The unemployment rate in India is peaking. A Financial Express article highlighted how the unemployment rate in India was at a six-week high of 8.1% earlier in August 2021. One significant reason behind this condition is a massive skill gap in India to increase employability, among other factors.
Thousands of students graduate each year with degrees and a glaring skills gap when transitioning to the workforce. This is because colleges aren’t equipping students with the right skills and knowledge to help them land jobs or make them market-ready.
Hence, there’s a vast need for colleges to restructure their grooming to make students ready for a market-facing pandemic-induced transformation. So how to bridge the gap? We’ll answer the question in this article.
8 Ways Colleges Can Make Students Market-ready
Considering the time and money students invest in earning a degree, it’s the responsibility of the colleges to make them job-ready. Here are eight ways colleges can make students more employable:
1. Build a Robust Career Center
Simply having a career centre isn’t enough. It’s the role these centres play in making the students more employable that matters the most.
There are many ways a career centre can benefit students. From teaching students how to write cover letters to networking, there are many ways the centre can help out the students in vital professional training. The department should also teach students how to tailor their resumes focusing on keywords that will help them bypass the initial resume screening rounds.
Another important thing the department needs to work towards is getting reputable companies to come to their campus for recruitment. The department can also tie up with services like CodeQuotient that help students become more skilled and assist in placement.
2. Prepare Students for Interviews
It is important that the career center caters to this aspect of making students more employable. Getting a job is an important part of the process. However, without any prior interview experience, how can the students excel at interviews? Even if students possess all the necessary knowledge, it is pointless if they do not know how to convey it effectively.
Arranging mock interviews prepares students for various questions and scenarios that might come up during an actual job interview round. From negotiating salary to getting a job they’re under-qualified for, mock interviews can teach students many skills. Being prepared for such questions also makes the students appear more thorough or potent to the recruiters in the discussions.
3. Leverage Alumni Network
Getting industry professionals to interact with students is always a great way to help them learn about an industry and its inner ethos. And what better way to do this than getting alumni to come to the college as guest speakers. An alumnus is more likely to go to colleges as a guest speaker than some other industry professional, who might even charge a fee.
Colleges can also ask the alumni if they’re okay with candidates shadowing them for a certain period? Work shadowing is observing how a person functions in a role. Shadowing will help the students learn about the responsibilities and duties of a position and the kind of pressure a job entails. The knowledge the students gain through work shadowing will also help them choose the right type of internship.
4. Help Students Land Better Internships
Internships are an excellent way for students to feel a workplace before starting their first jobs. Along with helping students gain some real-world experience, they also help students make connections in their industry. But, unfortunately, some internships can turn out to be nightmares for students.
One can find many reports of companies exploiting college students as unpaid interns. However, there are two kinds of internships that one should stay away from:
- Those that make students do menial work without teaching them anything valuable
- Those that make students work as much if not more than an employee without compensating them in any way
Therefore it’s essential to create a system, which protects students from being exploited by such scams and land internships that are beneficial for them—for instance, having a system where the students could submit an outline of the responsibilities they’ll be handling at the training before starting.
Again, this is beneficial in two ways:
- First, this will ensure students are learning something and not wasting their time
- Second, if the responsibilities outlined for the internship are a lot, then the student can ask to be compensated for the training.
An internship is the first real-world work experience for many candidates, so it’s the college’s responsibility to make it as smooth as possible.
5. Get Curriculum Reviewed
It does no good to the students when colleges teach them Pearl when the demand in the job market is for Ruby. Therefore, it’s essential to assess the curriculum to ensure it’s not outdated. It will help if colleges keep up with the times. An excellent way to do this is by getting the curriculum reviewed by industry leaders.
Industry leaders will help colleges tailor curricula according to the future needs of the market. The correct curriculum should maintain what the market will need when the students graduate 4 to 5 years later. And who better than industry leaders to guide in this matter?
6. Have Project-Based Learning
Another way of tailoring college curriculum for future needs is by having project-based learning. Project-based learning helps students develop skills like problem-solving and team management, which recruiters look for while hiring. Having worked on real-life problems and cases also gives students something to showcase when they go in for interviews.
Students ideally shouldn’t be the ones to blow their own trumpet, but project-based learning can help them build a great portfolio. Don’t forget, Mark Zuckerburg’s Harvard University project – Facebook – is today hundreds of billions-of-dollar technology giant.
7. Prepare them for a remote workspace
The pandemic has shown the future lies in a remote workspace. And with a remote workspace comes the need to be proficient in specific software and tools. Collaboration software like Slack and Trello have taken over the remote workspace. With time, the demand for being professional in remote working tools like Slack will be even greater. So, it’s essential to train your students in software that form the crux of remote work culture. Keep a tab on the latest remote working tools and software and make your students prepare for them.
8. Start Early
Last but not least, colleges ought to provide students with all the services mentioned above right from the first year. This will give them ample time to prepare and work on their shortcomings. So, when the time comes for actual interviews, they are ready to showcase their best self. Starting early will also allow students to figure out their shortcomings and better themselves.
We at CodeQuotient, hope that the tips mentioned in this article will help colleges make students more employable and market-ready.
Like we mentioned before, if colleges are looking for placement assistance or ways to upskill their students, they can reach out to us. And for more such insightful articles, check out our blog here.
