Where do engineers go to when they are past their initial jobs? It could be anywhere. But the one thing that you can be fairly sure of is that they will no longer be engineers. Some desert the profession even before they have started. They are those who opt for MBAs. If it is a good school — an Indian Institute of Management, for instance — they are considered lucky. So what happened to the mad craze to get into the Indian Institutes of Technology?

Others go abroad. A few — very, few despite all the publicity the tribe gets — set up a technology shop in the US and become millionaires. A good number remain in the ivory towers where they went to study. It is a dangerous world outside. On campus, one day you will become a dean; it’s a thankless job and nobody wants it except the sort that likes being gurus. Such gurus join boards and make money. But every once in a while a Satyam comes along and proves that nothing in the world is risk free.

Of the engineers that remain, the BTechs do MTech to get some more time to find their niche in life. The people who can’t find that niche become teachers; and you’ve been wondering why the quality of teaching is so dismal in our top institutes. The diehard engineers — like A.M. Naik of Larsen & Toubro — who has been very vocal over the death of the engineering profession, believe that being chairman of an engineering company means that he is still an engineer. But he has thrown away his slide rule, both literally and metaphorically.

What is the personal preference of our engineers and technical graduates? According to a survey by firstnaukri.com, a part of jobs portal naukri.com, the big draw remains information technology. After that is the surprise: BE and BTech graduates are attracted by public sector and defence jobs. Move over Hindustan Lever and L&T, the employer of choice is the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Why? The question was not asked. Firstnaukri says it was because of jingoism. “A more likely explanation is job security,” says D.N. Singh, a Mumbai-based HR consultant.

Once you take up this sort of a job, you are made for life. Well, made may be the wrong word, but you can certainly look forward to a comfortable existence — a job from which you can’t be dismissed, housing, schooling for your children and an annual increment regardless of performance. What’s more, the organisation takes care of your training and promotion needs.

That world may not be around for much longer. In the West, thanks to the jobs crisis, many companies are not bothered about the advancement of their employees. In the best of companies, trainees would be evaluated after one year. They would be put in different buckets depending on the level they were expected to reach. The proper environment was provided to give them the opportunity. In Lever, for instance, people were identified as potential chairmen. They were called “listers” (people on the list) and given mentors to guide them on their way up.

“Today, you have to manage your own career path,” says Singh. A poll in the US (see box) by Right Management shows that nearly 90 per cent of employees felt they have to be more personally proactive now. In India too there is a growing feeling that merit counts. Part of this merit is the ability to sell yourself to your employer without the crutches he provides.

That too will come to India. Today, however, there is a lot of lip service to training. You send the boys to the executive education course at a B-school, sometimes even abroad. But there’s where it all ends. After that you need your DIY kit.

The other big factor is that corporate loyalty has all but gone. Why groom somebody who could be with your rival tomorrow? DRDO scores again as people who join the organisation expect they will never leave it. Is that the best defence?