By Pulkit Jain  

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Content is streaming at an all-time high today. It’s being served on a myriad of devices such as smartphones, smart speakers, connected cars, and connected homes. But is the situation supportive for artists whom you enjoy watching on the OTT platforms? Is talent seeking opportunity in this industry re-employable?

The age-old issue

A renowned celebrity actor, in a recent interview, said that he has seen the best of times as an actor and also been unemployed for 2 years in a row. In the case of junior artists and technicians, they earn good pay per month when employed, but there are also times when they’re out of work for 6 months or even a year.

Keeping the above scenario as a backdrop, there are lakhs of individuals in the country who aspire to rise and shine in the media and entertainment industry. Some crack it, others resort to odd jobs for survival. The mainstream dream subsides. Having just one or more skill sets won’t do any good in this industry. What needs to be done is to create an Organised Work System to help the community evolve and be actively re-employable.

Jungle of Juggling

Leading job portals do offer opportunities, but most of them are shadowed by postings from other sectors. For those who do utilize these tools, search results often return scammed jobs, incomplete profiles, lack of information, notifying that these resources are not being used frequently by the M&E community. Should we care to understand the reason? Obviously, there’s a lack of authenticated data points, trust, and transparency of this data to users.

The idea of experiential learning has always been key to creativity and innovation. Ratifying this, being a critical component of the M&E sector, these learnings of their users need to be mapped and given back via platform services. Thus increasing the win-win ratio of both aspirants who wish to “get hired” and employers who seek to “rehire”.

On the other hand, competencies could be turned into insightful assets for employers to make data-driven decisions and save on costs. Platforms need to incentivize users to add more competencies to their profiles with relevant project details. This in turn helps employers be aware of the varied experience an aspirant has, making brighter chances of him becoming employed.

The silver lining and the world of “Coexistence”

According to an EY report, the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) sector is projected to grow to Rs. 2.23 trillion (~US$ 30.6 billion) by 2023 due to the acceleration of digital adoption among users across geographies. In present times, since the reach of an artist to its audience is just not limited to big screens, the future is bright.

The job security issue needs to be tackled at priority by making its users recurrently employable through emphasizing the competencies and active collaboration with employers. Creativity needs flexibility and opportunity at the same time. This calls for a lot of human efforts to digitise and broadcast. In the near future, data will be the anchor point for seeking talent efficiently. People should create relevant career data and data will help them drive their career growth.

We can’t deny the fact of being at the right place at the right time. But can technology make this happen in the digital world? Yes, if a reminder can wake you up at the desired time, a smart TV could switch on and off at the scheduled time, then your talent could reach the desired employer when he needs it. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will play a significant role in this aspect and companies in this sector need to bank on it.

Inevitable emotional connection

The M & E sector is driven by a human connection termed as “network” and we don’t want users to get devoid of it. Hence platformization is our long-term goal which would create value by building connections and “designing” transactions. Human roles that seem to be eclipsed by digitization will be revived by our “be an enabler” approach to the problems.

Diverse job opportunities demand upskilling and reskilling of the existing workforce. Though futuristic, training in the O2O(Online to Offline) model will be intrinsic to the ecosystem. This will pave the way for a cycle of continuous innovation and reemployment.

Over all, the gamut of opportunities will be on the rise in the coming years and we are here to stand with the community through our offerings at Cast India.

(The author is CTO of Cast India. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Financial Express Online.)