Compulsory test to be started from this year.
By R. Chandrasekaran
CHENNAI: Even as the administration is phasing out various entrance exams for professional courses such as engineering and medicine in various states in India, the National Association of Software Service Companies (NASSCOM) is launching a competency test for students who are eying a job in the IT sector.
The trade body believes that its NASSCOM Assessment of Competence or NAC Tech test will help both companies as well as students. The test is devised to decide capabilities of the students’, who are looking for a job in the IT industry. The standard test duration is fixed 90 minutes and an optional test will also be added to supplement it.
NASSCOM president Som Mittal disclosed that the standard test will be made compulsory from the current year following a two-year pilot runs. The test will check specific job role skills of a student. The trade body will maintain a data base indicating the scores obtained by the students from the tests conducted by it. All the members affiliated to the NASSCOM could access this big database and start the hiring process.
Companies can easily select a candidate based on scores and the tests of specific job skills. The candidates can also approach different companies with the scores obtained.
However, an official from the trade body has reportedly said, “companies can, however, administer few additional tests to check for specific skills.”
NASSCOM has developed some standard tests for different roles like web developer, analyst, language translator and technical writer. The trade body has so far identified 510 roles from four broad categories such as IT services, engineering and R&D, business process management and software products.
The trade body’s executive director for sector skills council Sandhya Chintala added, “the entry level has 67 roles, 313 roles for the middle and 130 for top. We will start with 5-10 job roles in the entry level this year.”
It remains to be seen whether IT companies would still hire students from colleges through the campus hiring process. NASSCOM has not disclosed anything in particular to this effect. However, students may have to undergo the tests that have a validity of one year to avoid any embarrassment.
To contact the author, email to rchandrasekaran@americanbazaaronline.com