The Upskill Trap: How Upskilling Courses Are Playing You

It’s 2025, and in an AI-driven workforce, things are shifting fast. More and more graduates are struggling to land jobs. According to some reports, over 50% of graduates are unemployable, meaning more than half of them DO NOT have the skills needed to secure a job.

Scary, right?

Now, I’m not here to judge the accuracy of these stats. But spend just a little time on Reddit, YouTube, or LinkedIn and you’ll see post after post from freshers and even experienced professionals saying they’re getting rejected or ghosted by companies. EVEN after applying to hundreds of jobs.

Why So Many Graduates Are Struggling

There are many reasons behind this. Today’s companies get flooded with resumes. Thanks to AI tools, job seekers can now -

Auto generate resumes
Write cover letters with a single click
Auto apply to thousands of jobs using bots

At first glance, this sounds efficient. But here’s the catch: It’s very easy to tell if something was written by AI.

One of my side hustles involves something similar to that, figuring out if content was written by a human or AI. Trust me, it’s not rocket science. HR professionals can spot low effort, AI-generated applications.

And as companies get smarter, so does their hiring tech. Many now use AI to filter AI generated resumes, pushing only the most genuine ones to real recruiters.

But that’s not the point of this post.

I am here to yap about the upskilling business that traps thousands of graduates in a cycle that is never ending. Giving false hopes of high paying jobs and getting students job ready in the AI driven economy.

How does this become a trap?

Imagine going to a college and spending a lot of money to get a fancy software engineering degree only to realise you're unemployable? Spending 3-4 years of your life learning outdated technology.

Then comes the influencers and ed-tech institutions

They target your pain point to get you to join some "free" master class that will turn you into a "Solid engineer".

And guess what? Every institute or influencer has the SAME formula to scare you.

Create fear

“The job market is brutal. AI is replacing humans. Layoffs everywhere.”

Show alarming statistics and data

“Over 50% of grads are unemployable. Don't be one of them.”

Pitch a "master class"

“We’ve partnered with XYZ institute and built a free session that shows what companies really want. You need to attend this! or BYE BYE career”

Upsell a course

Inside this "free" session they've got your contact information and email and your background. They will fear monger you till you develop anxiety and spend lakhs of rupees for a duration of 90 days to even a year sometimes. All of this on the promise to turn you into a "Solid engineer".

The Business of Upskilling

You’ve probably seen it everywhere, influencers telling you to “focus on yourself,” “keep learning,” and “upskill yourself or be left behind.”

At first glance, it sounds like solid advice. But that’s just the surface.

Behind these motivational quotes is a huge industry built on fear, urgency, and recycled content. You're not being offered anything unique. You're being sold what's already available for free on YouTube, GitHub, Reddit, and countless blogs.

It’s not about skills. It’s about how well they can sell the dream of high package salary.

The Job Guarantee Illusion

And here's the kicker: even after completing the course, there’s no job guarantee.

Some institutions do offer job guarantees, but with strings attached.

If you don’t accept the role THEY give you (even if it’s underpaid or irrelevant), the guarantee goes away on the pretext of you got an offer and that's what they promised. Just an offer, not what you would want to do.
If you land a job but hate it or get laid off after 2 months? “That’s just market conditions.”

And the money now becomes non-refundable since you did receive a job.

And you know what the worst part is? Many students take loans with hopes of landing a high paying job and re paying the loan within a year. Guess what? Now they have to accept a low paying job they hate only to pay off a high interest loan.

Is this even legal?

You will be shocked. Yes it is absolutely legal. Unethical, but legal

The terms and conditions lay under the gray area. All huge promises like job guarantees and massive salary hikes and industry level skills.

And when something goes wrong they've got this figured out.

You didn’t land a job? “You didn’t try hard enough.”
Got placed in a low-paying role? “That’s what the market is offering right now.”
Got laid off in 2 months? “We did our part, the rest is up to you.”

Technically all of this is fair. No one can guarantee something for lifetime. At the end it IS all upto the individuals. It is also upto them whether to get into these programmes or not.

What's the solution?

If you made it till here and you are wondering what to do? I'll give you a small realisation of the world today.

Why would anyone pay large amount of money to a fresher who only did theory and little to no practical in college? After all that's one of the reasons to sell you these expensive programmes right?

The truth is that most of the graduates pick a field they have little to no interest in and they are in it only for the high salaries and fat packages that are advertised in the news. But out of lakhs of students throughout the country only a handful of people land those packages and they are the people who actually have interest in the field.

I don't want to get too philosophical over here but it is what it is. People chase the shiny objects only to realise they were sold mirrors instead of a diamond.

People can sell you dreams and influence you, but NO ONE can force you to want it bad enough to put in the work.

And what to do if you've already fallen into this trap?

You need to pay for the mistakes you made. You need to pay for your ignorance. We can't just undo our mistakes. Own upto it. Fix it one by one. I can't give you a list of things because everyone will not have same variables in the issue.