Is Aspiration Killing our Job Prospects? Time to Introspect?

"I am a graduate sir, why should I do a job of 6000 Rs?" Rafique's eyes were showing the anger he had while he said this to me! I head the placement department of an skillling company and as my designation would suggest, I am the job man in the company. On an average, we get 100 to 200 jobs to our students every month and the number is on an incline. But Rafique who comes from a farmer's family in Hansi (Near Hisar, Haryana) is the only living being to have graduated in his studies to the 10+2+3 level and undoubtedly is very proud of this too! I was interacting with some of our students and during the interaction I told them that the market today is offering salaries of INR 5000 to INR 8000 in general at the entry level in areas like Sales, Retail, Restaurant Chains, Domestic BPO etc when Rafique decided to break lose.

Rafique says, why should I work for 6k when I can earn 280/- per day as a daily wage labour (that's about 8.5k per month). He also believes that if he has done his graduation then he should be paid a better salary than his other classmates who are not graduates as yet. And believe me, Rafique is not the only one who feels this! The youngest country in the world today faces a big deficit of skills in its youth, Skills and not Degrees. Thanks to our academic system, it isn't that tough to get degrees in India (at least the basic ones) but no-where during our school life or college life was there an emphasis on the skilling of these kids. As a student, even I never saw my school or college trying to impart a specific professional skill (as they do in the West) and this most of the time leads to a strong mismatch between the youth's expectations and what's available in the market.

Today's consumption based economy has resulted into thousands of jobs in areas like Sales (BFSI and others), Retail, Hospitality (Restaurant Chains), ITES (BPOs) but owing to the aspirations of our 18 to 22 year olds (which is not really to work in these areas as they should ideally do) these companies are facing a talent crunch. Most of the companies in these sectors have PAN India operations and their replacement hires per quarter runs up to 20,000 and if you add their new hires, it can range anything between 22,000 to 25,000 candidates. Now, this number is huge! Given the unemployment scenario in our country, only one client can virtually accommodate youth from a few villages for its normal recruitment cycles. But the problem is that our youth either does not want to work (I will not get into the reasons for that since its an entirely different topic) or they don't want to start with what they are getting.

They are not ready to go and do sales, or take / make calls in a BPO or stand in an air conditioned showroom to attend to customers. Their most common rebuttal is | "Sir, can I get some office job?" or "Sir, not this one, but may be a better job" | and this I am saying after interacting with youth from over 50 cities across the country! Honestly, the fact is that most of them din't invest time in thinking through what's going to happen when my family stops supporting me or what will I do when my family needs my support? Majority of them have the wrong aspirations set - but jobs will come only on merit and not on any other grounds. A job is always subjective - My job may be good for my sub-ordinate, I may like my boss's job more!

My advice to the younger generation would be:

- To speak to as many people as you can about what is available in the market basis your current skill sets
- If you don't agree with what you are getting, then try and up-skill yourself
- Don't rely on peer talks about salaries and jobs, the entire internet is at your disposal, go and find out yourself
- You won't be wrong all the time, so have confidence in yourself and march ahead

If you are offered a job, don't leave it. Remember as one of my ex super bosses said:
"There is a difference in a dwarf and a kid. A dwarf always remains a dwarf, whereas a kid as the opportunity to grow in life at his pace and on merit"

There is no reason why you can't make it big in life, but there is no reason why you shouldn't start small. I started my career 11 years back as retail store executive for a salary of INR 1,740 per month and I feel proud of the growth I experienced in 11 years and I truly believe that if people like me can, then You Can.... India Can......

I would be very happy to talk about this topic in case you have any questions. Just comment on the post or write to me through the contact page and I will catch you in a day's time!!!

Till my next post, keep working hard and never take a job offer lightly, it might just a turning point in your career :)

Cheers
Sumit

Important: The name of the student and location was completely imaginary and was used for this specific blog post. There are no resemblances to any living being in this post.