A C Nielsen ORG Marg's T Schools '10 Campus Recruiters Index has made the less than startling discovery that 64% of engineering grads who join tech companies intend to leave within the first two years or less. This number is apparently up from 47% in 09 and 59% in 10.
Fact is, few engineering grads seem really enthused about joining Infosys, TCS, Wipro and the like - especially if they happen to be from tier 1 institutes or God forbid, IIT. Company aa rahi hai, to chalo job le lete hain.
Serving the companies right too in a way, if they're willing to snap up any which engineering graduate - civil, mechanical, metallurgical - just because they need to add 10,000 bakras at a time.
Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.
A 2009 graduate from a premier institute in Mumbai who was working with Mastek had this to say: "Since IT companies conform to CMM level 5 they have to keep a certain % of the workforce on the bench ie idle. And it can get damn frustating."
There are enough cases of freshers who complete their training and then just cool their heels for a while: come to office everyday, send email forwards to each other (the only timepass available in the absence of internet access) and somehow get through till the end of the day.
Sounds like fun, doing nothing - but try doing it over a period of time. Sucks bigtime!
Another complain is "I asked to work on X technology but was put onto a project using Z technology." Z is apparently getting 'obsolete' but still a current business requirement. But that argument doesn't cut ice with apna 'I-want-technologies-that-look-good-on-my-resume' engineer.
The Long, Steep Climb
Although the 15,000 bucks you get in hand as a fresher seem decent enough at the time of joining the really long ladder ahead is soon evident.
In most companies it takes 18 months-2 years to get sent on an offshore project and earn that precious dollar allowance (which is the carrot dangling in every techie head) and though that's not really a long time many don't have the patience.
Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:
There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.
The work in S/W company is quite mundane and does not involve too much programming skills. If you have good talking skills and project yourself well to your managers, you would grow.
Given that scenario - and the fact that there is no inherent interest in software as a career - getting into an MBA or MS program is a good escape route. And seems like a faster way "up".
Basically, managing the aspirations of thousands of above average intelligence 20somethings is no joke. Yes they have fantastic campuses, working culture, and future prospects as well but when all that becomes the norm, dil still maange more and that's where the trouble lies.
Above average folks eventually hear voice whispering in their heads: " Is what I am doing meaningful?" Here's one techie's answer, again posted on the PG forum:
"Hmm, so you thought Windows XP was written in India? nops, but the typing of all the HELP doc was done in India. You do not do much programming. If you are in Mainframe stuff, whereever you work it's going to dig into some code written in the 1970's and you'll be wondering half the time "how could people write such hopeless codes?" and you would need to add one or two lines into that code. Yes not more than 20 lines!
If you are in any of those open system projects, Java, .NET half the time is documentation stuff or changing and test some crap stuff. But few projects have something good.
Remember software industry is not about creating new things. Its all about client giving you work. Work that their IT team is NOT interested in doing.
But you get money $$$$ and of course work experience and a life called "White collar job".
Not very inspiring, especially in light of the fact that those with MBA degree from premier institutes in the same company clearly seem to earn more and rise faster. As well as enjoy greater mobility - they have the option of leaving the software industry altogether if they wish.
This is what is happening in today's booming IT market and every Wednesday filled in opportunities column of the newspapers.
Good examples are our managers who could be an alumni of top B-School but who will not be able to reason out even simple things at their disposal. We would have laughed at them couple of times but it is important to decide whether we would also be preferred to be an object of joke rather or something else.
Right on the hearts of all so called "programmers" & IT professionals who jump into the field because of money and end up doing menial 'software' tasks which actual 'computer engineers' do not do and are infact over-educated to do so.
Our's is a forsaken IT doomed, err boomed country and I have to introduce it as a SCAM [no acronym, my naive way to emphasize].
Still many refuse to be a part of the clan whose sole aim in life is to exist/lurk in the office irrespective of the nature of work, wait in the ration line to go abroad, live like mice there, come back, buy a longish car, get married, time wife's pregnancy such that the expected delivery takes place while on the second phoren trip. They refuse to become a whore who looses her values.
The first job switches happen because the first job should not have happened. The second one happens because the industry (Legal Process Outsourcing) needs to grow and people have to move out to setup/help setup new firms and then they end up working on patents, in effect working at the cutting edge of research (patents are as cutting edge as it gets). Research it is, albeit not theirs, but then how many paying jobs in India are doing research anyway.
And yes, having modified 20 lines of code in 6 months is not an urban legend. This is the life of every Infoscian, and I would guess a Wiproite and a TCasS.
It's a SCAM because those who do not get frustrated of working on the mindless projects, are the ones who become more successful, at least in the way society defines success. Ladke ke paas paisa hai, achi naukri hai, foren aata jaata rehta hai. kuch to computer ka karta hai, bittu tu bhi kuch seekh infosys waale bhaiya se.
I know many people who refused to be a part of the corporate whoredom at Infosys and the like, and went back to research. My own friend went back to IIT Kanpur to pursue his research related to materials engineering. But the unexciting thing was this: he was earning 9000 rupees as stipend. This was a SCAM.
Here is a guy who was studied enough to clear the JEE, do an undergraduation at an IIT (no I'm not being snobbish), and is now pursuing research, which may well make foldable computers a reality tomorrow, but he is earning like 10 TIMES less than people who chose to be in the likes of Infosys, go onsite, and time their wife's pregnancy.
Its a SCAM because Civil engineers who could join National Highways Authority and build great roads and bridges are wasting their lives with codes written at the time their parents were dating each other.
Its a SCAM because a mechanical engineer who designed buses in his bachelor's project is now waiting in the ration line to go "onsite".
Its a SCAM because an electronics engineer who designed systems for alarming in case of landslides in college is now installing Windows XP in Texan country and goes to strip clubs on weekends.
Many become IT engineers (the second biggest mistake of their lives) and work at some S/W Technology companies for a year (the biggest mistake) and at times the fastest growing IT companies, also become the fastest sinking.
It's sickening. CMMi and their kin are all hogwash, most of it is as someone rightly pointed out, just piles of crap that some dude decided to make up one fine day. On paper, most of it makes sense. But since so little is actually implemented, it makes one hate the system.
Millions of capable minds are warming the benches with their copious bottoms, a few hundred are working on MS-Word, doing documentation, and the rest are Project Managers - read capable of doing nothing at all.
I have three points to make -
1. I hear, from friends still in the industry, of facing a massive backlash from the client's employees, in addition to doing depressingly unchallenging work. A backlash because they believe that sometime in the future their jobs are going to be sent across to India. A case of half-baked knowledge, for sure. But what transpires is despicable. Dirty politics takes the fun (whatever is left really) out of cleaning up someone else's shit - read support and maintenance projects.
2. It really is high time we started moving up the value chain. For a country that churns out software professionals by the hordes every few months, it is no less than shameful that we have but a few software companies which are into product development as a core activity. The country is awash with jobs, yes, but it will remain so only till the Chinese learn English. Once that happens, all these service jobs are going to move across the border, because they'll be cheaper to execute there. That will spell the wipe-out of an entire generation of call centre dudes and dudettes.
3. Well, its all eyewash anyway. So unless someone stands up and cleans the entire system from the inside (shocking stories abound, mind you), nothing much can be done. Behind that glorious facade of shimmering glass and aluminium, there is an entire industry that is hurtling to its doom on the optimistic cushion of inflated projections and impractical business forecasts. The future, I believe, is somewhere else.
Days fly past and months zoom away. No saturation, no frustration, just plain unadulterated joy.
There's a God up there. And there's something beyond an MBA to escape the mess!
In most cases B.E or engg guys end up wasting their degree...ultimate is wasting one seat if it is at a premier college. That's why counseling in schools become all the more important so that in the near future one needy guy, one passionate guy can be there instead of guys who later plan to waste the degree either out of choice or out of circumstances. Yet, you have students flooding engg colleges. In fact a perfect example can be found with people who also have done their MBA, they usually end up wasting their Engg degree. Why didn’t or don’t these people start doing their BBA and then MBA instead of Engg if later they decide to quit industries related to their graduation days!!!
All these cribs may make one think that so much of brainpower is being "wasted". But, trust me, recruiting really good candidates is far more difficult. The freshers from the colleges, who have sky-rocketing aspirations, don't put same efforts in polishing their technical skills.
Engineering is finally not nirvana these days. You get great money, move up the ladder faster, switch jobs with great ease, and do the challenging, earth-shattering work. Lots of assertions without substance. "The country is awash with jobs - it's easier to leave and more tempting to do so than ever before. Let's see how long the party lasts!". The days of switching your job because you didn't like the food served are numbered.
Even a 6 figure monthly salary after BTech/MBA is not worth it if you are not utilising it. Sooner or later, one goes through this "mere life ka lakshya kya hai" phase. Again I can say that Steve Jobs' funda of 'not settling' as long as one doesnt find one's love is supercool. There is certain fraction of Howard Roark in all of us. We just need to awaken it and it holds true for engineers, MBAs, and many more.
Although I have depicted the picture of many "techies", let us look into an Indian Manager.(I am excluding all your top B-school grads)
He/She is typically in his 20s (lol).....
They dont have *any* skill except "communication skills" which is a euphemism for chattering! You have more number of managers than actually required and they end up doing nothing except banter around with some stupid case-history anecdotes about some Fortune 500 company.
We have this situation everywhere.
There are more people talking about "changing a process" as soon as they step into it ! Without actually knowing how things work in an organization.
Most of them are overpaid and yet they are out there to make "cost effectiveness" for companies!
I do agree that technical people go out of an organization due to various reasons. One reason is the "happening occupation"...It was automobiles in the 70s, electronics in the 80s.....And everybody made hay......
BUT there are people who ARE INTERESTED in technology....NO MATTER HOW OLD IT IS.....Computer Science is a SCIENCE and it wont die...Be it mainframe or nanotechnology or some other thing.....
Finally I believe that home grown, technically sound managers are much better than these MBA jocks who are eager, enterprising dolts. But when the part baloons burts, both "techies" and MBAs will be on the roads.
Many of these people work for like 16hrs, isolated from the civilized world...except for that net connection ....
I can't understand where the 'love of learning' has disappeared. Actually i wonder if it was ever there. I think of a time in the olden days when there used to be a worker class in the factories, and now it has been replaced with the programmers class.
Basically, managing the aspirations of thousands of above average intelligence 20somethings is no joke and the green paper has the last word in every business... so be it. IT jobs are being recognized as an extension of college life and this has brought in some kind of comfort factor among the IT professionals. The society expects an engg graduate to join one of the IT majors and there is very little one can do to go against the norm. With the IT biggies having an employee base of 20K - 40K employees, the new hires will find it increasingly difficult to get noticed hence they start looking for career advancement options and MBA is a natural choice.
The indian media has largely exaggerated the IT thing so in the college people expect A LOT. As things eventually turn out the work is pure shit. You wont use anything other than MS-Word and Excel (thats why engineers make good managers coz they are already bonds in excel!!)
The companies themselves spend a shit load on PR. Infy helps Boeing succeed and what not! What really is the case all the poor engineers would be knowing.
So when reality comes crashing down on you, you better RUN (to mba or US) or just with a defeatist attitude look at the silver lining this shit has.
Besides, not only Indian companies but even MNC's opening shops in India have forayed into this cheap low complexity high documentation CMM 5 crap so you cant escape the drudgery in india.
HR in big companies is heard rearing. They have to make their grass appear greener when everybody is doing the same! Man , their job sucks! You are treated like a prostitute if not a jailed convict .
But then we should be proud to be the biggest toilet cleaners of the Westerners in the whole world!
In general, engineering graduates are not well prepared, either technically or attitude wise and it probably takes them 2 or 3 jobs to kind of "find themselves". I also strongly feel that ethics should be taught in engineering schools; I see a lot of immature/unethical behavior. People think that once they leave a job they can burn the bridges. IT was much easier in the USA, where H1's would bind people. Sigh... Maybe we should hire from other 3rd world countries and bring them here on H1s :-) Would provide a stable working force, and we could all focus on product development.
But why blame only the S/W industry. Even in a traditional manufacturing industry one hardly uses his engineering knowlwdge. Infact there are only a handful of guys who might be using their engineering knowledge.
There is a different pain with these bright engineering graduates. If we dig deep an MBA is not really the answer, it is simply a way to feel better than the Engineering jobs. Honestly, MBAs don't have cutting edge jobs either. It is a "good feeling" kind of a trip.
India needs to encourage entrepreneurship. Programs to funds and take risk to build products are required. We have an advantage of having an outstanding talent pool but we have choosen to take the easiest path. Services and making a quick buck. This is no ones fault, it is simply a human nature. We all want the easiest paths to success. But there is a cost addition to it. We pay now or pay later. Paying later means we pay with interest.
Its a classic chain. Most guys take up engineering since there is nothing better that assures a decent white collar job. They then join software since there is nothing better to do. After one or two more years they want to do better than just coding for some obscure clients and they join a MBA. Almost 70 to 80% of MBA junta in India are such frustrated engineers. What happens after a MBA? Around 20% shine and become bankers or consultants. Around 30% join marketing. The rest come back to software as business analysts and project managers.
So the answer to 'how to stop attrition' is : you can't. Whether you make people sign bonds or chart out detailed career paths - if they join your industry because it's the easiest job available to them and not out of inherent aptitude or interest, they're always going to be difficult to hold onto.
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