Educationists, professionals and parents across the world today are asking critical questions about professional success. What skills differentiate a successful professional from an unsuccessful one? What skills are demanded from the students of today? Statements from the human resource departments and job specification reports as well as the curriculum emphasis present clear evidence about the kind of skills demanded today. The explicit focus is not merely on technical skills or academic knowledge, which is certainly essential to excel at the workplace. Specific skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving, time management, social skills, emotional balance and characteristics like confidence, independence, collaboration, etc., are well sought by the corporate while choosing a prospective employee. Hence universities are integrating this broad range of skills into the academic curriculum to develop the students to fit into the world of work.
In this increasingly globalized world, communication skills are essential for an engineer who aspires to carry out his/her professional practice in the global arena. Despite the rising demand for excellent communication skills, evidence shows that engineering graduates are found to be woefully short of fluency in English. Hence, there is an imperative need to integrate engineering communication skills into academic discipline. The paper, “The Role of Pedagogical Intervention in Improving the Oral Proficiency of Engineering Students”, by S Mekala, S Shantha and M Ponmani, discusses the need for proficiency in English among engineers and explores the role of teachers as well the pedagogies to be used to enhance oral proficiency among civil engineering students.
Information Technology (IT) sector offers immense scope and potential to multiply the opportunities for the growth of the nations. The success of IT industry does not merely depend on the array of skills the individual engineers possess, rather how well the project managers and team leaders unleash their potential and manage them. Hence, the role of leadership is critical to the success of IT projects. The paper, “The Effect of Transformational Leadership Style on Team Performance in IT Sector”, by Rajni Gyanchandani, makes an attempt to explore the role of transformational leadership in determining the performance of the team.
Do clothes, accessories and even footwear determine how employers and customers perceive the professionalism of employees? One of the polls conducted by the Center for Professional Excellence at York College of Pennsylvania reported that appearance is the second most quality after communication that is associated with professionalism. What you wear and how you appear can either improve or diminish the perception of your effectiveness on job. “How an individual dresses for work can be a powerful extension of his personal brand,” says Matthew Randall, executive director of the CPE. The paper, “‘Dress to Impress’: The Impact of Power Dressing”, by Parul Raj, Kapil Khattar and Rajat Nagpal, highlights the impact of attire on workplace performance and discusses at length the influence it can have on one’s professional sphere. It does offer a few essential tips for impressive dressing at work to make a striking impact on key stakeholders.
It is said, “Riskless life is risky.” Risk, though scary, can be a key accelerator for one’s career so that we can climb higher, faster and achieve greater. However, it is not easy to take risk considering the mighty crashes and devastating failures that are imminent. The paper, “Choose to Risk”, by Revathi Turaga, explores the perspectives on risk and offers prescriptions whether to take a risk or avoid risk in one’s life.
It does not matter who you are or what you do today; communication skills are most essential professional skills that determine the success of individuals, groups and organizations. Failure to communicate well results in breakdown in efficiency and effectiveness, leading to organizational disasters. Sonali Ganguly, in her paper,
Action Research to Improve the Communication Skills of Undergraduate Students”, stresses the importance of communication skills among the undergraduates and discusses the ways to help them communicate clearly. Whatever learned is best utilized when a person knows how to express clearly and effectively. Hence, she discusses the reasons why a few fail to learn to communicate and how to help them become excellent communicators.
-- Mendemu Showry
Consulting Editor |
