Highlights
- According to S Balasubramanyan, SVP of HCLTech, the skills taught in engineering schools are often outdated.
- HCLTech’s early career programme, TechBee, helps students develop the necessary skills and gain employment before completing their college education.
- Successful interns are offered full-time employment and are provided with tuition assistance to complete their graduation.
If professional degrees fail to meet the demands of the industry, there is a systemic issue in current education modules. In a poll conducted by MIT Technology Review Insights, 64% of global tech leaders say that candidates for IT and tech jobs lack the necessary skills or experience, while 56% cite a shortage of candidates overall.
According to S Balasubramanyan, talent shortage primarily exists because skills keep changing and there is a lack of available talent that can quickly acquire new skills and contribute to the workforce. “In the IT industry, new technology emerges every few years. We need talented individuals who can adapt to these changes and implement them in various business scenarios,” says Balasubramanyan.
To address the talent shortage, HCLTech is taking a different approach by focusing on the entry-level workforce. The company believes that relying on the same talent pools can lead to stagnation and a missed opportunity to tap into untapped talent. This is where the early career programme, TechBee, comes in.
TechBee was launched in 2017 to help students kickstart their careers early. It offers 12 months of classroom and online training, followed by a paid internship at HCLTech. The programme is open to students from non-traditional backgrounds as well, allowing them to develop the necessary skills for the tech industry and secure employment before completing their college education.
Balasubramanyan explains, “We select candidates right after their twelfth grade and skill them according to our requirements for a year. After the internship, they become full-time employees and are encouraged to join partnered universities for higher education.” The currently partnered universities with HCLTech are Sastra University, BITS Pilani, Amity University, IIM Nagpur, IIT Guwahati, and Koneru Lakshmaiah University.
Highlighting the gap between engineering school curriculum and the tech landscape, Balasubramanyan says, “What’s being taught in engineering schools is sometimes 10 years behind the current tech landscape.” The aim of building a workforce at the entry-level is to engage twelfth-pass students in a business context. They learn contemporary software development lifecycles, computer science, coding, security and compliance protocols, and other skills not typically taught in school. Soft skills training is also provided to enhance professionalism, communication, and understanding of corporate structures.
Over the years, thousands of students have joined the TechBee programme, with a conversion rate of over 98%. “We believe that this programme helps us bring a diverse workforce to the company and enhances our ability to solve customer problems because we are more up-to-date and culturally aligned within the organization,” says Balasubramanyan.
HCLTech is running similar programmes in countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, with modifications made based on local requirements and regulations.
