Educated India? Or not?

Of late, I have had the (mis) fortune of interviewing many candidates for a vacancy in my organization. The vacancy is for a junior level position, nothing fancy. It requires that the candidate have basic understanding of engineering principles, a grip on mathematics (specifically, 7th standard geometry) and decent communications skills. Suffice to say that I am disappointed with the results so far.

Lets start with the first point of interaction of the candidate with me: the curriculum vitae. This is the first chance that you have to impress potential employers. And we get all sorts of tripe about objectives of being this and doing that.

Sample this "Objective: To pursue a challenging career in the field of Engineering and creative technologies in progressive way that gives me scope and to be part of team that excel in work towards the development of the organization". Really? Does the candidate really understand what he has written or has he been spoon fed this by some consultant / web-site? Why not have a simple "mission-statement" or objective? Something as straight forward as "Objective: To be a smart working Chemical Engineer". Something you can easily explain and defend. Most candidates can not read out their Objectives, forget reciting it from rote.

The next interaction is the actual interview. Somehow, the delicate art of personal presentation and decency is being lost in the new generation. When appearing for an interview, is it too much to expect that the candidate present himself in decent office wear? Or that he wear something that resembles leather shoes? We do not mind if the shoes are not polished. But the attempt to do that would show us that you really care to make an impression. It seems that its a seller's market: I am a talent you ought to have. Why bother interviewing me? Hire me as I am, or forget about it.

Manners. The least said, the better. There are some candidates who have managed to pleasantly surprised me. But those have been a minority.

Educational qualifications are a must. They serve as a basic differentiator and are necessary to separate the chaff from the wheat. But education can not serve as the measure for the utility of a person to the organization. I have read it innumerable number of times, heard it discussed ad infinitum and have now had a chance to see it with my own eyes: Attitude matters more than what your certificates say about you. Skills can be taught; even a greenhorn can be taught how to do something and do it well. However, the willingness to learn and to bend your back, to put one's nose to the grind during the training period, can not be. Rather unfortunate.

Seeing the quality of personnel that we are interviewing currently, I really begin to wonder whether we will be able to achieve the dream of India Super Power by 2020. Sure, we will have the world's largest population in the "working" age of 16 to 55 year olds. Whether they will be employable is a totally different question altogether.