Are campuses ready to cater to tech industry’s demand on specialised talent
Commentary from leading IT services players following the Q2 FY25 results indicates two big hiring trends: First, hiring is back and players are hitting the campus trail. Two, hiring will be focused on specialised skills even for entry-level candidates. This means that campuses now have to ensure students focus on building specialised skills. More importantly, colleges have to make sure they have courses that support this.
A recent research by HirePro, an AI-powered recruitment platform, surveyed over 20,000 students across 350 plus colleges and saw participation of over 200 corporates and 100-plus campus talent recruiters.
The survey revealed that more than 63 per cent of colleges have begun taking steps to prepare for an Al-driven future. This includes focusing on curriculum enhancement (4o per cent), collaborating with tech giants for research-based projects and learnings (27 per cent), specialised under graduate (UG) and post-graduate (PG) courses on AI, ML and data science (17 per cent) and creating awareness of the impact of AI on the nature of jobs among other initiatives.
Most campuses seem to have started taking at least baby steps to equip their students with AI skills. Many have introduced new courses on AI, while some have gone further by setting up completely new departments or even an ‘AI centre’ that deals exclusively with AI subjects, highlighted the survey.
Experts also point that AI is such an evolving technology, the need for industry collaborations will be crucial. “The new age Skills like AI are evolving at a much faster pace. The academic system will not be able to refresh its course content or train the faculty at the same pace. Hence there will always be lag. This can be fulfilled only through a bridge course which will have to be delivered by a finishing school or any course content developed and administered by industry bodies,” said S Pasupathi, COO, HirePro.