I was planning to write something for sometime.. But the question always remains what is that you want to write about? What will help others to do something with your writing? How can people benefit with your writing? not that really I am here to change a lot ... a whole lot but trying to see what and how I can make a difference... For some time one thought was coming to me many a time.... What is the new way to let people who are looking for jobs at any level should know .. and BAAAMMMM this morning while my morning walk talking to one of my senior from college the word came to me : PRESENTABILITY... Is there a word called presentability... not sure.. then why presentability...
About 6 years back when I moved back to India from US... the buzz word in everywhere is soft skills and communication skills..then after some time I started using "employability" .. today I think it is all about presentability... let me go over these three in what I can explain ... not sure it has to make sense to all :)
Communication Skills: I keep telling where ever I address any one: students, my teams in corporate and every where... what is communication??? Communication is not what I speak but what others understand from what I say, act and think. My communication with other party is complete when the other party receives my message, understands and acts on it the right way I intend them to act...Ok Ok... some of you might be wondering what is this babble about...I will present a couple of examples to make my point (from my vantage point)
For a teacher the communication is not how much time you taught, not how much you know, but have you conveyed what you know to your students?? have they understood what you taught, are they going to use it effectively...these are key measures to know the communication is complete between a student and teacher.
If you are in corporate: As a leader, manager or a person in key position... are you believing in what you are telling? are you confident that the project can be delivered? are you certain you know all elements and components of other groups where you are interacting and integrating? then comes the communication to your teams..is what you are talking coming our of your heart or out of your mouth... trust me guys I was in a meeting where a senior leader took over with lots of fanfare and lo and behold his first meeting I know what his agenda is... I lost interest to work under his leadership...if you dont exhibit the body language that you truly are a believer of what you are talking you lost your mission... in first 5 mins...what you think, what you talk and what you exhibit should be in sync to be a successful person in corporate ladder.. well one factor to be successful
Soft Skills: To me soft skills is so misused word, and so mush used to define what people can not explain..One day I was in my college where I did my undergraduate education... and was talking to students.. I asked a student what could be the reason why he will not get thru a job interview as I know our college produces so many GATE rankers and subject wise they are superior to many other colleges...the answer was "Sir we lack soft skills"
Obviously my question was "what are soft skills in your opinion?" His answer is "I could not talk in interview as I don't have soft skills". Well I don't want to write the complete transcript of our conversation here but, the point is people misunderstand communication skills and soft skills to be same. I met at least a dozen chairmen of private engineering colleges in my state who always tells me the students lack soft skills. What is soft skill.. some thing that can not be taught... networking, to impress a person (like your first date), situational awareness, following thru the conversation and knowing when to step in and what to talk, to agree or disagree with reasoning, and so on and so on... Why people are indiscriminately using the word "SOFT SKILL" in academics where a professor with 35 years experience do not know what a situational awareness is. Sorry to side step with an example here but when a Vice Chancellor asked him on status of something the principal should have easily said " Sir I am following up and initiated this action" instead he tells later "VC asked me to do this so I did it". If a professor of 35 years plus experience can not understand why and how I will expect a student coming out of a college to understand that , but students with any of these traits will definitely be successful...Students MUST ask questions and a whole lot of them. To put an end to Soft Skills - in my opinion if you have one chance to impress your date about 60 seconds so the date can not walk away ... what would you do?? Same with your job interview situation... if you have to impress your interviewer in 60 seconds what would you say...If you can do this.... you have a doctoral degree in soft skills.... Am I right folks???
Employability: The term I started hearing a lot while at Microsoft and after that many times is "employability". What is this word?? The way I think of this is you have a water leakage at home and called for a plumber. He comes and can not fix it. Do you think he is employable as plumber?? definitely not.. may be he can be a good carpenter, may be he is a good electrician but definitely not a plumber.. similarly in jobs my definition of employability is " if you can adopt to any work assigned, learn quickly and deliver it in timely manner" you are employable. Another most expected employable character is: can you manage triage situation? Are you a person with good analytical skills to isolate the issue and present well? Are you capable of making sure you define the problem in simple terms?? Here again I want to quote an example my research supervisor, a professor in TAMU shared.. He was a expert witness for an insurance claim, His job is to explain how clay when comes in contact with water makes the soil warp and creates fissures in soil increasing seepage under the structure, there by causing fractures inside the house in walls.. where did the water come from, from the beautiful flower beds we all want to see from our windows while working... Now I know .. I lost many of you... with lot of Civil Engineering words.. my professor also realized he was in same situation with jury he is answering to.. so what did he do.. he said imagine you are making a chocolate pudding and you added water to the mixture. It is hard to stir and mix. However you ran out for an emergency when you come back what do you see: a dry mix with a lot of cracks... Bingoo.. all the heads started nodding... See this is what simplifying the explanation means.. if you have this with right analytical skills, you might land a good job.... ha ha ha .. don't quote me on this eh !!
now comes my real term... PRESENTABILITY
What is presentability? I learned this from a friend whom I was working with...He said "sir I can not present them before the clients" Yes the work presentability came to my mind after this. Now you all might be wondering I will be able to tell a lot about this when I coin this word... I will try my best..
About 6 years back when I moved back to India from US... the buzz word in everywhere is soft skills and communication skills..then after some time I started using "employability" .. today I think it is all about presentability... let me go over these three in what I can explain ... not sure it has to make sense to all :)
Communication Skills: I keep telling where ever I address any one: students, my teams in corporate and every where... what is communication??? Communication is not what I speak but what others understand from what I say, act and think. My communication with other party is complete when the other party receives my message, understands and acts on it the right way I intend them to act...Ok Ok... some of you might be wondering what is this babble about...I will present a couple of examples to make my point (from my vantage point)
For a teacher the communication is not how much time you taught, not how much you know, but have you conveyed what you know to your students?? have they understood what you taught, are they going to use it effectively...these are key measures to know the communication is complete between a student and teacher.
If you are in corporate: As a leader, manager or a person in key position... are you believing in what you are telling? are you confident that the project can be delivered? are you certain you know all elements and components of other groups where you are interacting and integrating? then comes the communication to your teams..is what you are talking coming our of your heart or out of your mouth... trust me guys I was in a meeting where a senior leader took over with lots of fanfare and lo and behold his first meeting I know what his agenda is... I lost interest to work under his leadership...if you dont exhibit the body language that you truly are a believer of what you are talking you lost your mission... in first 5 mins...what you think, what you talk and what you exhibit should be in sync to be a successful person in corporate ladder.. well one factor to be successful
Soft Skills: To me soft skills is so misused word, and so mush used to define what people can not explain..One day I was in my college where I did my undergraduate education... and was talking to students.. I asked a student what could be the reason why he will not get thru a job interview as I know our college produces so many GATE rankers and subject wise they are superior to many other colleges...the answer was "Sir we lack soft skills"
Obviously my question was "what are soft skills in your opinion?" His answer is "I could not talk in interview as I don't have soft skills". Well I don't want to write the complete transcript of our conversation here but, the point is people misunderstand communication skills and soft skills to be same. I met at least a dozen chairmen of private engineering colleges in my state who always tells me the students lack soft skills. What is soft skill.. some thing that can not be taught... networking, to impress a person (like your first date), situational awareness, following thru the conversation and knowing when to step in and what to talk, to agree or disagree with reasoning, and so on and so on... Why people are indiscriminately using the word "SOFT SKILL" in academics where a professor with 35 years experience do not know what a situational awareness is. Sorry to side step with an example here but when a Vice Chancellor asked him on status of something the principal should have easily said " Sir I am following up and initiated this action" instead he tells later "VC asked me to do this so I did it". If a professor of 35 years plus experience can not understand why and how I will expect a student coming out of a college to understand that , but students with any of these traits will definitely be successful...Students MUST ask questions and a whole lot of them. To put an end to Soft Skills - in my opinion if you have one chance to impress your date about 60 seconds so the date can not walk away ... what would you do?? Same with your job interview situation... if you have to impress your interviewer in 60 seconds what would you say...If you can do this.... you have a doctoral degree in soft skills.... Am I right folks???
Employability: The term I started hearing a lot while at Microsoft and after that many times is "employability". What is this word?? The way I think of this is you have a water leakage at home and called for a plumber. He comes and can not fix it. Do you think he is employable as plumber?? definitely not.. may be he can be a good carpenter, may be he is a good electrician but definitely not a plumber.. similarly in jobs my definition of employability is " if you can adopt to any work assigned, learn quickly and deliver it in timely manner" you are employable. Another most expected employable character is: can you manage triage situation? Are you a person with good analytical skills to isolate the issue and present well? Are you capable of making sure you define the problem in simple terms?? Here again I want to quote an example my research supervisor, a professor in TAMU shared.. He was a expert witness for an insurance claim, His job is to explain how clay when comes in contact with water makes the soil warp and creates fissures in soil increasing seepage under the structure, there by causing fractures inside the house in walls.. where did the water come from, from the beautiful flower beds we all want to see from our windows while working... Now I know .. I lost many of you... with lot of Civil Engineering words.. my professor also realized he was in same situation with jury he is answering to.. so what did he do.. he said imagine you are making a chocolate pudding and you added water to the mixture. It is hard to stir and mix. However you ran out for an emergency when you come back what do you see: a dry mix with a lot of cracks... Bingoo.. all the heads started nodding... See this is what simplifying the explanation means.. if you have this with right analytical skills, you might land a good job.... ha ha ha .. don't quote me on this eh !!
now comes my real term... PRESENTABILITY
What is presentability? I learned this from a friend whom I was working with...He said "sir I can not present them before the clients" Yes the work presentability came to my mind after this. Now you all might be wondering I will be able to tell a lot about this when I coin this word... I will try my best..
- Like I said before: Are you some one who can impress my client and your date in 60 seconds
- Can you gain their trust after the first meeting?
- Can you present everything in simple terms (remember the chocolate pudding)
- Are you sure what you are saying and writing is being received by the client? are you able to communicate with your client?
- Finally are you able to get your second and subsequent dates with your client to take care of the business?
- If you think you are capable of all the above you have arrived and you are presentable...
Please feel free to leave your comments... Thank you
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