Plan ur carrer after Engineering ( Hindu Article )

MBA+M.Tech+Law? The choice is yours

Don't blindly take to a software job. Get further training in your major subject and chalk out a career

FUTURE TENSE: Charting the right career path needs a lot of application

Just graduated with a B.E. in your plate? Flooded with multiple options? Difficulty in picking an option? Here are some tips on which career to choose.

If you have been a top scoring student in your engineering course, with an aggregate of 75 per cent or more, then you probably can say that you know something solid about your subject. I did my B.E. in Computer Science in a prestigious college in Bangalore under the General Merit category and had a decent aggregate. I could confidently say that I know something concrete about computers only after I did my M.S.

If you don't have a good aggregate score in B.E. and plan to begin working, then you probably need some more training in your major subject itself.

Most students prefer to take up a software job even though their specialisation may be Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil or other branches of engineering. It is rather unusual and difficult to switch branches and study M.S./M.Tech courses.

Three options

A non-IT student who wants to switchover to the software field and begin working has three major options:

1) Begin working for large companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Satyam or TCS, which recruit freshers in lots and undertake software training there. The training is condensed, but mandatory, for engineers from an IT background too.

2) Join a consultancy or institutes like NIIT/Aptech and acquire specific software skills such as in business analysis, QA or development and then join a company to work in that specific area. The advantage of doing this is to gain some expertise in a particular domain before joining the company, so that you could seek work in an area that you like, because otherwise, you will have to work on the project/technology assigned to you.

3) Join a start-up company where almost every employee will have to multi-task, thereby learning a lot in the process.

Between these three options, I would recommend the first one, because the quality of training provided by most of these large companies is very good. The fact that you have trained in a noted company will look good in your resume. Most of these companies insist on you signing a bond of at least one-year duration which, I think, is a small price to pay for the quality of training obtained and exposure to the corporate world gained.

It is not a good idea to skip a bond at all, because then you will be black-listed by all MNCs. You stand a major risk of losing prestigious offers by breaking a bond, even if you pay the amount asked by the company at the time of breaking the bond. If you are certain that you want to go for higher studies, you must think twice before joining a company which insists on a bond, because even if you leave the company without signing the bond, after the training process, you will still be black-listed.

Joining a start-up company is a risky business for a fresher, because however successful the company might appear today, it might run into losses very soon and even close down. It is good for a fresher to have at least one year's experience in a reputed company, preferably as developer in some hot technology, before choosing to join a start-up company.

A non-IT engineer might get admission into an IT field for higher studies, if he has a few years' experience in a reputed company in the software domain.

After your B.E., if you are certain that you want to go in for higher studies, you can choose between an M.S. degree from a foreign country, M.Tech from an Indian institute or an MBA, either from India or abroad. If you are highly technical or research-oriented, an M.S. or M.Tech is the one for you. There is scope for research in the business domain too, though lesser.

If you are business/industry-oriented, you might want to pick an MBA course. But if you want to work in the software industry, even after your MBA, you must know how to blend business with technology, because after gathering and analysing a client's business requirements, you must know how to translate it into technical specifications. The outcome required from a software industry is, after all, a software product.

Enhancing skills

It is good for a fresh engineer to enhance and solidify his/her technical skills before getting into the software field, which one can do by taking up an M.S./M.Tech course before doing an MBA.

However, if you have done well in your B.E. and secured admission in a prestigious management institute, you might as well pursue an MBA, because, when you get into the industry after an MBA, your company will usually help brush up your technical skills.

In an MBA course, again, you have multiple branches, some of which are:

1) Finance: You study a lot about stocks and shares, equities and banking procedures, insurance domain, etc. If you are a hardcore businessman/woman, this option is good for you.

2) Information Systems: You study how to manage the technical resources of a company, along with a lot of technical stuff.

If you don't want to lose touch with your technical background, this option is good for you.

3) Human Resource: You study how to manage the people in an organisation by formulating the right administrative policies, managing payroll, employee retention plans, managing the cultural and intellectual fabric of the organisation, recruiting and organising the task force, etc.

The latest trend in the industry is to combine IT and Business Management with Law. Yes! If you know the three, you can be an entrepreneur by yourself and it will be much easier for you to venture out on your own or help major MNCs to begin offshore activities in India. For those who know IT and Business and now want to learn Business Law, there is an institute named "Lakshmi Kumaran & Sridharan" in New Delhi which helps people learn Business Law.

VINAYA KURPAD

(Vinaya_kurpad@rediffmail.com)