Posts Tagged ‘job’
Study As You Like in Community Colleges
Education is trying to seamlessly fit into every lifestyle and is taking varied responsibilities into consideration. Not everybody can follow the rules laid down by conventional means of imparting education and more and more people are realizing and respecting this fact. This is why we are seeing the upsurge of online learning and distance learning which are great alternatives for people who are unable to make it to schools and colleges. Future education, training and communication will be largely online and it looks all set to pervade all corners. It’s little surprise then that states are considering community colleges for the purpose of education of all levels.
A community college lets you pursue your degree the way you want it. You have the option of attending regular face-to-face classes, you can choose to take your programme online and you can opt for a part-time or a full-time course. Thus community colleges are a one-stop-shop for all kinds of courses. You can enroll for an associate degree in various fields which will enable you to get admitted to a college or university for completion of degree. Karnataka’s first initiative, the Geeta Ramanujam Educational Institution (GREI), is off the mark with 29 students who have signed up for associate degree courses. The certificates will be given by IGNOU and the job-oriented courses will ensure that students get employed soon after course completion.
Looking forward to more such initiatives in other states of India. With this, the vision of bringing education to everybody is getting brighter by the day.
Move Up With Forign Languages
In blog posts earlier that focused on the advantages of learning foreign languages, I talked about the upper hand that you get while looking for a job. A recently published article in The Hindu addresses the same and talks about a few opportunities that are available to students who pick up a foreign language in addition to their courses. As globalization spreads, being multilingual definitely gets you in touch with a wider audience and as a result, access to better opportunities.
According to the article, French still remains a favourite but Chinese and German are picking up fast. A student who is equipped with important soft skills and a foreign language to go with them, can command a starting salary as high as 30 grand. Some of the best places to pick up foreign languages in Hyderabad are EFLU, Ramakrishna Math and others. Click here to take a look at the article. I will be posting specific job openings in this blog soon.
Online Courses:Reaching all Corners
With the internet becoming more and more accessible and one of the major sources of entertainment and information, it is only natural that online courses and training will gain more leverage by the day. Besides corporate training and communication,several courses are also becoming available online. Many of these courses are job-oriented and designed to improve employability skills as well as computer literacy.
The obvious advantage of online courses is that they can be offered to a large number of students and the institutes or organizations need not worry about facilities such as classrooms and equipments. In addition to that, taking online courses is a great way to experience education standards and the education system abroad. You need not travel to a foreign country to take a course that is being offered online. You get access to the faculty and online resources of reputed institutions abroad by taking their courses online. Needless to mention that a certificate from an institute of repute can greatly enhance your demand in the job-market.
Not too many institutions in India offer courses online whereas this practice has gained a lot of popularity in the West. I guess we can start by offering part of our distance learning courses online so that Universities won’t have to ship large amounts of reading material to their students. We can even look forward to the theoretical exams being conducted online in due time. This will make distance education cost-effective while retaining its wide accessibility.
However, for that to happen, we need to ensure computers and the internet reach all our villages and towns. Here’s hoping that happens soon. To get an idea about the variety of courses that can be taken online, visit this link.
What Does Your CV Look Like?
To impress the recruiters and bag your dream job, you need to be careful about how your Resume/CV looks. Initially when you are applying for a job, it’s your CV which will do the talking on your behalf and taking care to make it stand out will enhance your chances of getting the interview call. We are all familiar with the fact that we require a CV as we step into professional life but many of us approach the task of putting it together rather carelessly and have to face rejection at the initial screening as a result.
It is therefore advisable to do some reading and find out how to make your CV more prominent. Many candidates, including you, will be apply and companies will try to shortlist those who have the right skills and experience for the vacant profiles they are looking to fill. Therefore when you have a particular opening in mind, make sure you highlight all that you have done so far that satisfy the company’s requirements. Some organizations will ask for a cover letter in addition to your CV for information which a CV can’t provide.Time spent on knowing what companies look for from candidates when they apply is a good investment and will surely enable you to get ahead.
You can take a look at this article on monster.com for some good tips on how to prepare a CV and cover letter.
Hiring Activities In India Continue To Rise
The job market seems to be recovering from recession blues as a survey revealed a rise in hiring activities. According to the survey conducted by naukri.com, hiring increased by 1.3% in July compared to what it was in June. The IT and IteS sectors, retail and real estate displayed a spurt and are leading the pack with other industries such as banking, pharma and biotech picking up pace.
The trend shows an increasing demand for experienced professionals as the industry looks to use their expertise and insight to soar again. Professionals with more than 8 years of experience are highly sought after and recruitment of such professionals are showing maximum growth. Among the Indian cities, Hyderabad, Delhi/NCR and Mumbai saw improvement in hiring whereas Chennai, Bangalore and Pune experienced a slight dip.
This report portrays ongoing progress as recruitment activities had increased by 8.1% in June over its preceding month. To read more about the report and for statistics of individual cities, hit this link.
Industry and Academia Link Up.
Besides providing training and organizing coaching centres,companies are tying up with colleges and institutions to make sure that essential employability skills are cultivated during the college years. This makes sure that students get a clear idea of the job profile and learn the differences between academic curriculum and actual responsibilities once they become a part of the industry. An attempt is made to seal the gaps between theory and practice so that the transition between academics and work becomes that much smoother. I can see more such partnerships coming as companies will look at it as an effective way of reducing recruitment and training costs as well.
An example of this linkage is the recent alliance between Krishna University and Efftronics Systems. An M.Sc course in electronics and instrumentation will be offered jointly by the university and the company. Lecturers from the university will be taking classes in the company premises and students will get the advantage of a hands-on experience.
Refer to the article in The Hindu for more on this.
Look Before You Leap
Undoubtedly, new courses that are being introduced in various colleges all over India are bringing in a whole new attitude to job hunting and a variety of new skills for students to equip themselves with. Several times in this blog I have talked about the necessity of these courses and how important it is to look beyond the obvious and explore new avenues. However, we need to take a look at the dark side of this as well where education and business get intertwined.
Many of these upcoming courses are job oriented and require extensive exposure to the industry, good infrastructure and knowledgeable faculty. Riding on the wave of students waking up to these new opportunities, institutions are springing up every other day in an effort to cash in on the awareness and make money. These institutions offer diplomas and degrees in unconventional courses and promise much to the students. However, most of these colleges are set up in a hurry with very little consideration towards what is required to handle the courses in the right way. So after spending a year or two in a college you might still find yourself ill-equipped to carry out the responsibilities you will be entrusted with.
It is advisable therefore to know more about an institution before joining it. It might be offering the courses you want to take but does it have all that it takes to make a success story out of you? Talk to former students of the college, look through its placement record and try to gather as much information as possible. Go for it once you are reasonably satisfied.
Introduce English but don’t Impose It
Andhra University has recently decided that students will no longer be allowed to write their exams in Telugu and have to use English. This decision has been troubling a significant section of the students and they are resorting to protests. However, the V.C, B. Satyanarayana is adamant on the issue of students using English. He reasons that the lack of English skills is the reason many students are falling behind in the competition and therefore, students should necessarily take to English.
While it is true that one of the primary reasons behind the failure of a lot of students to secure a good job is their inability to communicate efficiently in English, an University cannot take such a strong decision without implementing proper training and facilities for the students. A lot of students coming from a vernacular medium of education find it difficult to suddenly switch to English for higher studies. It is vital that the Universities recognize this problem and introduce courses or set up coaching classes and training centres so that stuents can enroll and work on mastering a new language.
While many people might term this move as progressive/revolutionary, we need to see whether the institution is offering proper encouragement and support to the students wanting to learn English. If that is not being done then it becomes just a forceful imposition and fails to serve any purpose.
Explore, Learn and Decide
Many of us, prior to looking for a job, have the impression that whatever we are doing in our classrooms and laboratories are exactly what we will be doing in professional life. In a way we view work as an extension of our student life. There is no denying that our education is equipping us with certain skills and theories which will be put to practice once we step into the professional sphere, but there are a lot of other things we need to know and be prepared for. As long as we were students, we never really knew what deadlines mean in the industry, how critical a project and its timely execution can be and how quickly we need to think and improvise. Often our services might be required for something apart from our projects and it will be expected from us that we adapt and deliver.
As the course comes to an end and thoughts of starting work dawn, it is important to research and get to know more about the functioning of different companies. A good idea about the structures of various organizations, big and small, will go a long way in giving aspirants an idea about what to expect. It is important, in my opinion, to look at the various profiles, develop an understanding of the core and added responsibilities, get to know the management and explore opportunities to grow and learn. Working for big companies will enable you to boast of a name and expose you to an assembly-line style of work but ascent will take time and the work can get monotonous. New and smaller companies can be a little disorganized and might want employees to figure things out on their own but offer flexibility and quick growth.
A decision has to be taken regarding what kind of exposure and work-experience would one like before taking up the first job. Once that decision is made, a lot of things become clear.
Go The Diploma Way
If you do not have the time or means to pursue a full-fledged degree course or if you are already working and would like to pick up some additional skills in your domain, a diploma might be the perfect choice. Over the years, diploma courses have become quite popular and with the introduction of new domains, new diploma courses are being offered to cater to the demands. A diploma course aims to provide the required skills within a limited time and sometimes work better since it is more focused.
In India, diploma courses are often not placed at the same level as regular degree courses which results in most students shying away from them. However, in terms of job-opportunities, there is a healthy demand for diploma holders. Plenty of diploma holders get job offers immediately after completing their education. Where it takes a considerable amount of time to start a new degree course with adequate faculty and infrastructure, short-term diploma courses are easier to implement. Owing to this, diplomas can boast of offering a wide variety of skills and sometimes outperforming degrees in making students job-ready.
Open universities like IGNOU have several diplomas to offer in distance mode. So if you are looking at honing specific skills or eyeing an emerging domain, check out what diplomas are bringing to the table.