Perception Gap Analysis of “Employability” amongst Academia, IT-Industry and Fresh Engineering Graduates

Abstract

Employability challenges of fresh graduate engineers are widely known and well accepted globally. Hitherto studies have focused on improvisation required in the academic approach to bridge these challenges. Creating fresh employable graduate at entry level is a process, which is impacted by multiple factors and academia cannot be single handedly held responsible for the lacunas of the overall talent ecosystem. One of the major shortcomings observed in this context is the lack of understanding of concept of employability by the important stakeholders of the ecosystem – i.e. Academia, Industry & Graduate Engineers. IT Industry has been the key beneficiary of ever-expanding talent output from academia, which has grown multifold in last two decades, but the contribution of the industry towards enhancement of quality of education and providing a uniform threshold level understanding of employability and its constituents has been lacking. Authors in this research endeavor has tried to understand the perception of term “Employability” for the IT Industry (employers), Academia (Faculties and Training & Placement Officers) & fresh engineering graduates. The findings identified from the study are important in creating a common shared understanding amongst the important stakeholders to channelize their precious resources and efforts in right direction.                          Uniform interpretation of skills relevant to industry and its application, is an important step towards building shared understanding between industry and academia [1]. Collet et al. have highlighted the importance of uniform understanding of employability skills to ensure common understanding. Each Stakeholder is using different meanings of skill & its application, which is the biggest challenge and needs to be resolved [2]. Employers have been often inconsistent in defining threshold level or definition of employability, its often variable of their business model which is very contextual in nature. At national level, the educational institutes and industry has a relationship which is very contextual in nature [3]. Rosenberg et al., in their study have concluded that industry/employers lack in articulating their requirements clearly to academia [4], even at workplace as well employers have varying perceptions basis their views of different tradition, political biases and other factors, for employees with similar educational qualifications [5]. The empirical studies very clearly highlight the need to develop a common understanding of employability skills amongst all stakeholders. This research study leverages blended approach of quantitative, non-experimental design survey and qualitative semi structured interviews. All three stakeholders’ categories ~ Industry (Employers), fresh graduate students and academia (Faculties and Training & Placement leads) are provided with questionnaires to capture their understanding and views on employability.

This study leverages employability factors described in the policy research paper published by World Bank “Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated Engineers in India” [6].Three skills factors (Core employability Factor, Professional Skills factor and Communication skills factor) are defined by the authors. The input received from the stakeholders indicate that perception of employability for each stakeholder is significantly influenced by their respective contexts and the key drivers of the same. The IT industry is more driven from their business context which is dominated by Professional skill factors and Communication Skill factors. For Fresh Graduate Engineers Communication Skill factor is found to be dominant with more importance communication in English, advanced computer skills. Academia representative gave more importance to Core Employability Factors and Communication skills factors. Although, inputs received from Industry need to be given higher weightage as industry is the end user of the talent produced by academia but this agreement on employability skills by all stakeholders can lay foundation to develop the shared understanding of Employability concept amongst all stakeholders in the talent ecosystem.