Monday, September 14, 2009

Dissatisfied IT employee - A cliche

There is this trend I have been noticing in the Indian IT industry . A good percentage of young IT employees are focussing on higher studies. This is not very different from the US or Europe, but the startling difference is that in the Western economies, MBA aspirants are of average age 28 years when they look out for higher studies. In India this figure is 24.

Some facts for you ...
250,000 students appeared for CAT 2007. In 2008, the expected figure is 300,000. Thats a staggering 20 % rise.
Talking about Indians going abroad for MBA or MS, there is steep hike in those figures as well. Last year 16000 Indians took the GMAT, the flagship exam for access to MBA degree abroad. No of GRE ( standardized test for all other PG programs except MBA ) takers summed upto 31000.

These facts and figure and indeed astonishing. More over because many of these students are engaged in high paying jobs at multinational and private companies.

I worked for an IT company for the first 2 years of my professional life, and my observation was that many of these IT professional voluntarily/involuntarily joined a cult. A cult, whose members want to denounce an IT career. I hate to admit it, but I also belonged to this cult. Somehow, I feel that this is very unfair to the IT Industry in India.
On one side, Indian IT inc is facing severe talent crunch with majority of the Indian students passing out being unemployable, while on the other side, the brains of the industry are moving out.
If these professionals are discontent / dissatisfied/ unhappy in their IT professional lives, I would request those professionals to divert their attention to other verticals such as manufacturing or financial services or medical services or maybe entertainment. On a detailed analysis of these other careers, there will definitely be an enlightment for many.
IT industry has regularly been the highest spender on employee perks as compared with other industries. While the concept of HR is kind of abstract in other sectors, in IT and ITes, they are looked upon as vital component of the organisation. Talking about world travel, no sector offers the kind of opportunities which IT does.
and finally, the CTC aspect, IT industry is one of the highest salary payers in India leaving manufacturing, UG level sales, finance way behind.

So all those (not-so-cool) IT guys. You have a choice to make here. Think about it, Give up on this IT-hating cult and start loving what you do.. and trust me , you ll start enjoying ur work & life.