Do IT Your Way

Institutes: Jigsaw Academy, Upgrad, Edureka, International School of Engineering

Starting salary: Rs 40,000-80,000 per month

DIGITAL MARKETING

With more and more websites competing for visibility on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, there is a demand for improving web page rankings. That is a job for digital marketing. “The digital marketing industry is still in a nascent stage and requires more manpower to meet demand. This course is designed to develop professionals with practical and industry exposure,” says Putul Kundu, founder of Kolkata Web Academy, which offers courses in digital marketing.

Digital marketing courses cover all aspects of online marketing, including SEO (search engine optimisation), SEM (search engine marketing) and SMO (social media optimisation). With the emergence of e-commerce, every entrepreneur now wants to showcase his/her products in the digital sphere, so the demand for digital marketing professionals is only rising. Partha Das bagged a marketing manager’s job at Ajanta footwear after completing a digital marketing course from the Institute of Computer Accountants. Khushboo Gupta completed the same course from Kolkata Web Academy, while she was studying in East Calcutta Girls College. “This course is suitable for students from any background who want to pursue the perfect blend of theoretical and practical skill development,” says Gupta who is now an SEO executive with the Calcutta-based Smart Solution Pvt. Ltd.

Eligibility: Plus Two/ Undergraduates

Duration: 4-8 months

Job opportunities: SEO executive, social media expert, Internet marketing, online marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing

Institutes: The Institute of Computer Accountants (ICA), Kolkata Web Academy, NIIT, Indus Net Academy

Starting salary: Rs 20,000-35,000 per month

NETWORK ENGINEER

Every office has computers these days and all of them are on a network. So is it any surprise that there is a huge demand for hardware and networking professionals? And if you have Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) training, you are set for a career as a network engineer. “MNCs such as Vodafone need router management on a large scale and look for CCNA certified people to handle this,” says Harsh Ruia, director of Aptech, Chowringhee. CCNA Routing and Switching is a certification programme that explains networking technologies and routing. You need a basic knowledge of computer hardware to do this course. Pranay Chand took the CCNA certification, while pursuing a BE from Nagpur University and is now working as a network engineer at ITC Infotech.

“Electronics & IT hardware is one of the emerging sectors for employment growth in India,” says Tanmaya Das, vice president of Orion Edutech, which offers hardware and networking courses. “This encouraged us to provide this course to students from all backgrounds.” One of their success stories is Pappu Das, the son of a tailor, who could not complete his graduation because of financial reasons, but is now providing for his family by netting a decent job after completing this course.

And if you can do courses in hardware and networking then it’s even better — a hardware professional with networking skills always adds value to a company.

Eligibility: Plus Two, with basic knowledge of hardware and networking.

Duration: 2-15 months

Job opportunities: Database administrator, networking administrator, LAN engineer, security administrator, web server administrator

Institutes: Orion Edutech, Aptech, Indian School of Ethical Hacking

Starting salary: Rs 15,000-35,000 per month

ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE

The Certified Industrial Accountant course includes modules on SAP, softwares such as TALLY, advanced MS Excel and so on. “No employer nowadays has the time to train new joinees,” says Mahua R. Nandy, associate general manager, The Institute of Computer Accountants. According to her, this is the reason why students who have taken courses in finance and accounts are regarded as good hires.

Take the case of Priyanka Kumari, who was doing her BCom from Jaipuria College. Kumari signed up for the Certified Industrial Accountant’s course while she was doing her Bcom, and today she works at Genpact India as a process associate.

Eligibility: Plus Two

Duration: 8-18 months

Job opportunities: Financial analyst, senior accountant, accounts & finance executive, commercial manager.

Institutes: The Institute of Computer Accountants, NIIT, Aptech

Starting salary: Rs 8,000-30,000 per month

WEB DESIGNING

“Knowledge of UI/UX designing, as well as any of the server side languages like PHP, .NET or JSP can prove to be a real star on a computer science graduate’s resume. UI/UX designing deals with the look and feel of a web page and requires a know-how of HTML, CSS and JavaScript scripting languages,” says Manu Gurtu, managing director, MagDiSoft and UI/UX corporate trainer at MagDiSoft Training Services, which offers web-designing programmes. Web designing is an exciting career for students who can conceptualise. Talented web designers earn a very high salary.

Eligibility: Plus Two

Duration: 4-24 months

Job opportunities: Web designer, graphic designer, web-animation creator, web developer, PHP & CSS developer, multimedia designer, design consultant, website programmer, digital imaging specialist

Institutes: DQ School of Visual Arts, Arena Animation, Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC), MagDiSoft

Starting salary: Rs 10,000-15,000 per month

CYBER SECURITY

Samrat Das, 23, developed a keen interest in cybersecurity after watching ‘The Matrix’. This led him to do a course on certified ethical hacking, when he was in his final year of BCA at George College, Sealdah. “After completing the course at the Indian School of Ethical Hacking (ISOEH), I became a part-time faculty there. I used to teach reverse engineering, a niche skill, which involved cracking software codes to bypass security. This skill is also used to perform virus and malware analysis,” says Das. He is now working at Wipro Technologies as a penetration tester. “My current responsibilities include finding loopholes and vulnerabilities in web applications, network and source code of applications, so that they can be corrected,” he says.

Ethical hacking, cyber forensics, android penetration testing, malware analysis, network and web application penetration testing, are some of the short-term courses students interested in cybersecurity can pursue along with their graduation. As a penetration tester/ethical hacker, a person gets 3-4 times more salary than a software engineer/developer, due to the scarce supply of cyber security professionals in IT firms.

Abir Atarthy, co-founder, ISOEH says, “Cyber security is the next big thing. Every day there are numerous events of hacking/corporate data breach, which is giving rise to demands for skilled cyber security professionals.”

Eligibility: Plus Two with basic knowledge of software, database and networking.

Duration: 2- 15 months

Job opportunities: Penetration tester, security analyst, forensics expert, security administrator, cryptographer, security specialist, vulnerability assessor, etc.

Institutes: Indian School of Ethical Hacking, Micropro, Mercury Koenig Solutions, Mercury Solutions Limited.

Starting salary: Rs 25,000-35,000 per month