Drive a hard bargain with soft skills

Published: January 9, 2006

In today's job market intellectual ability and technical knowledge are taken for granted, instead the concentration is on initiative, communication skills,creativity etc.

Every academic seminar that one attends, he or she comes across the reference of soft skills in one way or the other. But how important are soft skills in today's context? Well, here is a landmark live case study to understand the scenario. A couple of years ago when the chief executive officer of Amoco International expired suddenly there was a problem in selecting the successor. The consultancy agency that was hired to settle the problem selected three people on different criteria. The first was a fully-trained technical guy who was responsible for increasing the productivity of the company by 300 per cent, but as a person he was reserved and did not get along well with the other employees. The second was also a technically efficient guy, not on par with the first, but did know some of the employees. And the third was from a non-technical background but he knew every employee by their first name and they also loved him. Any guess who was recruited? The third candidate scored over the rest. The reason being people skills that generate from soft skills that one develops over the years.

Important role

"Gone are the days when the emphasis was on hard and technical competence. It is now an established fact that soft skills not only play a deciding role in selection of candidates but also in the survival and career growth of the individual," says A.S. Prasad of CTC Communications. He also points out that it's time people realized that organisations today are not merely looking for skilled professionals but are on the lookout for competent professionals. "Job aspirants should understand the difference between skill and competence.

Skill is the ability to do something; competence is the ability plus desire. The new yardstick for success in the new millennium takes intellectual ability and technical know-how for granted and instead focuses on personal qualities like initiative, empathy, adaptability, teamwork, communication skills and persuasiveness," avers Mr. Prasad.

At college level

Most academicians point out that soft skills should be developed at the college level itself. Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University, L. Venugopal Reddy, at a recent seminar on industry and academia interaction, organised by Chaitanya Engineering College, observed that the quality of pass out is good but not to the expectation of the job-givers.

According to a NASSCOM study only 25 per cent of the engineering pass outs are able to make the grade when the number of pass out exceeds one lakh per year. But what does industry really expect from students? Throwing light on the industry needs the General Manager (HR) of Satyam Computers Sudhakar said that the campuses need to design courses mixing theory and practicals. "There should be a proper balance of hard and soft skills. And as far as examinations are concerned they should be so designed that the focus would be on overall development rather than on specific subjects." Giving details on the industry scenario he notified that with the cost of communication becoming cheaper outsourcing has become economic and that has made global talent a prerequisite. He also warned that the mindset of the customers keep changing with every passing day and the technology keeps advancing by every hour.

Institutions and universities should take it up as a challenge to bridge the gap and prepare the students accordingly. "Passion, intelligence, integrity and soft skills are the prerequisite for success in today's scenario," Mr. Sudhakar averred. One should not forget the transition of the slogan at Harvard to understand today's requirement. Earlier it was `Fake it till you make it' today it is `Success through people'. So it's time you tune your soft skills or people skills to take the route to success.

SUMIT BHATTACHARJEE

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