Rediscover the job landscape

Updated on: Tuesday, April 07, 2009

If you are a student about to graduate and have been reading stories on job losses every day, you probably are worried. But there are multiple reasons for you not to, as opportunities still exist, if you know where to look. With the sixth pay commission tipping the scales, the public sector comes with the added advantage of job security.

An indicator of the popularity of government jobs is the number of subscribers to the blog ‘Sarkari Naukri’ (http://sarkari-naukri.blogspot.com), which lists government jobs in India from Central and State governments, public sector units, courts, universities and banks. It is nearing 50,000, says Manisha Sharma, who runs the blog.

The blog categorises the job listings under different categories such as Faculty/Teacher Jobs, Latest Bank Jobs in India, and IT and Engineering Jobs in India. Most jobs nowadays are for engineers, management trainees, she says. Finance and HR are popular areas, she adds.

A 31-year-old homemaker, she started the blog in June 2006 and spends five to six hours online every day updating the information. “My family members and I missed many good opportunities due to lack of timely information. So, I thought there should be a place where all government job-related information is available,” she says.

With the IT industry maturing, numerous areas beyond software programming are emerging, says Sriram V. Rajagopal, assistant vice-president, HR, Cognizant. What is noteworthy is the continued emphasis and need for strong communication and soft skills in these areas too.

“Two common prevailing myths in the minds of students today are — everyone in IT sector is a developer and only engineers have an IT career,” he says.

IT infrastructure is one such area. It deals with providing clients the ability to optimise, continuously monitor and enhance the performance of their entire IT infrastructure backbone — ranging from server and database infrastructure to email, he says. It also involves managing the IT operations, IT help desk support, systems integration, platform migration and upgrades and consulting services such as IT infrastructure assessment.

Any science or engineering graduate can work in this sector. In some areas, a diploma holder in Computer Science is also considered. While companies usually provide their own training, a recognised certification course in the respective area is valued, he says.

Another area is Knowledge Process Outsourcing. Apart from providing best-in-class call centre and back office-related work which improves and increases the core process capabilities, BPO today provides varied opportunities for graduates of niche disciplines, says Mr. Rajagopal.

The areas covered under a Life Sciences KPO include Clinical Trial Management, Clinical Data Repository, Clinical Data Management, Statistical Programming, Medical Writing, Data Migration and Pharmacovigilance, an area that deals with understanding short and long-term side-effects of medicine.

The educational requirements for this area is a high specialisation in any related domain (medicine, paramedical disciplines, pharma, bio-tech, genetics, law, IPR, etc.) with analytical skills, he says.

The secret of surviving in a recession is to ensure that you have a monthly revenue, says S. Mohamed Tajudeen, placement and training officer of B.S. Abdur Rahman, Crescent Engineering College, quoting Warren Buffet. In the insurance sector, there are many opportunities, he says. For example, in the general insurance category, in the area of motor vehicle insurance, mechanical engineers are needed to assess accidents and the like.

As a stop-gap arrangement, candidates could also teach, he says. Though all colleges and universities require a postgraduate degree, candidates could work as a research assistant or teach in training institutes, he says.

But there is quite a bit of competition to get a job at training institutes nowadays. “Normally we used to see 20 to 30 responses. Now it is around 50 to 60,” says Joder Singh, territory manager of Apollo Computer Education.

The job requires you to teach computer-related subjects and have good communication skills and teaching talent, he says, adding that the pay depends on the candidate. “It is a full-time job; requires eight to nine hours a day.”

For more information visit : www.hindu.com

Rediscover the job landscape

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