Vol : 1 Edtion : 3February 2009

VOICE

Men might be from Mars and women from Venus, but both require employability skills on corporate planet!!!In the recent times, employability skills have shot into prominence. The student community has certainlybecome aware of a variety of skill sets like technical skills, domain skills; soft skills that are required to bemastered before they venture into job market, but employability skills have become more important thanever in today’s business scenario. Competition in business terrain today is acutely fierce; growing moreglobal professionals faster than competition is the mantra. The global work force today requires relevantand contextual knowledge which must be aligned with rapidly changing technologies, competitive shiftsand changing demographics.The knowledge economy faces severe dearth of talents. A global executive survey in Nov 2007 reported byMcKinsey Quarterly indicates that the top most industry trend affecting business is the intensification of competition for talent. With the demand for professionals spirally rising, world-wide pockets of talentdeficiency and surpluses shall become the prime mover for business growth and success. The increasingworkforce imbalance and their consequential impact on businesses, especially in the context of off-shoreadaptation has been reported by NASSCOM and BCG Analysis, IDC. According to their prediction by 2015,while India, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, Philippines show pockets of surpluses talent US, China, UK wouldface talent deficiency.But the moot question is ‘Is this talent employable?’ Its deploy-ability to business projects and services isa matter of concern. Industry may scream hoarse that the products from academia are woefully short of business expectations, that itself is a changing moving target, adapting freshers from colleges into businessneed focused learning facilitation to bridge the skill gaps and create talent that can be billable to projects.Numerous skill-gaps surveys have been undertaken and reported worldwide. While percentages may vary,indications and trends suggest critical deficiencies of academic produce in areas of:

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Domain Orientation

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Problem Solving & Analytical Abilities

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Cross-cultural etiquette & Communication

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Collaborative Efforts

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Life Skills & Positive attitude

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Left-Brained Focus: Creativity in other words

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Learning to learn, Learning to enjoy

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Quality consciousnessNASSCOM-CRISIL study predicted that employment avenues in India would rise to 9-10 million by FY2008-09. Woefully, only about 25% among the existing engineering students and 10-15% of general graduatesare employable (McKinsey report 2005). Exhibit 1.1depicts the percent employability of professionals fromvarious sectors across the globe.In the wake of the recent global meltdown and economic crisis, industry today requires an employableworkforce as against a trainable workforce. In the long term, efforts must be made by academia-industrycombine, to reduce fresher training in industry, for example in ITES, from a current average of 16 weeks to1 week. The need of the hour is intensify and focus collaboration between industry and academia to bridgethe skill gap and improve the quality and competencies of the workforce. It is not qualification alone thattranslates into employability; whilst qualification may constitute 40%, it is skills and attitude that constitutethe remaining 60% of attributes for employable resource

are necessary ingredients to transform the talentat college campuses into effective global professional leaders of tomorrow. -- Padmaja N

Not So Happy Prince

Some days he was the bug. Some days he was the windshield. Today he finally knows which sidehis bread is buttered. With the recent tests between India and Australia creating the entire hullabaloo hepresented a perfect appetizer before the start of of his final series - his declaration to finally retire from thegame. He displayed the same qualities in the press conference that had once garnered him allthe attention at the start of his career - exquisite timing and perfect placement.4 years after his innocuous international debut at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, the Lord’s waswhere he began scripting a glorious career, albeit a dappled one, with a confident display of strokes. Fora really long period the cricketing world had witnessed few of the most fluent and dominant shots throughthe offside. After winning 4 man-of-the-match awards at the Toronto Skating, Cricket and Curling Clubagainst Pakistan there was a point when he seemed insuperable. Numbers were not lying too. He was thequickest to cross 7000, 8000 and 9000 runs in ODIs. Considering that he played in the same era as SachinTendulkar did these records were by no means meant to be sneezed at.He had a keen eye to spot balls that could be hit over mid-on and mid-wicket for huge sixes. Hispower combined with his flawless footwork made them look very easy. It was this shot making ability thatmade his ODI partnership with Sachin Tendulkar very destructive for they both were adept at changinggears when necessary. Together they demolished all records previously held by the legendary West Indianopening pair Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. But he was human. Although it took some time,turns out that he too had a chink in his armor. His vulnerability against short-pitched balls was a boon tobowlers from South Africa and Australia. Australians specially exploited this weakness in both forms of thegame while South Africa conceded runs, in ODIs, at an average of 50.5 in stark contrast to his test averageof 33.82In the year 2000 he ascended to captaincy. He saw many a famous victory as a leader. In him Indiafound a stalwart who bloomed with aggression guiding the team by wearing his heart on his sleeve. He wasIndia’s most successful captain in the ODIs and tests until Rahul Dravid came along to fill his boots anddethroned him from the former. His most noteworthy achievement in the driver’s seat is undoubtedlysteering the Indian cricket team into the World Cup 2003 finals.During this campaign he amassed 465 runsbut his individual success was not largely recognized due to his 3 centuries, against minnows Kenya andNamibia, which ironically helped him equal Mark Waugh’s record of 3 centuries in a single world cupedition. Winning tests on foreign soil was never India’s forte. After the series victory against Bangladesh in2000-2001 Indians seemed to be playing better away from the country than on home soil. It was hisaggression that instilled in Team India a sense of self-belief and confidence.Controversy never got tired of his company. His notorious shirt removing act, in reply to Flintoff’ssimilar antics in India, purportedly spoiled the sanctity of Lord’s at the end of the Natwest Series 2002. Sobe it. The Lord’s needed some cleaning anyway. His altercation with Greg Chappell made him the butt of all jokes. His personal decline in the game during captaincy shows that cricket is still a game that carries withit more mental onus than physical. After an interlude he was again brought back in the Indian team butbeing constantly under the scanner of the selectors must have pulled the last straw. Enough was enoughand he decided to call it quitsThroughout his career he has been in the news for wrong reasons. He has always beenshadowed by the controversies surrounding him. With careful observation on his cricketing life it wouldnot be hard to notice that he has excelled in more than few aspects of this demanding game. When theman wants to end his story the least we could do is thank him for what he has done to Indian cricketthan cursorily dismissing his wonderful contributions. Love him or hate him. You cannot ignore SouravChandidasGanguly.—VN Kalyan Prakash DasikaPh: 9000010891