The whole country is talking about one thing for years now - 'Employability' . Infact not just in India, it is one of the main agenda in many countries today.
Yes there are some definitions.
Some say - 'The ability to be employed'
Some say - 'The ability to gain employment, sustain employment & make transition in employment with a set of SKILLS'
Now, the next question comes immediately , 'What are those skills?' A lot of HR Experts give a common word as 'Soft Skills'. First it was told as 'Employability Skills' and when asked what is it, the answer is 'Soft Skills' . If I am student and especially a rural student, these words actually doesn't really help me what I should learn. The least I would expect as a layman is to explain me clearly what are those skills.
As an Employability Skill Development Company for 21st century professionals, our focus in the last 4 years was to demystify those skills and give a clear understanding to the learned community so that one can adopt certain process methodology to build those skills.
As a company, we've researched, studied & learnt that the there is definitely clear demarcation of those skills, however in practice, all these skills work only as a combo but not individually. In terms of learning, all these skills definitely can be learnt individually.
These are several feedback that any institution receive from companies over the last 10 years.
1. Recruiter says 'Students lack Soft skills' . Actually the recruiter wanted to convey about 'English Communication' but was not be specific.
2. Recruiter says ' Students are below average in Aptitude'. Again recruiter hasn't given a specific feedback on whether is Analytical Skills or Logical skills or Verbal skills or Comprehending ability.
3. Technical Interviewer says 'The students are unable to recollect subject fundamentals'.
Now, a Recruiter is possibly not skilled enough to give specific feedback as it varies from person to person in an institution. Also, a Recruiter's feedback is only with respect to the requirement of his/her company & the role they are recruiting for.
Hence, one cannot generalise the pain point that easily.
Please go through this depiction what I call 'Circle of Employability Skills' to set a context for our discussion. These are the set of skills that makes one a 360 degree well rounded professional where one is required to keep increasing the diameter of this circle and continuously to learn to be competitive to meet the demands of one's Industry, Company & Role .
In the corporate world, there is always a debate of who is important between Tech & Non-Tech roles. The truth is all the roles require all the above skills to a certain extent except that the weightage varies based on the role and each role is aligned towards the betterment of the company.
To my understanding, every role in any profession has certain 'Core Skills'. Design Engineer has to design, Software Engineer has to code, Analyst has to analyse, Manager has to administer, etc. Now these are skills that forms the crux of the profession.
What complements the core skill is actually Aptitude. A salesman's aptitude lies in his ability to quickly arrive at an attractive price point when the customer wants to buy his product. While Quantitative ability is more to do with Analytical & Problem Solving ability, Reasoning is more to do with Logical/Creative & Holistic thinking. These 2 skills are truly essential for any profession. Anyone who is good in these 2 skills certainly is good enough to become stronger in Core Skills. The 3rd one being Verbal indicates the comprehending ability of the problem to be solved. To be precise, it is to do with 'Reading & Writing' in English. For example, I cannot work if I am not able to read a document & understand what I should do.
The third circle which has English & Communication is to do with 'Listening & Speaking'. Communication is generalized as English communication. Communication is the ability to make the listener understand one's message in any language. English being the official language used for Communication, it is required to have both skills together. There are people who are very good speakers/communicators in native language and there are also people who are good in English but very shy to speak in a group.
The outer circle that surrounds is the combination of One's Personality & Interpersonal Skills. First, Personality is not just wearing a suit with a tie. Personality indicates one's Attitude, Ethics, Goal-focused, Confidence, Self-Awareness, Self-Discipline, persistence & many more. Interpersonal Skills is the set of skills that one exhibits within a group. It includes Team Dynamics, Leadership, Inter-cultural sensitiveness, Group behaviour, etc.
Since Personality & Interpersonal Skills are the one that is exposed to the external world first, it is placed in the outer circle.
These skills are essential for all Professional roles. Some of these skills may not be required for semi-skilled & unskilled roles.
Now, knowing fully well that these are the skills that is required for anyone seeking professional employment, let us find out what is the optimum level required.
There are 2 types of companies based on category and 3 types of companies based on size.
Based on Category
Product focused
Services focused
Based on Size
Large,
Small & Medium
Startups
The table gives us some understanding on Skill Percentage expected by different companies based on size & category and industry. It is very essential for the applicant to know about the company before they sit for the interview process.
Following a Systematic Skill Development Approach with sequential milestones will certainly improve the skills of our students significantly over a period of time before graduation.
Your views and thoughts are most welcome!
We will come up with more informative updates in the future articles.
Wish you all a Happy Republic Day!
Team SkillPro
www.skillpro.co.in
