Recently I had visited PICT; one of the leading engineering colleges in Pune. Me and couple of my friends were hoping to select a group of students and sponsor their final year BE project. Rather than using a commonly accepted method (of aptitude test + technical interview) for selecting students, we used a completely different approach. We assumed that PICT being a top rated college in the city, students would have acquired the necessary aptitude and technical skills. We rather gave students business problems and asked them to come up with business ideas to solve them. We also forced them to talk about few technologies / technical areas that we clearly knew they would have not have been exposed to (via college curriculum). We essentially looked at creativity, proactive-ness and technology savvy-ness / inquisitive-ness.
Intrigued by our selection process, a professor asked: “Aren’t we (industry) expecting too much from students these days? I learned most of these skills after completing my engineering, and while I was on the job. Humans haven’t changed that much; then why do we make students learn so many things at such an early age?”
Here was my answer …
I believe 3 key industry trends … especially observed over last 15~20 years … are responsible for this.
First: Average age of employees in companies has constantly declined. (Especially in export industry companies and even more in India’s export industry.)
Second: While technology advances have improved the overall experience of end consumer, the tasks performed by company workers have significantly grown in complexity.
Third: Most businesses have truly gone Global, forcing companies to constantly innovate; in-turn making business models complex.
Cumulatively these 3 trends have forced faster learning onto the young students. As soon as you get into an organization, you and your company expects you to start climbing the responsibility ladder immediately. Younger people are in senior roles than ever before. Being a manager at 25 or an expert business negotiator at the age of 28 is more common now than a decade ago. Due to globalization, at work you often have to learn culture of another country (or two) within your first year of joining (when you might have barely understood the Indian work culture). Over and above, competition is forcing companies to constantly innovate, which means you have to learn new tools and processes your company might use.
Key is to learn how to keep learning … and that too at the speed unheard of. Engineering, mathematics, computer languages are all important … but not sufficient in the new era. The real skills are:
- Thinking on the feet
- Constantly seek new information and convert it into knowledge / your own opinion
- Use current technology to its fullest and learn to explore new technologies constantly
- Thinking out of the box … and having courage to take your not-so-common idea to implementation
- … (and many more softer skills)
But if I have to end this blog with one single skill that you must have … it’s “learning from people who have already been there”.
Go get yourself a mentor; not a godfather, a mentor. Someone who has learned by first principle (by trying and making mistakes and learning from them), and is willing to pass that learning to you (so that you can avoid mistakes and learn faster than ever before).
Do you agree? If yes, do you have a mentor? If no, do you know how to find one?
Let me know if you need help. May be I can help. Good luck.
