The Way Ahead – Opportunities for IT Professionals

The current IT landscape is in a phase of transition with strong emphasis on ‘Scale to Skill’ changes in business requirements. Hari Nair, Co-Founder, Great Learning and Director Admissions, explains why it’s time to evolve and re-skill yourself for a promising future and how you could use this layoff as an opportunity to move up in your career.

Some of the estimated changes in the IT industry will include predicted job cuts and redundancy to grow at a significant rate, prompting professionals to upskill themselves or face a threat of layoff.

Scale to skill: Reasons for the shift

Hari delved into the reasons behind the mass shift from ‘scale to skill’. He states that a large reason behind the layoffs is that the workforce is not trained to manage the competencies and technologies of the future. Some significant forces affecting the layoff include:

1. Rapid adoption of automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in businesses worldwide has contributed to increasing redundancy.
2. Shift from old technology to new frontiers and changing technological landscape has led to a need for professionals to update their learning and skill sets.

The Good News

The good news with regard to the changing demands in the IT sector is that there is job creation on new frontiers. It is estimated these requirements may be just as large in number as job losses, and here is proof:

1. The analytics sector in the country is growing at a rate of 30% per year in contrast with the IT sector which is growing at 5%.
2. Professionals working in Analytics and Big Data are getting paid 25%-30% higher than their peers in the IT sectors, and their professional growth is much faster as well.
3. Professionals must make an active choice to upskill and retrain themselves for the future and make continuous learning a norm.

The 3 Mantras for Career Success

Hari elaborates on how IT professional can prepare themselves for the future by banking upon the 3 mantras for career success.

1. Data proficiency is now a mandatory skill for knowledge workers who wish to grow in the IT industry. Data and Analytics is becoming a big part of all facets of businesses which means that it will be a highly important skill for the coming future.
2. The current demands of the IT market means that professionals with specialised competencies are rewarded for their hard skills. Owing to the need for these specialised capabilities, professionals should try to excel in a certain domains which they can own and use to build future proof competencies.
3. Work environments are increasingly getting intertwined and complex and it is critical to be people effective. If you have to grow in your career, understanding the context of business and learning how to be an effective manager and leader is critical to success.

4 Ways to Climb The Curve

Hari says that in today’s world, there is no right time to start learning and one must continuously make learning a part of their trajectory to be able to grow and thrive. Learning is a critical aspect of climbing the career curve and it is important now to follow the following rules to succeed:

1. Pick a competence you want to build on and demonstrate your expertise in it. Correctly research the demand for this skill set and nurture it with a knowledgeable and immersive learning approach.
2. Hari stresses upon the need to learn hard skill sets and gain the entire knowledge of a new domain rather than just learning tools, which he says are purely a means to an end and have short term benefits.
3. Don’t go for shortcuts – emerging areas like Analytics, Big Data, Machine Learning are hard skills and require focused time and energy to master.
4. Talk to peers, managers or mentors to understand why you should be building additional and relevant competencies and if they will help you grow in your career.

Ways to Make Yourself More Visible

Hari Nair says that it is important to make yourself and your work visible at your workplace. He recommends building a body of work to display your strengths. Make sure your current organization and potential employers recognize your value through your projects.

1. Build a body of work and a ‘personal brand’ to differentiate yourself from competition.
2. Participate in competitions, forums and online meet-ups such as Kaggle to show an active presence and skills.
3. Involve yourself in projects within your own organization by participating in in-house projects.
4. Join a community and contribute to start gaining recognition in the industry. There are many online portals and forums where one can begin their journey.

The Great Learning Impact

Great Learning’s mission in delivering quality education has translated into a space where we seek to enable every professional to be data-proficient.

1. Our analytics, data science and big data programs are taken by several thousands of professionals every year.
2. Collaborations with Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago have translated into a strong global presence.
3. Learning centers in six cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad.
4. Alumni presence across all work experience brackets and leading MNCs and Indian companies.
5. Over 60% of our alumni have transitioned to roles in analytics within 6-12 months of graduation.

Choose Your CAREER Path

Great Learning offers a plethora of blended learning programs with industry-relevant curriculum and award winning faculty. You can choose from a mix of our specialized programs based on your requirements:

1. PGP – Business Analytics: 1 Year weekend classroom and online program that trains you on analytics and data science.
2. PGP – Big Data: 1 Year weekend classroom and online program if you want to build your career in Big Data technologies and Machine Learning.
3. Executive MBA: 1 Year weekend classroom and online program to become a data driven manager and specialize in analytics, product management, operations, finance or digital marketing.
4. Business Analytics Certification: 6 Month online program where you learn from India’s best analytics faculty and get 40 hours’ worth of personalized mentorship from analytics professionals.