Rising importance of Soft Skills in IT Industry

 Guest Lecture on "Rising importance of Soft Skills in IT Industry"

Dr.Umayal Ramanathan College for Women, Karaikudi organised a Guest lecture on "Rising importance of Soft Skills in IT Industry" to Computer Science graduates. The lecture was delivered by Mr.S.Manikandan, Training and Placement Consultant, Yukthy Training Ltd. Dr.S.Jeyashree Principal presided the function.

His main perspective was to make students understand the importance of Soft Skills required for IT Industry. As there is a growing realisation across the IT Industry that technical skills are important, however IT professionals need to be able to successfully interact with customers and vendors, manage departments, and convey their ideas to others. IT is continuing to expand its reach into every functional area of business. Whether it's the finance department storing data and records in an on-site server or a cloud-based solution, or a marketing team collaborating remotely, the IT department is tasked with keeping the flow of information and data running smoothly. They must implement their solutions with several different end-users in mind, meeting with each functional area to make sure their IT needs are being met.  As the reach of the IT department becomes wider, the need for competent professionals who can communicate effectively with a variety of people in every department is essential.

He explained the students, about Google Project Oxygen. Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded their company on the conviction that only computer technologists could truly understand computer technology. Their company, Google, now Alphabet, has become so mainstream that ‘Google’ has become a verb, as in: “I googled to find warm, wool socks.”  It is hard to imagine our lives without the comfortable phrase, “Google it.”

In 2013, Google undertook Project Oxygen to answer the question, ‘What skills are most important for an employee to succeed at Google?’

The results were a major surprise.

Google had originally set hiring algorithms to sort for computer science students with the best grades from the best universities. After crunching every bit of data from hiring, firing and promotion since the company’s founding in 1998, Project Oxygen surprised everyone by concluding, that among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise came in dead last.

The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas."

 Prizes were distributed to the students who won CeeyeS Casino 2K'18.