NASSCOM Assessment

NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC) 2008

NASSCOM, the premier trade body and ‘voice’ of the IT software and service industry in India, announced the rollout of the NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC) in Meghalaya, in association with the Development of North Eastern Region (DONER).

NAC was launched as an industry standard assessment and certification program to ensure the transformation of a "trainable" workforce into an "employable workforce" hence creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent for the BPO sector. 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 in to training and development efforts to help more candidates become competent to work in the industry.

The target audience are the final-year students who will be venturing into the job markets after a year’s time. The intent behind assessing these students is to identify the level of talent which is available in various parts of India, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and to provide feedback to them about areas of further improvement which will make them employable.

The North Eastern region has well educated, well spoken and talented manpower pool which makes it an attractive destination for ITES-BPO sector. Not only this, the region also has the potential to become next BPO hub given the availability of human resources and progressive government policies. In line with this, NASSCOM has partnered with DONER to channelize this talented pool of human power to maximise the benefits of this booming sector

It may be noted that as per Government of India policy and NASSCOM decision, NAC test and score is going to be compulsory for jobs in the IT Sector and BPO industry.

Eligibility criteria for NAC 

• Pursuing final year UG 
• Graduate

This is open to all final-year undergraduate and all postgraduate students from any stream.

Key benefits of NAC

1. NAC will increase the reach of ITES–BPO industry to tier II and tier III cities for their sourcing requirements; and additionally will spread awareness about job opportunities in the ITES-BPO industry 
2. Industry
3. • Creation of a national standard for recruitment of entry level talent 
   • Up to 50% cost savings in industry’s sourcing cost
   • Ease of benchmarking for individual processes with industry standards 
   • Ability to create visibility and reach out to a larger audience 
4. Job aspirants
5. • A common, transparent process across companies in the ITES-BPO sector.
   • Ability to identify their strengths and weaknesses and self-assess training needs 
6. Training Firms
7. • Insights into the training requirements given the skill gaps
   • Inputs to help create and refine training modules which deliver immediate benefits and hence has greater buy-in 
8. Governments 
9. • Help explore talent in Tier II and Tier III Cities for industry requirements
   • Understanding talent strength areas and areas of improvement
   • Employment generation and creation of education to employability linkage
10. • Help in attracting serious investors by enabling State governments to plan their investment policies basis the ground data about talent availability.