
Many emails just say: “Dear Sir, Please find my resume, thanks, XYZ”, or “Dear Sir, PFA resume”.
20. Not willing to buy the books
It’s a good practice to buy at-least one book on every month e.g. it can be from Java or anything but buy various book that will help to do the right thing.
21. No Participation/Member ship from IEEE, Linux Foundation or any other professional body
You may see more in industry by following various research papers, or patent published, e.g. what type of research is going on, or you may participate with Linux foundation or wordpress foundation or anything else to keep yourself updated.
22. No Idea which technical/language training is right
Many students joined various training programs with almost no clue to do to what with that e.g.
*One guy joined the English language course, but he doesn’t know whether he need to improve his vocabulary or writing skills or speaking skills or all. He didn’t try to self-evaluate himself and then prepare the right set of questions to ask from the language teacher.
* One guy got trained in robotics, and while asked “what you have you done on your training”, He said “I did training on robotics”, but what exactly you did, “Blank face”.
23. No Idea about the presentation skills.
Very weak on presentation skills, e.g. dressing sense, being fit, which perfume to buy, which color combination would be a good fit, best suited hair style.
24. Not following the professional practices
Sending the CV by giving the name resume or CV e.g. resume.docx, and email id is : cuteguy@xyz . However it would be more appropriate to define e.g. CV_SumitArora_June2013 or Profile_SumitArora_June2013 or email : tosumit@gmail.com or reachtosumit@gmail.com,
25. Not with a right Attitude
Attitude also the biggest issue, not interested to listen the guidance from professionals/teachers. Always busy in a closed loop and self-defined thinking.
26. Not coming out from a Comfort Zone:
Always staying in the comfort Zone and not interested to do the extra effort. No idea how to come out from a comfort zone.
(Above are my views which are observed by interacting with variety of fresh engineers who are struggling to get the job or right job. You might have different points.You might be a fresh engineer who might not accept all points from the above, as above points are collected from varieties of engineers.)
I would like to add my comments on this :
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