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Tech Hiring in 2021: What Does it Mean to Universities, IT Orgs and Trainers?

CEO, Nuvepro

After a pandemic-scarred 2020, with salary cuts and the instant firing of employees, there is finally some sigh of relief for the employees. With the onset of the vaccination process, the hiring trend is on its way back. According to the Michael Page global survey, 6 in 10 companies also intend to hand out increments while 55 per cent are planning to give bonuses. 

The pace of recruitment will increase this year, said about 72% of startup founders surveyed by debt fund InnoVen Capital in its annual Startup Outlook Report.  

The Change in education policy and a hike in freshers’ demand with an increase in digital 4.0 technology lead to a new assessment method for companies hiring freshers in 2021. Skill Sets in Cloud, AI, Cyber, Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, and domain specialization are in demand. 

Hiring in 2021: Companies and Startups Hiring Virtually  

“Getting good talent has become increasingly difficult and while good high growth companies do attract talent, since the same pool of people is being courted by most firms, getting them has become difficult. That’s a big challenge we face,” said Aman Gupta, co-founder of lifestyle wearables brand boAt. 

Home-grown Infosys Ltd plans to hire 24,000 college graduates in the country in 2021-22. The big 4 IT companies plan on hiring 90,000+ in the year 2021. Last month, HCL Technologies’ global IT development center also announced plans to organize a virtual “Mega Recruitment Drive” in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada to hire around 1,000 freshers and experienced professionals.   

Companies such as KPMG, Capgemini, and the like have announced an interest in hiring across 400 positions and about 30,000 people. Capgemini comprises Digital and Cloud Services as 50% of the business. 

It will be false news if we say we are surprised with the increased rate of hiring. The demand for tech skills was foreseen and the changes that the Learning and development and hiring team will be taking have transformed too.  

The hiring of freshers continues to be on a strong growth trajectory. For the period February-April 2021, freshers hiring intent has improved by 2.5 times from the lockdown period and as the economy opens up, it is expected to go up further. 

These new programs require significant ramp-ups and skills across technologies and domain areas. 

 

How can companies hire the best employees?  

With the increase in using Cloud, it becomes effortless to use it for various aspects in the IT industry – hiring, skilling, training, promotions, etc. Hiring skilled professionals becomes tough considering the pool of resumes that the recruiters are drowned in every other day.  

What we are going to currently focus on is using the cloud for hiring the best potential candidate. How? Here’s how: Using cloud-based hands-on labs as a hiring tool 

It can solve the biggest challenge of hiring freshers. Software knowledge of Python, JAVA, etc. requires more than theories. The technical know-how will help companies and startups push their employee force to the next level in a short time. 

Nuvepro offers a customized and managed lab environment as a tool to hire based on technical expertise. Hands-on labs can also be used as a solution for upskilling and Learning. 

How can Learning and Development Professionals upskill their workforce?  

According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2021, reskilling is the need of the year. The economy sees demand in the tech industry while the world receives from the pandemic and is ready to adapt to the virtual way of living and learning. The survey reports that in India, 78% of L&D professionals believe that upskilling or reskilling is going to be their primary focus for 2021, and 61% of L&D professionals report that they are responsible for helping leaders identify current and future skills gaps. 

 

Role of Tech Universities and Colleges in Making Seasoned Freshers

To stand out from the crowd, freshers will have to invest in upskilling themselves and staying ahead of the curve. The Silicon Valley of India opens its gates to freshers in the startup culture. It means the seasoned tech students are chosen and onboarded.  

Tech universities need to reform the technical learning provided to their students to : 

The new education policy: The new system will pave the way for skill-based learning, denouncing rote learning. Integration of Coding and analytical thinking is crucial to step forward in the 2020s. The value of knowledge is now assessed on a scale of skills shown through hands-on assessments.  

 

Technical Placements: Developing technical skills right before the placement season is as important as soft skills. Knowing the formulas and codes to a problem is knowing how to present yourself during the interview. The technical assessments have now become standard practice before the interview rounds.  

 

Standing out from the crowd: Hands-on labs for learning technical skills in tech universities will improve the trust of the companies for hiring freshers. It will help the college to stand out from the other tech universities in making seasoned freshers.  

Working with software tools such as MATLAB, AutoCAD, Jupyter, etc. becomes critical.​ Digital 4.0 technologies such as Cloud, Big Data, AI, ML, Blockchain, etc. need infrastructure that cannot always be set up within the on-premise labs at the institutions.​ 

Hands-on-labs learning becomes a strong differentiation for tech institutions looking to adapt to the new education policy. Some labs that have seen an increased demand for Nuvepro:  

  • Coding labs for C/C++/Python and Java.​ 
  • Application labs for Matlab, AutoCAD, etc.​ 

Has your institution adopted the new way of tech learning? If not, take your first step with us 

IT Training for Freshers: Training Freshers to Increase Productivity in IT Companies 

Now that we have dived into the number of fresher hiring in 2021, we dive deeper into the IT training scenario for freshers in IT companies and the impact it has.  

The IT companies emphasize the importance of IT induction training. Hands-on practice in freshers makes them delivery-ready, thus increasing productivity in the workplace. The post-Covid era sees demand in tech 4.0 skills such as Programming labs (Java, Python), Full Stack, Big Data, Machine Learning, DevOps, Data Sciences, and Cloud. 

 

What do IT training institutes need to consider in their induction programs?  

Tech companies are looking at innovative ways to schedule training programs remotely. The main idea is to provide freshers with a real-world environment to learn. Thanks to cloud technology, we can now do that remotely.  

Mukesh Lakkad, global head of HR at TCS said, “We are engaging with them(freshers) and deepening their learning. We conducted a virtual hackathon recently where 6,000 candidates participated.” 

Infosys, Capgemini, and other big IT companies have shifted to virtual platforms for induction programs. Here is why training institutes should consider using a hands-on-labs environment for induction programs  

One LMS for all IT training: A blended learning – a mix of theory and sandbox environment is available in one place. Imagine how labs as assessment tools can make the training even smoother. Here is how Nuvepro made it possible. 

 

A platform for organized training portfolio: The varied need for courses, theories, and practical learning can be integrated into one platform. Your specialized portfolio can be used in future training. Labs can be customized to the specific training requirement.  

Talking about reskilling the workforce, hands-on-labs can be used to create labs for in-demand technology. The labs serve as both, upskilling and assessment platforms both 

Does your induction program include this new technology to provide IT training? 

 

Conclusion: 

2021 paves the way for using cloud technology in daily activities revolving around IT companies and technical learning. It is a good time to wrap up the old methods of doing things to get a head start at being proficient virtually.  

Nuvepro hands-on labs provide a managed lab solution with a platform that can be customized as per the requirement. IT companies such as Mindtree, TCS, NIIT, and the like have adopted the best practices. 

Align a quick demo session for a walkthrough of the platform.  

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