Most Indian CS Graduates Can’t Code
The growing emphasis towards earning a computer science degree has saturated the market, and there are not enough jobs available for graduates. While this seems like a plausible explanation, on the contrary, many computer science graduates still struggle with the foundational skills required to write code. This seems to be another key reason why graduates in India are not able to land jobs despite having the necessary qualifications. This topic was further highlighted in a recent Reddit discussion, where the original poster asked if the market is actually saturated or if it is simply that CS majors can’t code. Though the answer is nuanced, job seekers have been sending out hundreds of applications and not receiving any responses. At the same time, according to them, the resumes are also not up to par. “I have a cousin who’s in his third year of CS with no internship and always complains at family gatherings about how bad the market is. I then asked him to show me his resume… Let’s just say bro has a calculator as his project,” said the Redditor, explaining that it is indeed true that a lot of graduates are just not competent enough in coding to land CS jobs. Curious, they gave their cousin a simple task using an API from a game they both enjoyed. Instead of implementing a few lines of code, the cousin painstakingly copied and pasted thousands of lines of JSON into ChatGPT, then attempted to break it into smaller chunks for processing. The actual solution shared by the Reddit user was just a few lines of JavaScript, calling to attention the inadequate practical skills among CS students. Inadequately Training in Universities This highlights the huge gap between what universities are offering to CS graduates and what the market actually requires. According to a report released by Teamlease Digital, only 5.5% of Indian engineers are qualified with basic programming skills. Moreover, according to the ManpowerGroup Talent Shortage Survey 2024, 75% of employers worldwide are struggling to fill critical positions due to a lack of qualified candidates. According to employers, the vast majority of graduates are highly “unemployable”. Several discussions on X narrate similar stories underscoring how many recent college graduates do not have the basic coding skills for entry-level positions, and therefore, employers prefer hiring engineers holding at least two to three years of experience. In a post, Ratnakar Sadasyula, an IT professional and author, narrated the story of candidates demanding extremely high salaries. “Now that would not be an issue, if these people were extraordinarily brilliant, or IIT, NIT passouts,” said Sadasyula. “Most of them are from ordinary engineering colleges and, forget about being extraordinary, they are not even of decent ability (sic),” he said, adding that most did not even possess proper communication skills. A developer told AIM that though the market is saturated, he was not able to land a job because he also lacked the relevant skill set. He explained that he had to opt for unpaid internships for more than a year as the production requirement in the job market wasn’t taught in universities. Left with no other option, freshers have to up-skill themselves and learn from courses and videos available online. Notably, instead of developing industry-relevant skill sets, students are often forced to do research work in universities, which is usually redundant for the jobs they apply for. Most of them start learning coding only after graduating. The same is the case with Indian professors at universities. AIM had earlier reported that many Indian engineers believe their college professors lack the necessary expertise required to teach programming. “Most people learn what college teaches them and nothing more,” said a Reddit user during the discussion, which resonated highly among college students. The tech world is buzzing with the idea that one doesn’t need a college degree in computer science to land a job. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and GitHub Copilot can instantly answer technical questions, raising the question of whether CS majors need to memorise basic concepts. One developer asserted, “Memorising all this stuff [code] is just insane; you can Google it or use ChatGPT in one or two searches.” While one can argue that there is no need to learn programming since most of the coding in the near future will be done by AI tools like ChatGPT and others, the reality of the job market shows that these AI tools are still not advanced to replace the need for developers. Nothing’s New A simple Google search shows that this has been the case for the longest time in the Indian tech industry. In 2017, it was reported that 95% of Indian engineers couldn’t code because the skill demand was so high. To this day, a record number of CS graduates coming out of college are not adequately trained with even the basic skills to secure a low-paying job in any of the Indian IT companies. Despite producing around five to 10 million STEM graduates annually, India, as a populated and developing country, is running out of skilled software engineers. Instead, the country faces an oversupply of graduates, as the most talented ones move to developed nations. The truth is, though the qualification from a premier institute is not exactly an ideal standard, technical knowledge is definitely necessary. That is a mistake that several Indian companies make. “A couple of freshers were recruited from CS streams of Tier 3 colleges… Nine out of 10 didn’t know how to code at all,” a developer told AIM. Though India is seeing an increase in talent retention, there seems to be a surplus of underskilled CS graduates, who do not even know how to code.
Notably, instead of developing industry-relevant skill sets, students are often forced to do research work in universities.
According to employers, the vast majority of graduates are highly “unemployable”, and the universities do not prepare them well for the industry.
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Mohit writes about AI in simple, explainable, and often funny words. He's especially passionate about chatting with those building AI for Bharat, with the occasional detour into AGI.