Small-town freshers learning new-age tech skills to crack IT sector jobs

More and more candidates are registering to learn these skills in hopes of finding better employment opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market

Smaller towns and cities have registered a jump in the number of young engineers taking up cutting-edge, high-demand tech skills such as Gen AI, Machine Learning, data science, cloud computing, Fullstack development, and EV design, The Economic Times (ET) has reported. More and more people are registering to learn these skills in hopes of finding better employment opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market, the report said.

The newspaper cited enrollment data from smaller towns like Madurai, Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Lucknow, Indore, Tiruchirapalli, Mysuru, Kottathur, Bhubaneswar and said that candidates registering from these regions accounted for more than 40 per cent of total candidates in 2023 compared to 30-32 per cent a couple of years ago, the ET report added.

upGrad, an online learning platform, registered a 50 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise in enrolments from freshers hailing from non-metro locations in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter.

IT sector facing challenges

The development is significant given the information technology sector, which happens to be the largest recruiter of white-collar talent, has been faced with numerous challenges. In recent times, IT companies have decided to skip campus placements, cutting majorly on their entry-level recruitment, in order to control costs.

Young graduates are spending Rs 1-4 lakh to acquire the niche skills to increase their chances of landing a good job.

What do the experts say?

Talking about the trend, cofounder of Great Learning, Hari Krishnan Nair told The Economic Times, "There is a conscious effort by freshers in the Tier 2 and 3 cities to acquire the latest skills to excel in a competitive job market as the selection process for entry-level talent is becoming more and more stringent in a tough job market."

Another industry expert, Co-founder of upGrad, Mayank Kumar was quoted in the report as saying, "Many in the smaller towns do not have access to quality higher education infrastructure. In many cases, the college curriculum is also not up to date. This is prompting many young engineers and graduates to learn skills that could give the relevant proficiency that many employers are looking for."