How to Improve Your Employability Quotient | The 4 Cs

The 4Ps of marketing are well known and there isn’t a need to elaborate. In this Techade, while the pace of digital disruption and adoption across all industry verticals is rapid, the shelf life of technical skills is reducing by the day. Given these two aspects, most individuals and organizations are struggling to identify skills that would help them stay relevant & be successful. While it is a no-brainer that one needs to keep pace with the changing technology landscape, I believe that the 4Cs are critical to future-proof one’s career. Curious about these 4Cs? Here is what they are:

• Competency
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Connecting the dots

Competency

During the early days of my career, the term ‘T-model’ was prevalent with regards to skilling & competencies. However, in today’s world, it is important to adopt a ‘Comb-model’ and acquire multiple competencies across different technologies & professional skills. This becomes important especially as one moves up the ladder. Organizations are trying to

• Develop a Digital Mindset across the board
• Build a competency framework across various technology & behavioural skills
• Identify means to encourage employees to stay relevant by continuous upskilling/reskilling. For example, organizations, especially in core engineering are looking for data scientists with domain knowledge. In the absence of such resources, they are having to hire data scientists and provide them domain training. If core engineering students were to acquire digital technology skills, it would definitely enhance their employability quotient.

Collaboration

Collaboration, as a skill has become critical across all layers of the organization because:

• Convergence of various technologies makes it imperative for people/teams/organizations to collaborate, leverage each other’s skills, establish a partnership and jointly grab the market. For example: while RPA has been instrumental for automating business processes by creating bots, there is more value in infusing AI (where applicable) and turn it into a Cognitive bot. An RPA developer may not have the required AI skills and hence collaboration helps deliver more value to clients/stakeholders.
• The ability to combine domain, technology and soft skills has become critical to maximize value generation. Hence it is vital for teams to collaborate. For example: During phase-1 of Covid-19, I was part of an advisory board that was trying to build a pandemic management solution. We formed a team of Doctors, Data Scientists, Engineers and Business Leaders from across the globe. During one of the meetings, one of the doctors expressed an interest to learn basics of AI/ML and also heard data scientists acknowledging the doctors for providing domain expertise without which it would not have been possible to build an effective product. 

Communication

I’m a strong believer that ‘HOW you say is more important than WHAT you say’. It applies across all aspects of one’s life, be it personal or professional. Success of a meeting, deal or a sale depends on whether you have been able to influence or inspire the other party. This is possible when you understand the needs, pain points of others and are able to communicate in a way they understand and appreciate. For example, Lot of people have ideas but only some manage to impress upon investors and secure funding, though the ones who failed to impress might eventually succeed. One of the key factors in such a scenario is the ability to narrate a powerful story within a short span of time that inspires the investors and compels him/her/them to invest. Story-telling is a critical skill to possess and leverage.’

The key differentiator is the ability to narrate a powerful story within a short span of time that inspires the investors and compels him/her/them to invest. Story-telling is a critical skill to possess and leverage. 

Connecting the dots

Technology is blurring the lines between different verticals. Technology firms are offering services that cut across various industry verticals and it is often hard to tag them into one vertical. For example Amazon offers services across various verticals, and it appears as an e-commerce player, digital payment gateway, cloud service provider, digital streaming, etc. depending on the way one looks.

You might be able to relate to the need for us to adopt the ‘COMB model’ of learning (that I referred earlier) as it provides the ability to connect the dots. Success at leadership levels depends on varied factors. The ability to connect the dots and look at the big picture to present perspectives that are not yet visible to others is an important skill and will prove to be a great differentiator.

The adoption of these 4Cs would give individuals an edge, enable them to be successful and assist in positioning our nation as #1 in this digital era.

 Written by Venkatraman Umakanth, VP & SBU Head – Analytics & IT, Vee Technologies