Top 5 Employability Trends That Students Need

Employability is the buzzword in the employment market today, where every stakeholder is working towards building a high-value pool of employable talent in the industry. Keeping this in mind, few employability trends that outgoing students need to keep in consideration are:

Adopt apprenticeship models to boost your skills: Apprenticeships models are a globally accepted platform to enhance the employability quotient of the youth. The principle of “learning by doing” and “earning while learning” has been tried and tested to create employable resources across the world. Germany is the best case example where apprenticeship is an integral part of the education system. In China, there are about 20 million apprentices who become a part of the labor market. 

In India, the concept of apprenticeship was introduced in 1961; however, the system has been highly underutilized. Over the last few years, the trend has gained significant momentum. In 2014, the latest amendment in the ACT has made apprenticeship conducive for both employers and candidates. While traditionally apprenticeship was restricted to technical roles, by introducing ‘optional trade’, even non -technical and service industry are now covered under apprenticeship models. NAPS (National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme) has been introduced by Ministry of Skills and Entrepreneurship to incentivize employers as well as students to take up apprenticeships. Additionally BOAT (Board of Apprenticeship Training/Practical Training) has been introduced under the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The youth must be exploring enrolling in these models to fine-tune their skills and be job ready. Apprenticeships models today offer attractive stipends as well. 

Choose integrated learning as an add-on to traditional education: Standalone learning platforms aren’t sufficient to build capabilities anymore. A combination of conceptual knowledge and on-ground training helps create employable talent. And hence a blend of classroom session with on the job training or vice-a-versa will aid students to adapt to the skill demanded by the industry. Technology will play the crucial role in this by enabling digital and virtual classrooms which will make learning more flexible, customized, highly accessible and cost-effective. A classic example of this is the UK which has redefined its apprenticeships standards by including online platforms for conceptual learning instead of relying only on classroom sessions.

Increasing industry-university partnerships: Today, it is pivotal for education to be linked to employment to make it more relevant and create job-ready candidates. This makes university and industry partnerships more pertinent. Universities are designing programs with inputs from employers to make it relevant to that organization and to the industry. In this setup, candidates are exposed to a customized curriculum and industry experience which further bolsters their capabilities. Further, this will also help candidates develop cognitive skills which employers dedicatedly look out for. 

Currently, these industry-linked programs are limited to the technical domain (especially manufacturing & ITI), but now these programs are extending to nontechnical streams like retail, healthcare, logistics, finance, HR, BFSI, ITES, and the IT sector as well. Also with constant changes in the eco-system, more Universities will come forward to offer such programs. In times to come, the services sector will see a huge spike in apprenticeship enrolments.

Employer establishments will be the new classrooms: Onsite learning will rewrite the definition of the classroom. Employer establishments are likely to emerge as the future of the learning eco-system redefining the traditional concept of classrooms. Real-time on-demand training at employer’s premise will have more impactful learning. Such as learning mechanism will help up-skill candidates and make them job ready. 

Re-skill and up-skill to be job ready for future roles: Consistent skill training is fundamental for candidates to remain employable. With continuous disruption across industries and technological evolution, job roles and continuously changing. 2017 witnessed numerous jobs losses across sectors. To stay ahead of the curve and remain employable, it is imperative that candidates constantly skill themselves. This will help them overcome any redundancy crisis that may emerge in their industries due to an evolution of technology. Many employers today facilitate skill training for both existing and new employees in order to sustain a highly employable talent pool. 

In the supply chain of a skilled workforce, employability is the key connecting link and will continue to be a focus area. Students will have to stay ahead of the technology curve and adopt mechanisms & learning models which will help them fine-tune their skills and be ready to take on the opportunities the eco-system has to offer.

Sumit Kumar

Guest Author Sumit Kumar is currently overseeing the operations of NETAP is a Public Private Partnership of Teamlease Skills University, CII and NSDC under the National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) of the Ministry of HRD (AICTE). Prior to TeamLease he was associated with Monster India as their regional manager.