First, it must be clear that any human being can only give to others what he has. That brings us to the question, what does every young human being possess?
Young human beings have:
Energy
Physical health
Playfulness
Curiosity
Cognitive abilities
Innate values
Innate talent
More life span ahead of them
Zest for life
What they can develop through education:
Hard skills
Soft skills
Quantitative skills
Qualitative skills
Analytical skills
Language skills
Right understanding through human value education
Building blocks of an enterprise, a company or a business:
Processes
Resources (assets and financial capital)
People
Customers
Innovation
Research
Business controls
Systems
Culture
Nurturing, developing and strengthening these building blocks on an ongoing basis are essential for continuous growth of the company. Additionally due to the disruptive global business climate, it is essential to re-imagine every aspect of the business and build the necessary resilience to survive and flourish. Obviously, industry expects that young graduates are aware of these building blocks and better still understand them to some extent through real world exposure.
At the core of every business are people who manage the building blocks of the business. Therefore, Industry expects young graduates to have impeccable skills in the following areas:
Communication
Collaboration
Critical thinking
Creativity
Professional values and ethics
Industry expects individuals to be:
Self-driven
Self-aware
Self-organized
Self-assured
Context aware
Focused
Learners
Listeners
Coherent
Able to validate their own work
Team players
Multilingual
Multicultural
Adaptive
Resilient
Comfortable with cognitive dissonance
Industries can be from different domains and many industries work across domains. So, the following skills are expected from young graduates:
Domain specific (Computer Science, Electronics, Mechanical, Civil etc.)
Cross domain
Coding
Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence
Analysis and Synthesis
Data science
Ethnography and Anthropology
Sociology
Ecology
Industries expect and appreciate skills in the following areas as well:
Design thinking
Systems thinking
Lateral thinking
Computational thinking
Agile methodology
Lean methodology
Another key expectation is Industry readiness. Industries are looking for young graduates who have been through a sufficiently long Industry connect program such as internship. Certifications in technical areas that are essential to specific industries are another expectation. Adequate social media presence and active presence and membership of reputed global on-line technical communities are another expectation that has gathered a lot of momentum in the recent years.
Many industries expect that young graduates should have a mentor who is able to give them a bigger picture of the Industry and possibly connect the graduates with Industry and involve them in real world projects. Industry is now waking up big time to an apprenticeship model.
Finally, Industry expects and treasures conscious leadership skills as well.
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