Table Of ContentJOB READINESS
for
IT & ITES
A Placement and Career Companion
About the Author
R. Anand, Senior Vice President — HR at HCL Technologies, an IT & ITES firm
with more than 1 lakh employees operating from 32 countries, heads their global
people practices. He is also a serving board member of the National HRD Network.
Mr. Anand brings over 18 years of industry experience to this book. In his career,
he has assessed more than a lakh of graduates, integrated tens of thousands into his
organization and is personally familiar with the career trajectories of over a thousand.
He has helped line managers in the industry get a fresh graduate productive and
faster, and also helped educational institutions get more industry ready graduates.
He has advocated the need for the individuals to take charge of their job readiness by
giving them frameworks, insights and experiences that are powerful and usable. His
experiences in designing people processes and practices as well as his leadership roles in professional
bodies have been harnessed to answer the question: what employers are looking for and how they look
for it, in its vividness and nuance.
JOB READINESS
for
IT & ITES
A Placement and Career Companion
R. A
NAND
Sr. Vice President – HR, HCL Technologies Ltd
Member, National Executive Board,
National HRD Network (NHRDN)
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Dedicated To,
All student readers for letting me participate
and value add to an important phase in their lives
PREFACE
This work aims to help more graduates (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Commerce
and English) become job ready for the IT & ITES industry. It should also help early career professionals
master their initial jobs quickly and move ahead faster in their career tracks. Thus, it is a student
companion for students wanting to secure an IT & ITES job and do well in the first few years of their
career.
The motivation and source of this work is my desire to share what I have learnt about working in
the IT & ITES sector over 18 years. In my role as Senior Vice President and Global Head of People
Practices at HCL Technologies – a large IT & ITES firm with over 1 lakh employees, I had a chance to
observe who makes it and who does not in very close proximity. I have had the chance to evaluate first
hand tens of thousands of students through our selection processes, and induct tens of thousands into
being successful. Often, I would go back to whom I had hired 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 2 years ago and
who made it to high performing and high potential lists and converse with them. I would then compare
notes with industry colleagues to see if this was true of their organisations too.
Over the last so many years, I have been myself fascinated by the transition from student life to
professional life and attempted to study it in detail. I have also had the family background to understand
the academic world in close quarters. In the pursuit of making a difference to colleges wanting to create
industry-ready students, I have contributed my small mite by being in board of studies, running faculty
orientations, student programs and helping the educational institutions define both the curriculum, i.e.
what is taught and curriculum transaction, i.e. how it is taught.
I feel the need to treat the subject of employment and job readiness in a slightly different manner. It
should neither be narrow that focuses on what questions do IT interviewers ask nor too generic with
do’s and don’ts in a personal interview. Hence, the work treats employment readiness of graduates and
post graduates in the IT & ITES industry as an integrative body of knowledge and practice. The main
premise of the work is that one can become employment ready for the IT & ITES industry, just as one
can become proficient in science or engineering and be called a graduate.
There are core aspects of job readiness that cut across industries and job profiles. There is an
application aspect of job readiness at the operational level. This is job specific and industry specific.
They help obtain immediate entry into the industry. As a student companion, the work targets a clearly
identifiable group of those wanting to enter the IT & ITES industry. Those students wanting to enter
other industries will still find 60-70% of the work interesting; however, I would recommend that they
fill the 30% industry-specific content through other sources.
The work addresses all the dimensions of employability such as, understanding the context of
the professional (versus student), the critical competencies, job market awareness, job hunting skills,
readiness to clear the different stages of the selection process, fine-tuning oneself into the nuances of
jobs, and encountering, negotiating and assimilating early career ‘moments of truth’.
viii
The attempt is to make the work:
● Comprehensive: All aspects of getting hired in IT & ITES are covered.
● Well Founded: Based on a sound theoretical model of employment readiness, and corroborated by
extensive observations. Since content rests on strong foundation, it helps orient the reader for the
process of the selection cycle. It re-orients the personality and presentation at a more fundamental
level and is not limited by the interview questions an author or reader is able to anticipate. The work
seeks to provide a compass than a checklist!
● Application Oriented: Exercises make it a constant companion for graduates towards job readiness.
● Calibrated: The material can be engaged with for a general orientation or a deeper application
or even evalution of one’s proficiency. The material also provides opportunity for realistic self-
assessments.
● Well-tuned: Major industry players’ process of selection, major reference standards for IT & ITES
jobs globally and major intermediary content have been referred to in the material. It can hence
resonate with 70% of the hiring that happens in the industry.
● User-friendly: The narrative style is through the eyes of the reader. The content is organized
around each stage of getting hired from market awareness, to hunting, to presenting oneself to the
opportunity and hence can be referenced at the context. Stories, case-lets and exercises improve
retention of learning.
Some of the standards that the work references are:
● Entry level hiring methods of companies like HCL, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, CTS, Accenture, IBM,
Mahindra Satyam, Samsung, CSC, Dell, HP, Cadence, Ramco Systems, Bristlecone, and Genpact.
● Occupational Standards
■ NSDC – IT & ITES sector skills council & NASSCOM, US Immigration – “O-Net Center”,
Australian Immigration – ANSCO, International Standard Classification of Occupations from
the ILO.
■ Reports of salary benchmarking companies: Mercer, Aon-Hewitt.
The work also references the hiring, testing, learning & certification content of intermediaries like
Aspiring Minds, Meritrack, GNIIT and third party suppliers of talent to IT sector.
I hope more industry specific student companions will be created in the future, thus, giving the subject
of employment and job readiness the depth, focus, application orientation and systematic approach that
it deserves!
I would be keen to receive your questions and feedback at [email protected] with
the book title as subject line. Please also visit the Online Learning Center of this book (www.mhhe.
com/anand) for additional resources and updates. It is by this process that we will make progress in this
important area.
Disclaimer:
This work is a result of my study, observation, practice and reflection in the industry. It is based purely on
my independent professional and personal convictions. The views, opinions and suggestions expressed
in this book are mine and not of my employers and organizations – present and past.
R. Anand
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To do a project of this nature amidst tight work schedules, one must be in blessed company. I am
counting the few who made this possible; fully aware that there are many others and the list will be too
long for the readers’ interest.
First, the chairman of my company: Shiv Nadar. He always inspires me with larger perspectives of the
world. His own efforts to contribute to larger causes like education and health has been an inspiration.
He once talked about the many transitions that we need to enable – the campus to corporate transition,
the rural to urban transition. I also realized how he is now known more for his education than for his
business ventures and how it gives him more satisfaction.
Vineet, the former CEO of HCL Technologies and with whom I worked very closely. He was such a
good communicator and there are two things I will remember forever. I was once making a presentation
to him when he stopped and said that the test of a good presentation is this – suppose, I turn my back to
you, close my eyes and only hear what you have to say, will my mind draw a picture of your words? I
have used this often in my speaking and writing. The second thing I will remember is how he felt that I
must do more than working for a company. “Write a book Anand”, he said. I promised I will do, once I
know what I have to say, to whom I have to say and what for? This is my promise fulfilled.
The late Shri S. Raman, former CEO of HCL Technologies – knowledge and depth personified,
at the same time very action oriented. He shaped my development in the first 7 crucial years of my
professional life, by setting the bar high, being honest and himself being such a role model. Till I met
him, almost a year into my career, I thought an academic orientation, which I possessed, and corporate
success cannot co-exist. He amply demonstrated that one can pursue knowledge and action if one is
fearless and applies himself systematically. No subject is beyond his reach, and his ability to absorb and
learn like a sponge will always be an inspiration.
My manager, Prithvi Shergill, with whom I discussed my desire to contribute to larger professional
and social causes, must be thanked for his support and encouragement. “Please go ahead and do what
you have to, just pick up my calls and ensure the deliverables are in control” he said. His flexibility and
understanding is what made this project possible.
My team of 5 direct reports and the 35 members under them. Much of this book was written in an
unusually busy year for us. They made sure all of us never missed a beat, completed all the deliverables
we were tasked with and stepped up to take responsibility.
My thanks are due to my friend and walking buddy, Santhosh. He has such a gentle way of following
up – both on adequate walk every day and this project. The way he would push and then stop, fully tuned
to the dilemmas I had, is just art.
x
My children: Ananya and Kaushik, who would find the slightest opportunity to play with me in a
manner consistent with my constraints and who would let me focus on work at other times. Their simple
and sincere affection can switch your mental state and rejuvenate you in no time.
My parents: my mother who from childhood till date never imposed her will on my studies or work
and who knew how to let her children be. My father encouraged me to pursue a multi-dimensional
life of corporate excellence as well as academic excellence. From him, I learnt the insides of how
educational institutions function and always debated what gets taught and what gets left out in the
abstract and the specific.
My spouse, S K Kripa, who would quietly nurse me back to health as I fell ill due to the demands of
this project and the work at HCL. She made sure the children never missed adequate amount of parenting
and always helped me balance between rest, recovery and the need to work without being fastidious.
Her ability to understand and act on the unsaid word is remarkable and makes her such good company.
The McGraw Hill Education team who first advised me on the student companion model and specific
to IT & ITES, from a more general employability angle across industries. This advice helped me make
the work application oriented and readily usable. In particular, my thanks to Laxmi Singh who helped
me put this together, Manohar Lal who suggested and patiently worked on the easy to assimilate formats
for the reader and Hemant Jha, who has an economy with words and precision with his thoughts that is
admirable and worth learning from every day.
Lastly, I wish to gratefully acknowledge the different characters that appear in these stories. Each
of these stories is real, having happened in different companies in this industry. While their names
have been masked, I wish to acknowledge these individuals for sharing their stories. Many professional
colleagues in the industry were the minds through which I heard some of the stories found in this book.
I wish to thank them too. It is a long list and the reader might find it less interesting.
R. Anand
