In recent days especially Brexit and US presidential elections, Indian IT Services company have lost handful of projects. There has been series of articles written about the layoffs happening in India. There were questions on skills of Indian IT professional. I cannot argue on the data which is out there. It is very difficult for one who have lost job. 
My argument is you cannot downplay following skills of 4 million individuals:
- You are educated mostly with a higher degrees.
- You are well versed with use of computer & mostly you know technology.
- You have worked with at least one international team, so you know other culture.
- You have an internet connection. (That’s why you are reading this post 😉 )
- You have worked with team on projects that runs for years.
This list can go to multiple digits. I will leave it your skills and imaginations.
Certainly there could be slow down of India IT for the standard it have seen in past 2 decades. However we have matured as an Industry and to get work will not be easy without specific advance skills.
Following are my 2 possible solutions or you can say my point of view:
- Application Technology: Any application related technology primarily does three things: Saves Information, Apply Condition, Loops Action. The super nerdy out there, might think this is misleading. My point is the core is something similar. It is similar for most of the application technology. So if You have to spend 6 months to learn a new technology and get 44% job hike. Isn’t it worth it? So do it RIGHT NOW, while you still have the job rather than waiting for you to be sacked. So learning new skills is important because you are in the era where a person changes at-least 5 roles/industry in a life time.
- Self Employment: I am running my business so I am pro enterprise, having said that it is not for every one. Let me break it down for you in a different way, You must have had got a chance to work with someone whom you liked to work. I myself have been in the industry for 10 years before I started my business. You text few of your friends/mentors/juniors (this applies If you are currently out of job or check how your employers policies) and you start brainstorming on some ideas. Plan it out and try a MVP. Start small and see if you can connect with something. You can see today making a mobile friendly web app and hosting in Amazon cloud is inexpensive. If you don’t have money sell your phone and borrow your friends old phone. You should be fine for an year. Create a light weight product throw it out to early adopter and see if it sticks. Try – Test – Rinse – Repeat If you have any doubts and questions you know your friend Google is always there to help. Think global you can sell a web based product/service to any one in this world. It has been never so easy to reach any person in the world in the history of the mankind.
In conclusion I would like to end this with just saying don’t play a role of a victim. You have see the down fall of year 2000, 2008 and there will be one coming soon as per the experts out there. I don’t know. However I know there will be ups and downs in Indian IT and now is the time to change course and bring the different flair to it and make it more Independent
All the Best!
Vikram Shetty 