Recognising that a continuous pipeline of skilled manpower is what will sustain India’s edge in the global IT-BPO market, NASSCOM has been working with industry players to create a national assessment and certification programme – the NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC). The initiative is aimed at creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent.

This will be done by continuously assessing candidates on key skills through a national standard assessment, thus making it easier for firms to screen candidates and also provide training need analysis to candidates. This will then be tied into training and development efforts to help more candidates become competent to work in the industry. NASSCOM is following a multi-pronged approach to facilitate manpower development for the short and long-term, by making available a list of pre-certified people.

NAC is creating a win-win situation for all the stakeholders — the BPO industry, students and state governments by building a common, transparent process across companies in the IT-BPO sector and creating a national standard for recruitment of entry-level talent, especially in Tier-2 and 3 cities of India. It has obliterated the need for students to go through the same recruitment process at different companies, while providing them an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, and training needs. By eliminating steps from the recruitment process, lowering cycle time and leading to a more efficient utilisation of resources, NAC is helping BPOs reduce sourcing costs by as much as 50 per cent. NAC is spurring employment generation through increased employability of talent

Already over 15,272 candidates from 13 Indian states have taken the test.

NASSCOM Assessment of Competence-Technology (NAC-Tech)

On similar lines, the NAC-Tech programme is for engineering students and aims to transform a ‘trainable’ workforce into an ‘employable workforce.’ NAC-Tech offers the following advantages to students and colleges/universities. It provides a credible assessment solution which can be integrated into the existing engineering programme framework, provides a detailed feedback to students on their knowledge and skills, and enables them to apply to multiple companies. The assessment is helping colleges to generate a picture of the skill levels of their students, based on which they can approach various IT and non-IT companies for placement opportunities.

Over 18 companies from the IT-BPO sector have already endorsed the NAC-Tech programme while around 7,300 candidates from various engineering colleges/institutes across India have taken the NAC-Tech test. Going forward, all IT and engineering service companies are expected to endorse and hire using NAC-Tech scores and treat the programme as a pre-campus assessment pre-requisite.

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