There is a clear demand from the engineering services sector and will grow at 30% per year’

Interview of the Day: ‘There is a clear demand from the engineering services sector and will grow at 30% per year’

Sanjay Kumar, CEO & MD, Altran India
TimesJobs.com Bureau
The aerospace industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India. Is this the next hot place for engineering graduates and other professionals?
Yes, however, there is a skill gap in the quality of engineers being produced and the needs of the industry. Since this is a highly complex work environment and requires significant engineering capability the start up time for an engineer to be productive is almost 18 months.
Why do you think more and more engineering graduates/candidates are getting attracted to this space?
Until now, most engineering graduates only preferred IT – which in most cases does not really need engineers , so now engineers prefer sectors like aerospace as it allows them to work in real engineering domains and also on more cutting edge technology.
Which are the most in-demand and high-rewarding functional areas/skills in this domain?
Well, avionics and flight physics are extremely cutting edge but we usually prefer to put engineers with 4-8 years experience in this domain. For freshers’, we start them off in aero-structures with stress and design activities to begin with. Later we can move them to more high-end areas in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and so on.
What is your company’s recruitment strategy to ensure the best fit enter the organisation?
We prefer to take engineers with 2- 5 years experience at least. When we take freshers we prefer if they are at least an M-Tech. We generally find that B- Tech graduates passing out from engineering colleges in India are not able to meet our skill fit or capability requirements. IIT engineers are good but sadly most of them are not looking to be engineers.
What are the current recruitment trends and challenges?
In terms of trends, there is a clear demand coming from the engineering services sector and this will grow at almost 30% per year as offset requirements come in.
Will 2013 witness more influx of engineering talent in the aerospace industry owing to its dynamic and innovative nature of work? What are the factors that will affect this boom?
The offset policy will make a big difference, the signing of the Rafael deal will be the much needed fillip. With the impetus to MRO activity in this budget we clearly see increased hiring from Q2. 2013 will also see significant movement of engineering talent to client location as part of the skill up-gradation process.
What are some of the current campus hiring trends and challenges faced by you?
We are not yet convinced that there is good engineering talent currently available from campuses in India. There are lots of bright engineers on campus but hardly any of them are keen on a long term engineering career. The aerospace Industry is highly complex – one aircraft design takes upto a decade to fructify so it’s difficult to hire fresh engineering talent from colleges in India as they see the first job only in a 12 – 36 month context.
What are the 5 key aspects that every HR head in your industry should have on top of their agenda in 2013?

• Rigour in screening
• Continuous engagement on people development.
• Facilitating inter cultural familiarity as Aerospace work is extremely globalised.
• Ensuring employee value propositions are segmented in a manner that allows critical talent to be retained
• Last but not the least, benchmarking compensation, and benefits to be aligned with organisations position.

Are there new skill sets that will emerge in 2013 (owing to new technology/market forces) that you would like entrants in your industry to be trained/ready for?
Yes, I think manufacturing engineering within aerospace will emerge as a key area as offsets for manufacturing kick in and the industry needs to prepare hard for this.