The easing of curbs on economic activities is having a positive impact on the hiring of freshers. And as per a recent report, the demand for freshers has hit a spike by 7% in the current quarter.
Graduating with high scores might be one of the many criteria that will land freshers with lucrative job offers but staying put in that job is an entirely different conversation.
While the pandemic and its repercussions have disrupted every facet of work, few key tech players see a surge in hiring. The rise of COVID-19 has also amplified the need to ensure that this fresh talent pool is equipped with in-demand roles like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation.
For freshers to reinvent themselves and adapt to changing skillset requirements, talent management teams are now creating an environment of continuous learning.
The Challenge: Inadequacy of future-ready skill sets
With new technologies increasing at a rapid pace, candidates with knowledge of out-of-date technologies become less effective to the organization. Talent management teams are mindful of the gap that exists between academic and career skills. And to address this gap, they are employing training programs to get the new hires ready for the future of work.
Given the recent turn of events, employers are showing more interest in candidates with in-depth skills and knowledge of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and data engineering, among other skills. A recent study also highlights that freshers are more likely to improve their employability by enhancing their knowledge on cyber security, data science, AI, and IoT, to name a few.
The Focus: Investment in next-gen roles
The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that half of all employees worldwide need upskilling or reskilling by 2025 to embrace new responsibilities driven by new technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and automation. The report further states that if upskilling isn’t fast-tracked, it could take decades for employees to be ready for the future of work.
Disruptive technologies like AI are widely used in most facets of our daily lives, as 43% of businesses are leveraging some form of this technology. Big data analytics is another highly utilized in-demand role, with 53% of companies adopting the technology to analyze market trends and policies.
Emphasizing building hard skills on the lines of AI, cloud, big data, and so on is of paramount importance to ensure freshers are prepared to face unforeseen challenges. The introduction of training and development initiatives opens doors of opportunities — both to the organization and employee.
Prioritize reskilling and upskilling
As we step into this new normal, employee reskilling and upskilling are no longer optional. Talent management teams are now introducing initiatives to ensure freshers are well acquainted with digital transformation technologies.
The need of the hour is for talent management teams to identify skill gaps or mismatched roles and create individualized learning plans. Fortunately, organizations are doing their best to address skill shortages with upskilling and reskilling initiatives. A few of the best examples of such initiatives are:
Amazon’s ‘Upskilling 2025’: The e-commerce giant announced this program back in 2019, offering opportunities to thousands of its employees to “further their careers in high-paying, in-demand roles.” The initiative will help employees improve their existing skills or prepare them for new roles.
Furthermore, Amazon’s Technical Academy extends support with both training and job placement opportunities in the field of engineering.
Verizon’s reskilling pilot program with colleges: The telecommunications giant’s reskilling program in collaboration with colleges aims to prepare at least 500,000 individuals for in-demand technical jobs by 2030.
Talent acquisition leaders scouting for fresh talents can be inundated with challenges at first, but this novice talent pool can be an asset by leveraging effective strategies. The most in-demand roles are making traditional roles obsolete, and to emerge stronger from this crisis, upskilling and reskilling the workforce is a must for a post-pandemic future.
AI-powered talent platforms are making amends to the monotonous programs introduced by companies to train their new hires. Draup for Talent facilitates them in their reskilling initiatives with Reskilling Navigator and Simulator tools to help talent management leaders understand the digital career paths of their traditional workforce and reskill them with micro and macro learning modules.
With Draup’s assistance, talent management teams can understand how new hires can be transitioned optimally to sustainable, emerging job roles.
Draup’s most notable application is supporting employers in reskilling their employees for digital roles. One such use-case is the transition from an outdated role to an in-demand role like Embedded Software Engineer. By learning the industry requirements for this role, Draup narrows down the skills (Hadoop, Big Data, and Scale, among others) required to complete the transition successfully.
The tumultuous journey of making freshers adaptable to current trends meets a more plain sailing pathway with proprietary tools from Draup.
