From an Engineer to Manager

Well this topic is running in mind for quite some time. Might be I was not matured enough to write in this little early or might be in a train of thoughts to make it a sensible post. Whatever might be the reason, I feel finally D day has come now to put down this in the form of blog to people to think over and bring up their perspectives.

GRE, CAT, GMAT starts like an infectious viral fever among the students in the colleges. In the initial few days, intensity of this will be less. As the time goes by and the students come to their third year, mercury soars in the thermometer. To add fuel to the fire, companies starts giving offers through Campus interviews. And hence most likely they get confused in selecting the right path to their career and it happens in some cases that they end up in no man's land. So is this blog all about directing your career in the right direction? Of course not. I am not a career consultant. Then why am I speaking about all these competitive exams.

B.E/GRE (M.S) to CAT/GMAT (M.B.A)

Well there are people who take up these competitive exams even after being into Corporate World. The admissions based on these exams as well become little easy provided you have work experience. Have you ever thought why do the people give importance to the work experience while giving admissions to these post graduation courses? As far as I can think of it’s for the people who have experience in work to share their experiences with the students. That’s how it can make people understand things better. But at the end of day, any way you are going to come back to square one (work) even after completing your post graduation courses. Might be you are placed at slightly higher end with a higher Salary

What makes a big deal in this? My personal opinion would be you get to learn a lot practically in your work rather than attending these courses. At the end of the day, practical exposure is what going to speak about you and not your degree or the subjects that were covered in your curriculum.

So I can sense the next question that comes to your mind. If that’s the case, then what is the need for a B.E/B.Sc/BBA? Though there is no necessity of these courses to be completed before taking up your job, but corporate world has made it a mandate for offering you a job. So got to live with it. So effectively what do they look for in the candidates being given offers? Is that the computer back ground? Is that the degree candidate possesses? No... At the end of the day, its analytical skills that scores the most. To be frank, in my three years of experience in IT industry, I should say I have used very few things from the curriculum covered in my under graduation syllabus and I have been gaining more out of my work experience.

Especially IT is the only field that gives people rapid growth in their career ladder. Within a short span of five years you can see people rise from engineer to Manager. How many managers currently in IT industry have Management background to their career? Of late after entering into this field I realized that very few people in the top management possess management degrees. Most of the organizations indeed give an option for the people to choose either management or the technical stream for their progress in career ladder. How does a person choose a specific stream? Is it with skills that he possesses?

By manager in below paragraphs I mean the module leads, project leads, group leads and project managers who are involved in the management activities in the project.

Sometimes it’s quite disappointing seeing the manager perform very badly. Seeing the performance of the managers, sometimes I feel they are not fit enough to be a manager. I know that we should give some time for them to mature as every new role has learning curve attached to it. But then even after a year when I don’t see a maturity in them this question comes to my mind “Is that because they were promoted to their managerial role from their engineering role without much exposure to Management side?” But they were given a choice to choose their stream. So who is to be blamed here? Is it the organization? Or is it the individual who took his decision to enter into managerial stream?

What makes a manager more effective? Is that the convincing skills? Is that the resource management skills? Is that the time management skills? I believe it’s a right mix of all these that makes a manager more effective. I was just thinking over “Was that the management degree that was lacking in them which made them more ineffective”? At last I realized management skills and not the management degree scores in par in the management stream as Analytical Skills in the Technical Stream.

So if that’s going to be the case, then why are people behind Management degrees and Post Graduation degrees when it’s the management skills and Analytical skills that matters the most?

Seriously I don’t understand. Or is it something like this, Management degree provides people awareness on these management skills?

How many years are we going to put blame on the education system? Are people not matured enough to understand skills required for the job and exhibit it? Recent survey in the IT industry indicated that the overall attrition rate has increased from 14% in the previous year to 15% in the current year. Apart from Salary, I feel Project Management also contributes to Attrition rate.

Let the industry bring in some good managers or at least some good programs to make them good managers and effectively try to bring down the attrition rate.