Sasank Potturu, the young and vibrant entrepreneur who heads ConduiraOnline, a fast-growing upskilling firm, is an optimist to the core.
He believes the post-pandemic boom, particularly in the technology sector, is a great opportunity for the youth.
"The industry is certainly thirsty for good talent. There is a huge push towards skill-based hiring independent of the background of the student," he says.
At Techspectations 2021, ManoramaOnline's flagship digital summit slated for October 23 (Friday), Potturu will be speaking from his experience as an alumnus of IIIT-Hyderabad and IIM-Calcutta, as well as the co-founder of Conduira.
Potturu will take part in a panel discussion on 'Online Upskilling Challenges & Vision Beyond 2021.'
Potturu, who started his journey with Conduira with 2008, had been mentoring thousands of students and assiting them to lay a strong career foundation since then.
He has also been instrumental in Conduira’s foray into the online segment, initially taking care of the product development.
He now leads its online initiatives.
"As a co-founder at Conduira, I am responsible for innovating on strategic initiatives such as Digital Internships – a means to narrowing the skills gap and providing industry an opportunity to hire pre-trained, pre-vetted students. I lead a team of 30 people – all working towards the vision of generating a employable graduate talent pool," he said.
"The start-up boom and the resulting product development jobs with higher pay packages bring exciting opportunities to the aspiring candidates. While the opportunity is huge, the candidates need to invest in themselves to be job-ready. Internships and Coding Contests are the new recruiting processes and students should equip themselves with the necessary skills to leverage these opportunities," he says on the career prospects of the country’s youth.
Taking up jobs while on campus as a way to earn skills and money as well as adding additional skills through different courses available online have now become a norm.
Potturu believes opportunities that were once available to only students from Tier-1 colleges are now available to all as companies move to skill-based hiring and the recruitment process becomes democratised.
The Common Employment Test and the focus on Internships/Apprenticeships articulated in National Education Policy would only accelerate this change further.
It is in this backdrop the companies like Conduira have a big role to play.
"To avail these opportunities and the big pay packages they bring along, students are expected to showcase the requisite skills. Additionally, exposure to industry practices and soft-skills are becoming hygiene factors expected in a quality candidate. This is the place where digital platforms like Conduira can complement the mainstream educational institutes in providing students with opportunities to learn new-age technologies, intern with companies paving their way to a successful full-time job opportunity," he said.
Techspectations 2021
ManoramaOnline is set to host the fourth edition of the summit even as the global economy strives to recover from the COVID-19 crisis and return to the path of revival and explore new opportunities. Tech experts, influencers, top brand heads, luminaries from various fields and start-ups will attend the digital summit.
Jain Online is the main partner of the 'Techspectations Educate 2021'. For details on 'Techspectations Educate', check out the website: https://educate.techspectations.com
