ASPIRING MINDS

The panelists in the discussion forum were:-

1. Mr. Prashant Bhatnagar, Director, Sapient Consulting Limited.

2. Mr. Rajesh Tripathi, Head of Group - HR, TATA Power Delhi Distribution Limited.

3. Mr. Sachin Khurana, General Manager - HCM at OSS Cube.

4. Ms. Poonam Tharad, AVP-HR, Mahindra Comviva.

5. Mr. Amit Kumar, Lead-IT Hiring, Snapdeal.

The session started at 11:00 AM with a brief introduction of the panelists by TEAM Aspiring Minds.

Mr. Prashant Bhatnagar started the formal discussion by stating that the low level of Employability in the young engineers has been a daunting issue more for corporates than the colleges. If the companies do not get the right talent, their own eco system is hampered and the projects are delayed. The company looks for industry ready people today. The training period has shrunk down from 6 months to 3 months and eventually will come to 0 months in the coming 2 years. He stressed the point that a person should have the right attitude and aspiration to work. He laid stressed on the fact that, ‘Skills can be taught but attitude cannot be taught’. More than looking at the technological expertise, a company looks for people who have the passion to take care of things even in hard times and takes ownership of the issues and problems.

The next in the line to present the thoughts was Mr. Sachin Khurana. He stated that the technology can play a big role in checking the employability of the students. He appreciated the model of Aspiring Minds for the evaluation of students and stated that it is a very innovative criterion for checking the IQ of the students. He also laid stress on the fact that the implications of such technology cannot be judged in the short duration as this is a long term endeavor.

Mr. Rajesh Tripathi put forth his point saying that the issue of employability does not end at hiring of a fresher but also at retaining him in the ecosystem of an organization. He advised the audience of the rigorous training program practiced at Tata Power distribution Limited. It is a 3 month program in which lot of projects and assignments are given to the students and they do it as a TEAM work. This inculcates a sense of ownership of the problem and they brain storm together to get it sorted. Their departments are continuously interchanged so that they come up with innovative ideas to solve a problem and they are better employed resources. He also laid stress on the fact that it is not about imparting a well-planned technical training; the environment in which it is imparted also plays a very important role in it.

Ms. Poonam Tharad stated that the initial 2 years of any fresher hiring is an investment for an organization and hence at times the fresher feels lot of pressure in the working environment. She stated that the company’s prefer to visit the campuses for hiring as it is more cost productive to recruit directly from the college as compared to other sources. She advised that identifying problem in a system should not be discouraged as a good idea can come from any segment of employee. But a thing to keep it in mind is to make sure that the same employee must come up with an innovative solution to solve the same problem. She also impressed upon the fact that the industry is in need of passionate and innovative people who treats the company as their own entity and not just a working entity.

Mr. Amit Kumar stated that it is his personal experience that the student does not know the role required in a job. The issue of employability comes into picture as many students appear for an interview even without knowing what sort of skills are required to do a particular job. He stated that a student might be technologically sound, but if he does not know the roles and responsibilities of a job, he will make a grey impression in front of the interviewer and hence might be rejected. He explained that due to the advent of e- commerce many new job roles have come up. Category Specialist, Data Analyst, Product Recommendation are some roles will are booming up, but the irony is that the students does not know about them. So, creating awareness is very important.

Post all the views of these eminent panelists, Mr. Varun Aggarwal - COO and CTO Aspiring Minds showed a small presentation on the company. He stated that technology can test, train and scale the employability with quality and can take a student to pinnacle of success. Be authentic in what you are doing and being passionate and dedicated is really important in life.

After this the forum was opened to the audience to ask questions to the speakers. Most of the audience showed concern about the organizations visiting premiere institutes like IITs and NITs for placements and not giving private colleges a chance to showcase their talent. The speakers agreed to the point that there is a lot of hidden and unexplored talent lying in private colleges but due to certain limitations companies are not able to visit these colleges.

Lot of brain storming was done on this subject.

The event ended at 03:00 PM with the networking lunch.