Ideas to make college grads work ready from day one!

1. "The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the
head all the time. You only have to know what you
want, then forget it, and go about your business.
Suddenly, the idea will come through. It was there all the
time." - Henry Ford

2. 
A passionate , driven recruiter of a multinational
organisation needs a way to bridge the gap between ace
institutions and corporates with meaningful education
that would make graduates work-ready from day one!
Problem statement

3. 
Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate."
1. Expose children to a wide variety of experiences including
music, plays, sports, museums, travel, reading, dance, games, food, puzzles, et
hnic activities, etc. One never knows how what exposure may influence future
life choices
2. Encourage kids to ask questions
3. Play "thinking games". These are games where there is not just one answer like
scrabble and chess are examples.
4. Emphasize the value of thinking & thoughtfulness rather than the importance
of winning.
Kids – changes at home

4. 
5. Put them through all the streams of learning and do not restrict them to few
subjects
6. Help school kids pick their area of interest while learning
7. Let children pick their stream of subject for specialisation based on what they
enjoy
8. Conduct guided reflective sessions to help them understand what they want
9. Educate school children on job opportunities
10. Run “know your career “courses
11. Each school to be afflicted with a college in the same city
12. Group of final year school students to be buddied by a college grad of the
same line of interest
13. Each group to work on a project assigned by college buddy
Children – changes at school

5. 14) Help students understand themselves – their strength / weakness with self
assessment tests
15) Common work based curriculum – with all self learning modules
16) Industry-academia tie-up. Each college to be affiliated to a local industry partner for
learning
17) College professors should have a minimum of 2 years of industry experience and 5
years of research background to be able to handle a subject at a college
18) Every college to have technology transfer office – A council that will help colleges
cope up with technology upgrades and industrial trends
19) Development of new benchmark evaluation criteria to encourage grads to apply
knowledge rather than just score in the exams
Adults – changes at college

6. 
20) Complete 2 projects to clear a semester
 Work on industry problem statements project
 Colleges identified application based research projects
21) Train people on life/ soft skills for the last year at college
22) Every student to be active part of Form life/soft skills club
23) Competition and opportunity to win industry recognised workshops for key
work-skills
24) Group of final year grads to be 3 month mentorship program-mentored by an
industry employee
Adults – changes at college

7. 
Workplace environment
25) Think about new innovative opportunities about how corporate and
industry can interact more - Promote a positive image of the company
26) Industry to sponsor postgraduate studentships
27) Industry to angle invest college generated impressive projects
28) Industry to identify employees mentor final year grad groups for 3
months
29) Industry employees to train in collages at least for 6 months
30) Continued life skills clubs – for sustain learning and support
31) Provide access to company knowledge and resources
Professionals – Changes at
workplace

8. Pre hire phase / standards
32. Ability to spot and recruit the brightest young talent based on projects
33. Folks who have completed impressive projects for the industry should be given
preference while hiring
34. Folks to be evaluated & hired based on simulations -clearing stress / life skills
workshop to become eligible for hiring
Post hire – pre on board phase
35. Self study curriculum + projects
36. Trainee mentorship program to help them in seamless transition
37. Interactive website to experience work at hiring organisation
Post on board training phase
38. Trainees to spend the first week in observation – will be sent to project floors and
would observe(with observation pointers) people in action
39. Every group of 5 trainees to be tagged to a mentor manager
40. Work attitude module with built in 270 degree feedback
41. Train managers to be mentors – esp deal with college grads / company entrants
Professionals – Changes at
workplace

9. Parents:
42. Oriented on how to encourage questioning , thinking and give less emphasis on making it
right and wining
43. Be more open to explore un conventional learning / employment opportunities
School teachers:
44. Qualified to teach rather than qualified on a subject
45. Should encourage children to make mistakes and learn
46. Provide a on threatening learning environment
College professors
47. Qualified to work rather than qualified on a subject
48. Encourage students to apply learning rather than score marks
Recruitment policy
49. Look at projects rather than scores
50. Look at learning / coping capacity
Influencers -Mind-set change

10. 
Collaborating with people
51. School: Invite collage grads to orient school final years to help them understand /
prepare themselves for college
52. College: Invite industry experts – Visiting professors for regular project coaching
53. Industry: Have industry to invite academics who may have an interest in a common
problem to spend time at their facility, interacting with researchers and practitioners
54. Sponsored and honorary posts for industry best contributors at institutions and for
professors at corporates
55. Dual appointments – employment at both industry & institutions
Collaborating instances
56. During research for future of work - Provide institutions a flexible and cost-effective
extension of the R&D resources (expertise, equipment, facilities) available to the
company
57. During solving current industry problems
Collaboration check points

11. Interactive website for newly hired resources to experience work-life at
hiring organisation
 Context – what :
 A end to end interactive website depicting the culture and work life of an organisation
 A walk thro that will provide complete understanding & learning experience
 Why:
 This would help fight anxiety of a new entrant and get him familiarised with the
organisation
 Help understand an organisation culture before joining
 Process – how:
 Every hired candidate to be given access to this website
 The candidate to take a walkthrough of the website ; complete all the required
milestones
 Walkthrough will have learning checkpoints – that will prompt / teach organisation
way of work
Most practical idea

12. School-college-employee continuous buddy program
 Context – what :
 Every school in a locality to be tied / affiliated to a college
 Every college to be tied / affiliated to a corporate / company
 Why:
 Use the buddy system to help juniors to understand how a college / corporate works
 Orient juniors on what can be expected & what to look forward to
 Buddy mentors to help in project execution / guidance
 Process – how:
 High School group to be buddied by college graduate from the affiliated college
 Final college grad group to be buddied by employee from the affiliated corporate
Most disruptive idea

13. Entrants of corporates spend the first one week observing on project floors
 Context – what
“Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of
how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."
-Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory, 1977
 Why:
 Harness on learn by observation
 Facing the project world first and then providing them with corporate training ensures
entrants aware of what they don’t know
 This awareness builds agility to learn – later when sent to corporate training they will know
why they are learning what they are learning
 Process – how:
 Trainees to spend the first week in observation – will be sent to project floors and would
observe(with observation pointers) people in action
 The observation pointers will help associates motivated & look for opportunities to learn
My favorite idea

14. 
"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is
no hope for it." - Albert Einstein