Improve your overall skills

To prosper in the current job market, postgraduates must be able to work hard and manage expectations, while harnessing their skills sets.

Each year thousands of graduates leave India to pursue masters’ courses overseas. They carry with them the hope that after they complete their education they will have the opportunity to work abroad and build their skills, their bank balances and their resumes. This year however, many have been disappointed.

Forced to return home in the downturn they have found themselves absorbed in a domestic job market that was, at least until recently, experiencing its own hiring freeze. What’s more, joining the returnees, were master’s graduates from previous years, who had managed to secure employment broad, but filed to either have their contracts renewed, or asked to take a sabbatical until the economic situation improved.

This seems to a rather challenging situation, yet one of the most important things you have to do if you are to find a job, is to remain positive while working hard at every angle. SN from Bangalore, who is currently pursuing a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in the US says, it is hard, but on the other hand, if you give a hundred per cent to your job search, you can definitely land up with a job. In this situation you need to put that extra zing into grabbing every opportunity you get. You’ve got to be persistent and more flexible in terms of relocating and traveling. You need to open up more areas in your research like networking volunteering or even attending conferences, just in order to be able to meet people that could in turn lead to a potential employer. And you need to keep abreast with the current affairs of your interest.

As far as Indian job market is concerned, the number of postings for masters’ graduates is really picking up. For improving your chances of getting a job when you return is to have good contacts with people working in different fields, improve your socializing skills, and increase your networking. All this exposure and knowledge will really give you the confidence n courage to face and solve all sorts of problems, which is the main requirement of companies in any field.

Anyone studying abroad to build their networks, agrees the executive search agency Stanton Chase International in Bangalore. Join specialized groups, become more active with your institution an alumni. Ensure that summer jobs or internships have relevance to the overall career focus have. Stay connected to trends and economic indictors in your own country as well. There was a time when an international degree had great value in the job market. Now, it may be good, but not as dramatic as before.

What if you yourself returning to India to look for a job? In such a difficult market, it is essential that you stand by your conviction that the experience you have had overseas is valuable. Sometimes returning graduates do get discouraged when they haven’t got a job and have been back in India for two or three months, but you shouldn’t give up. You have to know that you have something special, something that so many students in India my not have.

Multinationals for example want to employ people with international experience because the understanding of different cultural working practices is an invaluable skill. Studying and working abroad, even if only part time gives you an edge over your compatriots. When you have international experience you understand how important it is to evidence decisions or show leadership and initiatives in your job. It is obvious that a non-Indian post-graduates degree brings several benefits to employers. There is the exposure to world class laboratories and other facilities, for example. Experience also helps you think innovatively decision making.

Keeping faith in the quality of your experience and what it can bring to Indian employers is important, but it is also important to articulate that experience in a way that helps people understand what you can do for them. For example, people who are unfamiliar with the shorter UK master’s program might wonder how much you could have learned in a year. It is important to emphasize how intensive a period of learning it was. You also need to articulate your understanding of how another country’s working practices can benefit the employer. Unless they are actively looking or someone with a non-Indian degree, they will not necessarily work this out for themselves.

Some Indian students are under the impression that Indian companies are going to be very receptive to anyone with an international degree adds even with well regarded degree such as one from the UK, you are going to need certain attitude. You need to bring yourself out. You need to bring yourself out. You need to show how valuable you will be to employers by drawing attention to your skills and experiences both on your CV and in the interview Indian CVs can often be too plain.

Rural and Urban Migration

Migration from rural to urban areas is largely a result of a desire for greater access to sources of education, health care and improved job opportunities. In the early 1800s less than 3.5 percent of the world’s people were living in cities of 20,000 or more and less than 2 percent in cities of 100,000 or more today more than 40 percent of the world’s people are urbanites, and the trend is acceleration. Once in the city, perhaps three out of four migrants achieve some economic gains. The family income of a manual worker in urban Brazil, for example is almost five times that of a farm laborer in a rural area.

By 2030, estimates indicate that more than 61 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas and at least 27 cities will have populations of 10 million or more, 23 of which will be in the less developed regions. Tokyo has already overtaken Mexico City as the largest city on Earth, with a population of 26 million, a jump of almost 8 million since 1990.

Although migrants experience some relative improvement in their living standards, intense urban growth without investment in services eventually leads to serious problems. Slums populated with unskilled workers living hand to mouth put excessive pressure on sanitation system, water supplies and other social services. At some points, the disadvantages of unregulated urban growth begin to outweigh the advantages for all concerned.

Consider the conditions that exist in Mexico City today. Besides smog, garbage and pollution brought about by the increased population, Mexico City faces a severe water shortage. Local water suppli0es are nearly exhausted and in some cases unhealthy. Water consumption from all sources is about 16,000 gallons per second, but the underground aquifers are producing only 2,640 gallons per second. Water comes for hundreds of miles away and has to be pumped up to an elevation of 7,444 feet to reach Mexico City. This is a grim picture of one of the most beautiful and sophisticated cities in Latin America. Such problems are not unique to Mexico; throughout the developing world, poor sanitation and inadequate water supplies are consequences of runaway population growth. An estimated 1.1 billion people are currently without access to clean drinking water and 2.8 billion have access to sanitation services. Estimates are that 40 percent of the world’s population 2.5 billion people will be without clean water if more is not invested in water resources. Prospects for improvements are not encouraging because most of the world’s urban growth will take place in the already economically strained developing countries.

Population Decline and Aging:

While the developing world faces a rapidly growing population, the industrialized world’s population is in decline and rapidly aging. Birthrates in Western Europe and Japan have been decreasing since the early or mid 1960s more women are closing are choosing careers instead of children, and many working couples are electing o remain childless. As a result of these and other contemporary factors, population growth in many countries has dropped below the rate necessary to maintain present levels. Just to keep the population from falling a nation needs a fertility rate of about 2.1 children per woman. Not one major country has sufficient internal population growth to maintain itself, and this trend is expected to continue for the next 50 years. Europe’s population could decline by as much as 88 million (from 375 million to 287 million) people if present tr6ends continue to 2015.

At the same time that population growth is declining in the industrialized world, there are more aging people, today than ever before. Global life expectancy has grown more in the last 50 years than over the previous 5,000 years. Until the industrial Revolution, no more than 2 or 3 percent of the total population was over the age of 65. Today in the developed world, the over age 65 group will amount to 14 percent and by 2030 this group will reach 25 percent in some 30 different countries.