The workplaces have changed. Companies are aggressively hiring ‘T-shaped’ engineering professionals, who can provide solutions in both technical as well as managerial fields. The number of engineers that pass out every year is relatively high as compared to the engineers who are employed this is the sad truth of the industry and not all students meet the standards that are made by a company in the corporate world. However, the employability of engineers in the knowledge economy has not changed on an aggregate level for quite some time now, a deeper dive into this situation reveals that this ‘Stubborn Unemployability’ is because the dynamics of recruitment have changed; corporates are now looking for engineering professionals with business wisdom along with new-age skills in areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, and web.

What led to this paradigm shift?

Shivalik has always updated its curriculum according to the new changing standards of the corporate world. There have been surprising findings of the factors that companies look for in their potential employees. Thriving organizations describe planning and business management as a skill that deals with one’s ability to design, plan, organize, and implement projects and tasks within an allotted time frame. Employers want to select those students who exhibit managerial and leadership skills so that they can work in a team and can also motivate and lead by setting a good example.

For companies aspiring to take things to the next level, the power to visualize what the consumer needs and understand the market is important. Otherwise, the idea would be tough to scale and not have that perceived value. One way to conceptualize what makes a good product is not just sound engineering and a great design but the strategy that maximizes the probability of people buying and using that product and that is what the students at Shivalik are taught regularly to a be good marketing strategist along with being a good leader and manager band also a technocrat at the core and this conceptualization requires certain business acumen. Corporates demand a variety of managerial skills and expertise from their engineering professionals. This led to the conception of the term ‘T-shaped’ professionals i.e. people with a thorough understanding of one discipline engineering, the vertical bar along with a basic brush of knowledge about how it interacts with other disciplines and business, the horizontal bar. It further states that many companies such as the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) seek to recruit T-shaped engineering students because they expect them to solve problems not only in the technical field but also within the context of the entire organization and the market.

The need to upskill?
The rule of the corporate world is the one who constantly learns and is updated by the latest trends in the market is the one who survives and progresses in the current scenario, engineers need to show expertise beyond their regular technical field. This shift calls for systematic long-term changes in higher education in India. Precisely why, Shivalik offers such seminars to its technical students from the very first year. These courses provide basic management skills and can be undertaken by the interested students along with their B. Tech. program.

The key deliverables of this collaboration include:

The students are taught three modules in the optional seminars conducted every week for the undergraduate students of the college. This is offered to all students who are interested free of cost. Students receive a certificate of completion after the course is concluded. In addition to this, the students will receive a lifetime learning experience from renowned professionals from the industry. Shivalik provides 100% of the content and 30% of it is taught by the college faculty in online or face-to-face mode, and the rest 70% is covered by the industrial experts in guest lectures in seminars. Given the volatile and competitive world that we live in, engineering professionals must acquire additional skills to not only survive but also make his/her mark in the industry. In Shivalik College of Engineering, B. Tech. students can also pursue additional specializations in the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, data analytics, and blockchain getting an engineering degree may not guarantee success; skills that keep you relevant can be the panacea for a flourishing career.

Written By:- SHASHANK MISHRA