Dark cloud over employability prospects of TN job seekers

A serious concern voiced by employers who look forward to hiring students from Tamil Nadu in their organisations, is the lack of employability of many candidates. Despite students from the state being bright and analytical in nature, they are put in a spot, when it comes to the job scene – primarily due to the training methodology used in colleges and the negligence of key language skills. 

Filling us in on the state of employability of students from the region, Nagendran Sundararajan, Executive Vice President, MeritTrac Services Pvt Ltd says, “Colleges in Tamil Nadu have to seriously invest in employability programmes. They will have to measure a student’s readiness for employability right from the second or third year, take interventional action for employability and tell the prospective candidates where they stand and where they need to improve. 

The colleges will have to get into a culture of making students employable in the market, when they pass out of their institutions.” He goes on to add, “Candidates will have to train themselves in communication/language skills and vocabulary in English, which have assumed a great significance in today’s work scenario. I have seen several candidates from the state picking up communication skills after working for close to 10 years. But by that time, they have missed out on the high profile jobs. Also students from Tamil Nadu are not used to writing competitive aptitude tests in the objective format, which once again poses a big hurdle in the long run.” 

Others believe that the employment potential in the industry has also gone down due to the prevailing economic conditions. Ramesh GS, Chairman, Layam Group Consulting Firm tells us, “Today, the auto industry is going through a tough time. It is not riding a high as the market is going on a 50-50 ratio.

So obviously, the impact can be seen in the college placements. Also, in the commercial sector, the GST is in the offing, which is impacting the sales environment of commercial vehicles. It is impacting the industry in terms of production. And in a cascade effect, it has also impacted placement.” He adds, “Production of commercial four/six wheelers will be stalled when the market is dull. 

We are all expecting a development by next February or March, in terms of things looking up. We had projected a very good sales pitch this time which had gone down because of GST. As the wait and watch attitude is prevalent, the market has been affected. Customers are waiting because if GST comes through, they are benefitted. As a result, the sales or the market order value has gone down at present.” 

Nagendran points to the fact that in India, there is no standardised method of certification with respect to various high specialisation job profiles. 

He says, “Take for instance, the banking sector, where there are quite a few highly specialised jobs, like say Treasury Management. 

The banking industry has not come out with a specialised certification that says an individual is endowed with certain skills in this area. So if there are ready-made certifications around that, it would be easy to hire people based on those qualifications. We need a lot more industry interaction and employers should rely more on certifications to hire those people for specialised jobs.”