Apart from experience, one needs to have good soft skills also. Experience may get you the job. If you need to move up, you need tonnes of soft skills. No one taught us any soft skills back in India. All we fed was to get good marks in college, get a degree, and get a job or fly out of the country for jobs/studies. Believe me, I learnt a lot in a hard way. And still learning.
Some of the soft skills:
1. Be a good listener (I was a very poor listener, used to interrupt others a lot to make my print).
2. Need to be a people’s person. Means need to get along with everyone, whether you like it or not.
3. Don’t be arrogant. I have come across desis who think that they are the experts in their field and no one can touch them. YOUR CAN BE REPLACED ANYTIME.
4. Be nice to people as much as possible. I mean nice to your own people too, not only locals. This is one of the drawbacks of lots of desis. They are nice to locals, when it comes to fellow desis, their behaviour changes in a snap.
5. As you start moving up, experience weighs less as compared to soft skills; say 20% exp. and 80% soft skills.
Hope it helps
No you are wrong when you say that no one taught us soft skills when we were in India. Infact, we were constantly taught all these things under a different brand name - good manners!
Only thing is you realise the importance now since here in Canada people spell out every damn thing in such a manner that it seems important all of a sudden. They want it to be written on your resume - and so one feels it is more important here. Such skills (or good manners) were and have always been important even in India. To succeed there, you have to be good listener, you have to be a people's person, you should not be arrogant, and above all, helpful to not only your colleagues but also your neighbours (which in North America is known as voluntary/community work and you put even that on your resume - which we in India took as a social duty for granted).
Chandresh
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Chandresh
Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!
Quote:
Orginally posted by chandresh
No you are wrong when you say that no one taught us soft skills when we were in India. Infact, we were constantly taught all these things under a different brand name - good manners!
Only thing is you realise the importance now since here in Canada people spell out every damn thing in such a manner that it seems important all of a sudden. They want it to be written on your resume - and so one feels it is more important here. Such skills (or good manners) were and have always been important even in India. To succeed there, you have to be good listener, you have to be a people's person, you should not be arrogant, and above all, helpful to not only your colleagues but also your neighbours (which in North America is known as voluntary/community work and you put even that on your resume - which we in India took as a social duty for granted).
Chandresh
Yes, you are correct regarding the soft skill which we possed back home too. Regarding volunteer service back home, it would normaly be done at religious place rather than community services. I consider community service everything other that mandir, gurudwar, church or mosque. Here people do go for community services on normal and regular places. Back home we would come out for volunteer community service during flood, earthquake etc.
But for soft skill and to greater exptend hard skills is a excuse by Canadian employer. If I write on my resume Organized, team player, quick learner, teachable, friendly. What method they can adopt to find out of my soft skills without employing. A person cannot be judged 100% in 2 or 3 meetings of an hour each knowing well that person is at his best manners during interview. Infact hardskills play a major role every where in world. Yes, soft skills come in major role when you are employed and company is deciding on your promotions. It is my opinion.
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Try overtaking child's imagination
Chandresh,
Good spin on the topic. May be u should run for the city council next time.
Let me give an example of what I was trying to say. A desi friend of mine had to quit as a project manager in a consulting firm in Ottawa. He is good in his field, no doubt. He buttered his peers big time. His biggest drawback was comparing himself to others and treating juniors bad. He was warned of his attitude couple of times. I tried in vein to counsel him. Finally the day came when he was told enough is enough. He got another job that paid him less. At least he has a job, since he bought a house two yrs back and paying the mortgage (his wife stays home). As you said, good manners would help, but there are other soft skills lot of desis need to learn.
I agree with Ottawa desi. Desis here try to behave well in front of white people but start showing colors to desifellow men, perhaps desis feel insecured all the time. Back home in India, competition is so high and therefore people go to other countries to make money, including arab and african countries.
desis' attitude towards desi at work is always questionable.
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O Canada....
Location: in the heart of Mrs Saga
Posted on: 30-11-04 01:24:46
sorry, duplicate post
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Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You
Location: in the heart of Mrs Saga
Posted on: 30-11-04 01:26:35
Quote:
Orginally posted by desi in ottawa
Apart from experience, one needs to have good soft skills also. Experience may get you the job. If you need to move up, you need tonnes of soft skills. No one taught us any soft skills back in India. All we fed was to get good marks in college, get a degree, and get a job or fly out of the country for jobs/studies. Believe me, I learnt a lot in a hard way. And still learning.
Some of the soft skills:
1. Be a good listener (I was a very poor listener, used to interrupt others a lot to make my print).
2. Need to be a people’s person. Means need to get along with everyone, whether you like it or not.
3. Don’t be arrogant. I have come across desis who think that they are the experts in their field and no one can touch them. YOUR CAN BE REPLACED ANYTIME.
4. Be nice to people as much as possible. I mean nice to your own people too, not only locals. This is one of the drawbacks of lots of desis. They are nice to locals, when it comes to fellow desis, their behaviour changes in a snap.
5. As you start moving up, experience weighs less as compared to soft skills; say 20% exp. and 80% soft skills.
Hope it helps
Thanks [desi in ottawa] for sharing the very valid points with us. This is one of reasons why I visit CD regularly.
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Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You
