1. How important is it to be market-ready especially with reference to IT skillsets today?
COVID-19 has fast-tracked digital transformation and increased the IT skills gap across sectors. Strong technical skills have become extremely important in today’s dynamic market especially due to the increased demand for IT skills and technical support talent.
The best part about all of this is that anyone can obtain these technical skills and it does not have to be only through formal education as it can be self-learned through upskilling courses available on the internet. And once you are proficient, these technical skills can accordingly augment your professional growth.
Over the past few months, the demand for technological skills has increased. According to a recent IDC report – Future Enterprise Resiliency and Spending, 2021, 30% of organizations plan to focus on AI/ML as the key areas to hire or reskill their workforce in the next six months.
These recent projections indicate that talent crunch has prioritized the need for a workplace culture of reskilling and upskilling and workplace wellbeing in order to remain agile and relevant in today’s dynamic environment of rapid-paced innovation.
2. How much has virtual interviews, remote working, gig economy contributed to this increase in demand?
As we move towards a more hybrid work environment some of the challenges for businesses include the adoption of a more holistic approach towards HR functions like selection process and hiring interviews.
Virtual interviews helped to provide a speedier recruitment process, remote working helped to bring businesses back on track providing recruiters with comprehensive information about their future hires.
As per the SAP Concur study, 88 percent of the workforce in India preferred remote working & in fact 69 percent of them believed that their productivity had increased due to the remote working scenario in India.
As the trend of contractual or project-based work rises, organizations are opening up to India’s gig workforce & are even restructuring policies to accommodate them. Gig working has proved to be extremely beneficial for corporates across India & has been fueling the hiring requirements of India’s IT industry. As per recent reports, there could be over 130 million gig economy workers in India & this has not only been limited to India, as per PayPal’s Global Freelancer Insights Report, one in every four freelancers is from India globally.
3. What are some of the hottest skills in demand across the IT industry today?
Technology is ever evolving and it is necessary to constantly keep evolving and continue acquiring new skills that are in demand. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 and it’s inevitable for professionals to upgrade themselves to not just stay relevant but to thrive in the new world order. This includes Cloud Computing, AI, ML, Data Analysts, Cybersecurity, DevOps. … among others.
Cloud skills are in high demand and platforms such as AWS and Microsoft Azure are opening up new channels of opportunities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have an edge over other technologies and skills such as TensorFlow, Python, Java, R, and Natural Language Processing allow working on AI or ML and demand for these skills is increasing.
Demand for DevOps professionals has also surged in the past couple of years & is currently one of the most in-demand roles within India’s IT industry.
Another would be cybersecurity, any company that stores user information or deals with sensitive data of its own, needs to work on keeping its networks secure. It is a reality that every major company today has customer and company data in databases, making cybersecurity one of the top technology trends since 2020.
However, the demand for skills in the tech industry will keep changing from time to time owing to its evolving nature.
4. What are your views on increased automation across the work environment & how do you think it would affect the hiring scenario here in India?
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming businesses transforming the workplace as we know it. With an increased focus on employee retention and a better working environment in a competitive recruitment market, automation will address many of the workplace challenges and help improve employee productivity.
Automation will surely alter the workplace scenario in India & it’ll be important for both the employees as well as the corporates to leverage this situation.
In India is considered, the bigger impact of automation will be on the very nature of the jobs, resulting in the evolution of traditional jobs & also the development of new job profiles. With full-scale upskilling projects accompanied by the right policy approach & resolute action, corporates can capitalize on this to build a more effective workforce.
5. How do you think technologies like AI & ML could help corporates take swift & effective decisions in terms of hiring?
As corporates sit on the cusp of technological overhaul, HR managements across sectors are utilizing technologies like AI & ML to carry out their various functions. HR technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data analytics and blockchain are aiding enterprises to enhance their business outcome aiding the process by streamlining & automating certain functions of the recruiting workflow, especially repetitive, high-volume tasks like screening resumes among others. For corporates identifying the right candidates from a large applicant pool is challenging and corporates have started utilizing AI-powered tools that are designed to automatically screen thousands of resumes and without wasting much of their time. From an employee’s perspective, AI & ML-based tools are helping them to analyze through millions of data points to find the job best suited for them.
