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Old 16th June 2024, 09:24   #886
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
I have worked with people from all kinds of colleges. I have the found the correlation chart to be quite random. This is primarily because the skill that gets you into a tier-1 college is not the same skill that make you successful at work. Some of the best engineers I worked with are from 3/4 tier colleges, and I also know some average/terrible ones from IIT/NIT.
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Originally Posted by padmrajravi View Post
My organization hires from all tiers of colleges and I find the correlation between college tier and candidate quality strong enough. Of course, every now and then, we find someone from a lower tier college exceling over people from tier 1 college, but that is an abnormality rather than a pattern. Take 100 people with good grades from a Tier 1 college and take another 100 with good grades from a lower Tier college, you will have a higher probability of getting good candidates from the first pool. I haven't found any evidence against this assumption in the last decade. The companies that I worked for had a two tier salary structure based on college reputation.

I think the point needs to seen in context of the person. What you are seeking is the IQ which got the student into a Tier1 college in the first place. So when you hire from such a college you expect the person to have that IQ. I am not even alluding the skills needed. Thats a different story. I assume he is smart he will learn to acquire the skill.

Now its also be true that IQ of all students across a Tier1 college is not the same. Many "good" students chose not to go to a Tier-1 college just because they dont get a CS related stream. So the student coming into such branches may not that smart (Sorry to say this). The student may have joined the Tier1 just to get the pedigree connection to the institute. So the IQ assumption (that all students from a Tier1 have good IQ) goes out of the window. This is even more acute for the masters program in such Tier1 colleges.

Last edited by ampere : 16th June 2024 at 09:26.
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Old 16th June 2024, 09:58   #887
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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They do not even know how a prism looks like in real world - yet they solve problems on refraction !! They do not know how a burette / pipette / conical flask looks like - forget conducting experiments. Journals - what are those?
This brings back memories of my own little pipette story. I was in 1st semseter and next day was our chemistry viva with an external lady professor. It was rumoured that she is known in the university to bash students of any college she visits like anything and awards marks with a tight hand. I had not studied anything throughout the sem and was nervous about the insult that was about to happen the next morning in the viva. We were 5 students in one viva out of which 4 of us were good friends. They were mocking me since the previous day only because all of them were thoroughly prepared and I knew nothing at all.

The next morning we were the first 5 who were called by the lady professor. She looked like a thorough academician in her 40s ready to mincemeat.

As the viva starts she asks difficult questions to my friends one by one. They were prepared well and answered satisafactorily. They even relaxed a bit after each answer indicating that their individual storms had passed. Also they passed smiles to each other that now with my turn they can finally have their fun.

I was the 5th guy and feeling like a sitting duck. To my utter astonishment the lady professor asks me to simply spell out pipette. It took me a moment to realize that the question is not at all a chemistry one but i have just been asked to spell out pipette. I thought this was just a tricky situation and the lady professor is going to bash me left, right & center thereafter. With no choice i, sheepishly inside but confident outside, spell it out. The lady lauded me with great appreciation and said that I had brought laurels to our college spelling it out correctly in one go. This was the first viva of our semseter for chemistry and the professor had visited for the first time only.

I was not asked anything else. My answer made her really happy while she cross questioned the others a bit.

As we exited the viva the lady told me 'keep it up and all the best' while the other friends did not get any appreciation from her.

I was flabbergasted, my friends disgusted and angry at the same time. We were shocked to see that we all were awared more or less same marks when the results were announced.

Which also meant that my less marks in written chemistry paper were also covered a bit by these marks.
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Old 16th June 2024, 10:21   #888
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Now its also be true that IQ of all students across a Tier1 college is not the same. Many "good" students chose not to go to a Tier-1 college just because they dont get a CS related stream. So the student coming into such branches may not that smart (Sorry to say this). The student may have joined the Tier1 just to get the pedigree connection to the institute. So the IQ assumption (that all students from a Tier1 have good IQ) goes out of the window. This is even more acute for the masters program in such Tier1 colleges.
Yup, you nailed it. I wonder why lot of folks don't get this.

There is a huge swathe of people who get into wrong courses in tier-1/2 colleges just to improve their pedigree and placement chances, even though they have no interest in the course. I have seen in this even in the 80s when I was choosing my college. I have had classmates who picked chemical engineering in KREC (now NITK) just for the pedigree. I picked electronics in a 4th tier college because it was the field of my interest. BTW, I had a business partner for 16 years (and boss for 6 years before that) who is from IIT-KGP. He and IITian friends used to tell me that bottom scraping in IITs is a bad idea. They said, if you can't get top 10% from IIT, go for top 10% of REC, after that top 10% of the next tier college. If you don't stick to this thumbrule, you will get people who joined there for the wrong reasons.

And there is another aspect that colleges are assigned based on academic score, which is no indication of aptitude/talent of the student.

Therefore, I have stopped getting influenced by their college and even the degree. Instead, I pay more attention to their 10th and 12th grade math scores, which gives a better baseline. Then I look at what they have done beyond the academics. Do they have github projects, and what is the quality of those projects, are they original works, etc. There are lots of hints one can pick from looking at these activities about the true aptitude of the candidate. Curiosity and the ability to self-learn is the most important criteria I look for.

Of course, these are hard to do when you hire 100s and 1000s of freshers. That is why large employers simply apply college and marks as filters. And I am very thankful to them for it. So many good candidates get filtered out and I am able pick the gems from them.

And it also works out for large employers since no one really needs all their hires to be stars. Even if 5% of their hires turn out be great, their requirements will be met. I have described this concept earlier, so I won't rehash it.

Last edited by Samurai : 16th June 2024 at 10:27.
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Old 10th September 2024, 10:00   #889
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

Looks like the problem is not with IT alone. The Israel - india plan to fill the skilled jobs ( masons, carpenters, etc ) in Israel has backfired big time.

This has put a bad mark on the real skilled folks who go there. We have this uncanny ability to kill any good thing that comes our way in quest for ultra short term gains.

https://indianexpress.com/article/ex...-9559073/lite/

Quote:
‘Question mark on reputation’

Israeli construction executives say the lack of experience was acute, particularly from the G2G pathway. “Through the G2G bilateral route came very young Indians, many 20-year-olds who had never worked in construction…They came from jobs like farming and hair-cutting, some did not even know how to hold a hammer,’’ said Eldad Nitzen, chairman of Union Association of Foreign Employment Agencies in the Construction Industry in Israel.

Nitzen said the results were positive when the first batch of B2B workers arrived. But by May, he said, the “unsuitability’’ of workers had created a “terrible” situation. “Israeli builders refused to let them work on construction sites… the (Israeli) government finally gave us permission to put the G2G workers in unskilled jobs — factories, cleaning, loading-unloading, etc. The reputation of Indian workers became bad because Israeli builders don’t know who was B2B and who was G2G. After this experience, the builders got scared of getting unskilled Indian workers and asked us to bring Chinese, Moldovan and Uzbek workers and those from other countries. I have heard more than 500 G2G workers have gone back to India,’’ Nitzen said.

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Indian B2B recruiters say the situation has affected them, too. Vishal Mehra, executive director of Mumbai-based recruitment company Protech Engineering, said that following the “debacle” of G2G workers, contractors and clients have cancelled visas and contracts of as many as 2,000 Indian workers, mostly after May this year.

“Though testing was done at Israel-approved centres, the fact is that unskilled persons, even fruit sellers and rickshaw-pullers, landed up in Israel. This had an impact on the departure of B2B workers as well. Our company has sent 900 workers but we still have 400-500 more selected and waiting,” he said.
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Old 21st April 2025, 23:11   #890
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

Saw this depressing article on Linkedin today...

What is really happening in India's engineering colleges?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...-sarangi-wpgqc
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Old 21st April 2025, 23:33   #891
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
Saw this depressing article on Linkedin today...

What is really happening in India's engineering colleges?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...-sarangi-wpgqc
Don't have any insights about colleges but even during last PTM (Parents Teacher Meeting) of my 5th std kid, my wife and few other moms had complained about very lax attitude towards kids, although strictness like School of yesteryears is not possible and even not required but some level of enforcement of discipline is very much possible without any severe punishment, but even schools can't be blamed as some parents consider themselves and their kids as paying customers and expected to be treated like that.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 00:11   #892
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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but some level of enforcement of discipline is very much possible without any severe punishment, but even schools can't be blamed as some parents consider themselves and their kids as paying customers and expected to be treated like that.
I have conducted many such guest sessions in engineering colleges, I have never encountered such indiscipline or distraction. This could be a regional thing too.

Edit: I have also noticed pretty good discipline in my son's colleges too.

Last edited by Samurai : 22nd April 2025 at 08:48.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 09:48   #893
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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but even schools can't be blamed as some parents consider themselves and their kids as paying customers and expected to be treated like that.
Being a customer is fine, but a good customer also makes sure they get their money's worth of the service provided. This means attending every single class and squeezing the most out of what the school provides, no matter how good or bad the knowledge delivered is. This was my mindset in school or college. I used to buy books of my favourite subjects because that indirectly drove me to read them cover to cover for 'paisa vasool'.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 11:26   #894
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
Saw this depressing article on Linkedin today...

What is really happening in India's engineering colleges?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...-sarangi-wpgqc
Sort of related.

We live in a very large (2000 - 3000 flats) gated community. My wife is volunteer with the Waste Management team.

She gets invited to nearby schools for giving guest lectures.

I attended one of them as a spectator.

The most difficult group in the world to keep engaged is young kids. They can find everything interesting and boring at the same time.

This particular talk was in a very prestigious school that has a very different style of education. No exams, no homework etc.

The first 5 mins of the talk had all the kids busy in their chit chat.
But my wife is used to this.

She started engaging the kids with humour and directly pointed questions.
Like asking the kid with the big earings to stand up and point to that kid with the yellow water bottle, who now has to get the attention of the kid sitting 2 rows back, who will have to answer this question.

In 10 mins, all the kids are into the speech with full interest. There is pin drop silence with occasional laughs and screams.

The article you shared is IMHO from a person who is used to a captive audience who has no free will. So when he had to step up his game, he was not able to.

It is also his failure to connect with the audience and change the mood of the hall.

This video was once shared in a training I attended on why body language is so important when presenting to a group.

He walks all over the place, the language changes, the hands move all over, he stops suddenly and the style makes you get totally observed in what is actually a very simple topic:


Last edited by bblost : 22nd April 2025 at 11:33.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 11:42   #895
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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The article you shared is IMHO from a person who is used to a captive audience who has no free will. So when he had to step up his game, he was not able to.

It is also his failure to connect with the audience and change the mood of the hall.
Possible, but hard to say without being there. I agree there is a big onus on the speaker to make the speech worth listening to. Just rambling to the crowd won't achieve it. I have been addressing audience (few dozen to few hundreds) since 40 years, starting from my NCC days. First, you must always curate the content of the speech to be relevant to the audience, relate to the audience, and interesting to the audience. Second, read the room and engage the audience, switch tactics if needed in the middle of the talk.

Anyway, I primarily posted the article link to focus on the part II and part III of the article, where he discusses the quality of education and students.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 13:18   #896
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Anyway, I primarily posted the article link to focus on the part II and part III of the article, where he discusses the quality of education and students.
Most folks have always lamented about the fact that they never have good teachers/professors to teach them. What most people dont realize is a professor does not teach the student. He merely guides them and points them to good resources. Its the student who does the work to learn and go back ask doubt if he/she has any. This applies even today. A lack of good teacher can still be made up by reading good books and adopting a strong regimen/discipline in the college. An educator at least must have the sense to set that discipline. If we can get that to happen, we can still progress and learn no matter what the quality of teacher is.

Hence I would still assert its this lack of discipline/process which is killing these places more than anything else.
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Old 22nd April 2025, 13:59   #897
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
Saw this depressing article on Linkedin today...

What is really happening in India's engineering colleges?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...-sarangi-wpgqc
The situation is not very different in government colleges also.

My company recruits EC and CS graduates and post-graduates from top engineering colleges (IITs and NITs)

I have had the misfortune of being a part of the EC interview panel on many such occasions in the last few years. (I try to avoid as much as possible)

Some of my common observations are:
1. Students are not able to recollect even the names of subjects they studied in the last 3-4 years. (Most can't recollect the names of more than 5-6 subjects)
2. Students hardly read any books, they just study the ppt slides presented by the professor
3. Most students claim to have done fancy projects. But when probed a little bit, they are not able to answer even basic questions about their own project.
4. Two students who did the same project, explain it in a totally different (and contradicting) way
5. Students who are doing internship in well known companies have no idea what they are doing. They seem to be mostly doing black box testing.
6. Students in 8th semester can't remember what they studied in 7th semester
7. Some over-smart students feel that they can fool veterans sitting in the interview panel by reading out answers from a second screen (in the case of interview over Google Meet)

The best one was when one student started the interview by saying that he was very interested to work in VLSI, but could not tell the full form of VLSI. (He was final year EC graduate student in a very reputed NIT)
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Old 1st July 2025, 00:01   #898
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Not really. I never go with that fancy graph. The ground realities are different. C++ might still used in Product Companies but there also it is getting relegated to areas where performance matters, like Automated trading systems core engines.
.
.
.
Not taking anything away from C++. It is awesome. But I see it losing ground.
And 12 years later...

C++ moved from 4th to 2nd place, and Java moves from 2nd to 4th place.

IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates-screenshot-20250630-235659.png
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Old 1st July 2025, 00:19   #899
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Originally Posted by rohan_iitr View Post

I have had the misfortune of being a part of the EC interview panel on many such occasions in the last few years. (I try to avoid as much as possible)

Some of my common observations are:
1. Students are not able to recollect even the names of subjects they studied in the last 3-4 years. (Most can't recollect the names of more than 5-6 subjects)
2. Students hardly read any books, they just study the ppt slides presented by the professor
3. Most students claim to have done fancy projects. But when probed a little bit, they are not able to answer even basic questions about their own project.
4. Two students who did the same project, explain it in a totally different (and contradicting) way
5. Students who are doing internship in well known companies have no idea what they are doing. They seem to be mostly doing black box testing.
6. Students in 8th semester can't remember what they studied in 7th semester
7. Some over-smart students feel that they can fool veterans sitting in the interview panel by reading out answers from a second screen (in the case of interview over Google Meet)
I am sorry to say, but you sound a bit like how some parents talk about the education of their kids. Everything used to be better in the past.

All parents since ancient times have been complaining about their kids getting a poorer education at school/college/university that they had.

Even so, centuries of human achievement tend to show us that, by and large, we tend to make progress on just about any topic under the sun. Despite this continuous decreasing level of educational standards all parents are claiming

Your observations might be spot on. But these kids did spend a lot of time studying. The biggest pitfall in interviews is to search and ask for what your reference is. What you know, what you could, how you approach things at that age. I believe that is the wrong approach. You need to try and understand what these kids where taught and how and how they do things differently.

Every generations learns differently and learns different things compared to the previous generations. So when. You concentrate on what they don't know, or can't articulate you are missing out on half. You need to u understand what they know, you don't, what they can do, you can't or could not when you were their age.

Expecting kids to be carbon copies of their parents, in terms of knowledge, behaviour, approach is a sure way to no progress. Progress always comes from doing thing differently, knowing different things and so on.

You might want to consider, you are the odd one out and not in touch with current times. Rather than these kids not being able to live up to your expectations.

As they say, make the world a better place, start the change with yourself.

Jeroen
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Old 1st July 2025, 09:35   #900
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Re: IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates

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Expecting kids to be carbon copies of their parents, in terms of knowledge, behaviour, approach is a sure way to no progress. Progress always comes from doing thing differently, knowing different things and so on.

You might want to consider, you are the odd one out and not in touch with current times. Rather than these kids not being able to live up to your expectations.

As they say, make the world a better place, start the change with yourself.

Jeroen
Sorry, you are being really unfair here. As a very long time recruiter of fresh graduates, I very much concur with rohan_iitr's observation, although he comes from a different generation than me. Even in our interview panels we have interviewers 25-28 years young than me. They have exactly same opinion, so this is not a generational thing.

And India has one of the most gamed hiring environments. There are so many companies flying under that radar, whose business is to help candidates pass interviews using all kinds of underhanded techniques. It becomes very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

If a freshly minted engineering graduate in AI (yes, it is a branch now) doesn't know when to use mean vs median, it show fundamental ignorance of the field after 4 years of study.

Over years of interviewing, we interviewers do learn many such litmus tests that allow us to differentiate. It is not perfect, but it does let us filter out most of the unwashed masses among the candidate pool. Results do speak in the end.

Last edited by Samurai : 1st July 2025 at 09:58.
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