Prologue
This article is not intended to hurt anybody’s feelings, but just to reveal some truths – which is faced by most of the young job seekers in current Indian situation.  As an IT Pro and a man from a middle class family, I have chosen the same plot to write this article, for the ease of explaining things. The intention is just to support the young job seekers- at least let’s stop accusing them.
The Youth

The young man, I have mentioned in one of my past blog post – “The Career Consultant”  is the representative of the current Indian youth-who come out from engineering colleges or other professional colleges as career seekers (not just job seekers).  Most of the Indian parents and teachers fail to identify the real talent in the kids and guide them. And the students often have no idea, how to identify the Good, Bad or the Ugly. Let’s analyze the problem.

In India, the current job market is closely associated with the growth of IT. Most of the engineering graduates (studying any trade of engineering) come to IT as they don’t have much opportunities in their respective trades or because of the attraction of better payment. Here remuneration plays the major role. Now days, most of the students pays their fees by taking loans from some financial institutions like Banks. The students and parents always dream for highly paid jobs. At college, most of the pupils enjoys the campus life and most of the times, forget the families, the loan taken … etc. But the celebrations end in the last semester. Some of the ‘So called Brilliant Students ‘ get placement through campus recruitment. Then only the remaining majority would think about the future seriously. By that time, some of them should have a love affair, with a promise of “we will never break up”. The youngsters desperately wanted a job as soon as possible the course completes, mostly because of four major reasons

  1. Marry  the lover
  2. Payback the loans
  3. Want to avoid the cruel words from parents (Parents?  Yes of course…!!!), and other members in family and society.
  4. To care the family.
The Parents

     Let’s consider the situation of parents. The average age difference between the youngsters and their parents are about 20 to 30. (The parents shall be around 50 years old). The new generation jobs are too strange to them. Because, the IT, ITES and such new generation jobs came in India from the mid of 1990’s, which is almost strange to elders. What the common people supposed is once a student completed his course, he/she should be entered immediately in a highly paid job. No delay expected.

If the youngster entered in a job, he is supposed to be well paid. If some body says, I am not getting as much as you think, then the common people says that is the mistake of the organization. The conclusion of the parents in first stage is – they make our kid work like a slave and not paying at all. If even the so called engineer says “Papa, it’s my training period…” etc, then they would ask. “Then why did you spend 4 long years in engineering college? And you passed out, so you should know how to work and they are not paying you well. See the uncle in our neighbor hood, he is also an engineer and he earn …”…blah… blah…

Here the old people should understand one thing. The engineer uncle in the neighbor hood is much experienced than your kid. So he shall be well paid. At the time of his beginning, he might also be like your son.

My request to the parents is “Please don’t compare your kids with somebody else. That shall give him/her immense mental pain and the result shall be negative. Such comparison will neither help them nor you. Please support them, encourage them. They will be very thankful to you, for the kindness you show at the time of their real ‘Crisis’…”

After some a few months, the scene would be changed, if some arguments happened at home, the parents say “Why do we bring up you? What is your earning? At your age, I was taking care of the whole family. Now see, you are still under my protection …” etc. (At first the parents were accusing the company, and later their kid… Both are worthless – it won’t make any change in situation).

Dear parents, please never ever make such mistake. It would be a big blow to your child’s mind and even if they never express, they won’t forget it or forgive you. 

The “Dear and Near”

I will explain another situation- a “well paid” software engineer met his older relative. The relative asked the work environment of the engineer. The answer was something like “Totally messed up my health and schedule almost 14 – 16 hours work everyday. No exercise, junk food – that too not on time…” etc.

The next question of the relative was the salary of the engineer. When he says that the relative says “Oh you get that much? Then what is the problem, you have to work that much or more, because I work 7 hours and earn the quarter of you earn. So you are over paid…” …???

But, my dear relative, please remember a quote from Bible (Mark 8:36) “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”

Understand Something… 

Before 2 decades, engineers, doctors and managers are considered as the top most jobs. Most of the peoples knew only civil, mechanical or electrical engineers and they are considered as high class. But now days, there is a plethora of engineering trades. Now, Engineer is not a top job at all. Apart from Peon or security, Software engineer is the lowest position in an IT company. Let’s compare him/her with a ‘Glorified’ lower division clerk in a normal Government system.

I remember one incident, as you people may know; I have started my career as a software engineer. Later, I got promotion as Sr. Software Engineer, Module leader … so and so. One day I met with one of my relative. He asked me

“Mahi, what is your designation now?”

“I am a Project Leader, big brother” I replied.

“What, just a leader? When we met last time you were some Software engineer and I was very proud of you. Why do you left that job? See our Hari, both of you started your career almost same time and he is a Sr. Software Engineer now… I thought you are the better performer but in career you are just a leader and he is an Engineer …” blah … blah…

I expect, this kind of viewpoints of the society shall be changed in another 15 – 20 years. The common people are not aware of the designation hierarchy in new generation job. If there is an “Engineer-tag” in the designation, they suppose he is in a good position. Our society is less aware of “new generation – target based” jobs and the nature of such works.

The Conclusion…

Dear parents,

Please try to understand, the situation is different. Your child need a bit more support from your side. They are just started their professional life. Be patient and give support, they will be fine soon. Remember, they are your children. If you don’t give support, then who else will take care of them?

Dear Peoples,

The new generation engineers are over pressured, he lose his health, life, have to bear high responsibility in young age and many more issues with him. So a humble request from my side is “Please don’t underestimate their works and don’t compare your work with their. Those are different. How logical if you compare a computer and an elephant? Both are different in all aspects. For the better salary drawn, they have to pay huge price with their life.  No problem if you are not able to help them or support them. But please don’t consider their efforts as simple one.