Being a fresh graduate or an early stage professional trying to outline a long-term career path today is challenging. While there are a number of different career disciplines available, there is that inherent accompanying uncertainty in the constantly evolving job market of today.

Educational institutes in India train millions of students each year, however the majority of Indian graduates across disciplines remain unemployed. For example, as per the Aspiring Minds National Employability Report, of the 1.5 lakh engineering graduates in 2015 from over 650 colleges, 80% of them are unemployable. Despite some favourable initiatives, there exists a large supply and demand gap, with students expressing their frustration by way of limited employment opportunities and corporates looking for quality talent.

While graduates seem to be focused on careers in the IT sector, Finance, Marketing, among others, the real estate sector remains largely overlooked when determining a viable career path. The real estate sector which is slated to be a $180bn opportunity by 2022, has a current skill shortfall of 4 million core professionals with the total skill requirement of the sector expected to be 75 million by 2022.  The government’s impetus to boost urban development and infrastructure, such as the addition of 25 million homes, 40 million dwelling units and 98 smart cities by 2022, has further enhanced the growth of the real estate and ancillary services sector. To build out Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s development agenda, there is an urgent requirement to have skilled resources in the real estate and infrastructure segments.

The real estate sector has traditionally been viewed as a fragmented and unorganized sector with firms being largely owner driven. Today, with increased regulatory vigilance and the passing of RERA 2016, as well as with real estate companies acquiring scale, getting more professional in their approach and larger players/funds developing businesses in the space, there is a wonderful opportunity to build a lucrative career. We see a number of our real estate partners focus on increasing the headcount of their Human Resources and Learning and Development Departments to ensure that there is a structured approach towards both talent acquisition and retention.

The ‘Real Estate Industry’ or the ‘Build Environment’ in India can be categorized into two segments: Construction and Real Estate Services. Construction includes Real Estate Asset classes (residential, commercial, retail, institutional, industrial and hospitality) and Infrastructure Facilities (roads, bridges, ports, airports, railways, power plants).

Real Estate Services include services such as consulting, brokerage and other ancillary services.

The ‘Top of the Pyramid’ manpower requirement can be categorized into 3 segments: specialized professionals, core professionals and non-core professionals. Specialized professionals include valuers, quantity surveyors, facility managers, property managers and sustainable development experts. Core professionals include engineers, architects and planners, and non-core professionals include management/business administration/chartered accountants/marketing/sales/project managers/finance analysts, lawyers and electrical engineers.

At REMI, the typical employers who recruit our students include developers, brokerage firms, property management companies, real estate online portals and property consultants.Despite this requirement for skilled professionals in the sector to enhance delivery capabilities in the industry, there are a limited number of programs and institutes focused on addressing the skill gap and training people on the required global best practices.At REMI- The Real Estate Management Institute, our programs have been designed in line with the requirements of the industry as comprehensive ‘Job Ready’ programs. We provide both technical and business training in our classrooms through certified faculty and industry experts, as well as have students/professionals undertake hands-on industry training as a part of our program. Our certification programs involve 3-4 months of in-class training with a 3-month internship at one of our 100+ corporate associates. We believe that this format of classroom, as well as industry training provides students with a hands-on learning experience and is most suited to meet the requirements of the industry.For more details visit www.remi.edu.in