Head – Industry Readiness & Employability

Head – Industry Readiness & Employability
Location: Chennai
Experience: 8+ years
Building Industry-Ready Engineers — Not Just Training Programs
The gap between what engineering graduates learn and what industry expects from them is widely recognised.
We are therefore building a high-impact, in-house Industry Readiness & Employability program for our engineering students — one that goes beyond conventional placement training.
We have a dedicated team of technical and communication-skills trainers. We are looking for a Head – Industry Readiness & Employability who can design, lead and continuously improve this program, with clear accountability for student competency, employability and ultimately placement outcomes.
This is not a conventional training or operations role.
What You Will Do
You will own the complete student industry-readiness journey:
Understand changing industry and employer expectations and translate them into relevant student competencies.
Design a structured, multi-year industry-readiness framework covering technical skills, communication, problem solving, professional skills, AI/digital fluency, projects and interview readiness.
Lead and develop a team of technical and communication-skills trainers.
Create a culture of continuous student learning, practice and accountability.
Establish assessments and competency benchmarks to measure whether students are actually learning and improving.
Identify students who are falling behind and drive targeted interventions and remediation.
Develop role- and industry-specific readiness pathways for different engineering disciplines and career aspirations.
Build strong feedback loops with recruiters, hiring managers, industry professionals and alumni.
Work closely with the Placement/Industry Relations team to connect student preparation with actual recruitment requirements.
Continuously use student and placement data to improve the program.
What Success Means
We are not interested in measuring success by training hours or number of classes conducted.
We want to see measurable improvement in:
Student competency levels
Student engagement and practice
Technical and communication assessment scores
Interview shortlisting and conversion
Technical interview success
Number and quality of students placed
Number and quality of companies recruiting our students
Roles and compensation secured
Employer feedback
Ultimately:
More students should become genuinely employable, get shortlisted, perform better in interviews and secure quality employment.
Who We Are Looking For
We are looking for a builder, learning leader and outcome owner who understands both industry expectations and student behaviour.
You may come from:
Employability / career-readiness EdTech
Graduate or early-career talent development
Workforce-readiness organisations
Corporate L&D with significant early-career exposure
Engineering student skill-development
Technology / coding education with demonstrated employability outcomes
University / college employability programs
Large-scale student or graduate development programs
Experience in an employability-focused EdTech organisation will be strongly valued.
More important than the sector, however, is your demonstrated ability to take a large learner population from identified competency gaps to measurable outcomes.
You should have experience in designing or managing programs, leading trainers/mentors, driving learner engagement, using assessments and data, creating interventions for weaker learners, and working with employers or industry.
You should be someone who can think like an employer, learning architect, student-development leader and business owner simultaneously.
This Role Will Suit Someone Who
Enjoys building rather than maintaining established systems.
Is highly outcome-driven and comfortable being measured on results.
Understands that students require structure, motivation, monitoring and continuous intervention to develop consistently.
Is willing to get into the details when outcomes are not being achieved.
Can challenge conventional approaches to engineering education.
Is entrepreneurial, analytical and execution-oriented.
Can build a strong team and create a culture of accountability.
Why Join Us?
This is an opportunity to build an employability ecosystem from the ground up, with the autonomy to shape the curriculum, training model, assessment framework, student engagement system and industry interface.
You will have a dedicated team and the institutional support to experiment, measure and continuously improve.
If you believe engineering education should produce graduates who are ready to contribute from Day One, we would like to hear from you.
Application
Please share your CV along with a brief response to:
“What are the three biggest employability gaps among today's engineering graduates, and what would you do differently to address them?”
Selected candidates may be invited for a practical case discussion.

Work arrangement
No