IT career : a suicide mission?

I just read a news paper article of an M.Tech IIT student committing suicide because he was yet to find a campus job. Immediately my thoughts went over to mid last year (2008). One day on return from office, I was treated to delicious Rasgullas (sweet from Bengal) because Roy aunty had successfully secured a Computer Science seat for her son with a leading college. The price a whopping Rs 25 lakhs. The Roy family had been camping at our home for over three weeks trying to get their son an engineering seat. The weekend after the success, I had to take Roys to see Infosys and Wipro offices. All conversations presumed that their son will join one of these companies in few years. My attempts to tell them that all things which go up come down too - with examples of textile mills of Mumbai came to a naught. Probably my attempts were too feeble or everyone just chose to think positive. Over next few days I tried telling them that their son was a wonderful singer and a music album should not cost more than Rs 5-6 lakhs. They could even save on that given the huge number of realty shows on TV. I did all this coz I was confident .... their son had no future in IT industry.

Over 75% of the people who started their career in IT in year 2007/08 will be unemployed in another 20 years. That time it will be more painful for them to bear it.

Let me explain why I say that. A conservative 2 lakh freshers started their career in IT industry in these two years (Infosys + TCS + Wipro alone accounted for nearly a lakh). A professional with 20 years experience will on average have 100 member teams. So in year 2028, these 2 lakh freshers of today should have 2 crore people under them cumulatively. Highly unlikely. A more reasonable figure would be 20 lakhs (assuming India does not loose out to other countries in outsourcing business). This means that only 10% of people at 20 yrs experience level will have jobs. Lets build an error margin of 150%. Yet only 25% will be employed.

Few people I have shared my theory with say they will not mind working at relatively junior levels to save their jobs. Hmmmm ... nice thought .... but as a business ... if I can have a 30 year old guy do the job of a 35 year old guy's job and that too at lower costs, I shall prefer 30 years young guy. The reasons are obvious - more energy, less liabilities (of children / parents falling ill etc). Unlike developed countries which have inverted demographics (less number of youngsters than older people), India has huge number of youngsters.

The other side to the story is talent erosion (similar to soil erosion) .... where in all fertile capability of a youngster is washed away by IT industry in first couple of years. When I meet these young professionals, I am amazed at the lack of their skills. I still do not know if anyone of us will entertain a carpenter who did not know how to use saw but was good at putting adhesives (fevicol etc) to furniture. Forget 1 yrs / 2 yr folks, even guys with 5 yrs experience do not seem to have fundamentals right. Very few seem to know fundamentals. Most of them cannot teach themselves new computer language. These folks are easily replaced ... by training a new set of youngsters. Even monkey can ape tricks . Why have expensive, aging and cribbing resources when you can have monkeys around by paying peanuts .... !!!!!!

Make a career in IT only if you have skills which will help you in long run ... high aptitude and reasoning (do not bother about verbal skills .... i know lot of companies like an idiot ask for it .... but it can be picked up pretty well on job and by reading newspapers). A good way to evaluate yourself will be CAT, XAT, eLitmus Test etc which have strong reasoning questions. Take the paper and sit with it. If the maximum time is X hours, in 2X hours you should be able to solve the papers completely with 90% accuracy. If you manage it ... there is no industry like IT industry, but if not ... just look for alternates.

If u don't have skills to succeed in IT ... be honest .... my advice to you is ... play to your strengths ... do not go with the crowd ..... your parents gave birth to you a few years too late .... IT industry boom is doomed .... in another decace or two .