Jobs 2020: Check social media footprint, soft skills

Updating the resume, presenting your best projects will not be enough. As companies compete to hire the best talent, embrace digital transformation and globalise, following trends will reimagine the campus hiring process in 2020.

Digital skills:

Every industry is getting disrupted. Digital technologies are playing a key role in this change. Employers will prefer candidates with foundational knowledge of digital technologies. It will be critical for you to have a basic understanding of digital technologies irrespective of your stream.

A majority of candidates excel in their subject skills but lack soft skills like effective articulation skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, etc. Past data indicates that nearly 50% of candidates who demonstrate superior performance in the initial qualifier test do not cross the interview stage, which can be attributed to a lack of soft skills. To increase your confidence, participate in social gigs, events or group discussions happening around you.

Soft skills: Socialfootprints matter:

In the world of social platforms and millennials presence in them, employers will increasingly review candidates’ social media footprints for both positive and questionable actions. This will be an additional parameter for evaluation in the selection process.

You need to be responsible and ensure adequate care to build a positive image in social media. Use social media platforms judiciously considering the sensitivity.

Additional competencies vs academic qualification:

Developing additional competencies beyond the core academic qualifications will give a clear edge in a candidate’s selection. This will also help candidates to pursue careers of their choices. Increasingly, companies will look for candidate’s prowess in more trending areas beyond curriculum.

You must start building your profile with competencies that are trending and of interest to employers. You are studying civil engineering but have mastered coding or started an online marketplace for vintage goods while studying? Brownie points to you.

Foreign language:

Today, many businesses aspire to address the global market needs and hence operate across geographies. Corporates prefer candidates who clear the basic selection criteria and also demonstrate linguistic skills in a foreign language.

It is recommended that you develop interest in any one foreign language and attain a minimum level of proficiency before the interview process.

Practical experience over theory:

More and more companies will give higher weightage to hands-on experience over just theoretical knowledge of your subject.

Your ability to demonstrate your practical skills will be critical in addition to the domain knowledge. So, make sure you take it upon yourself to build your hands-on application skills, and there are various ways of doing that.

The author is global head, TCS ION