Hard look at soft skills

SKILL GAP To be a good engineer, you also need to know how to conduct yourself, saysPrasun Chaudhuri
Why are manhole covers round? Why are your fourth semester marks so low?
What causes you to lose your temper? What do these questions have to do with
your new job as an engineer? Plenty.
Questions such as these were thrown thick and fast at budding engineers being
interviewed for a job. Most of them either stuttered or stared blankly at the interview
panel.
Just one candidate had the presence of mind to counter the panel. One at a time
please, are we in a hurry, she said, recalls the recruitment head of a telecom
company who visited a Calcutta technology college recently for campus interviews.
This candidate not only showed a positive attitude but never lost her cool when we
tried to grill her to see how shed cope under job stress.
Not surprisingly, she was hired. She had the right attitude and perfect soft skills,
says the recruiter. The employers were struck by her ability to communicate with
others and work smoothly in a team.
Soft skills including the way you speak, conduct yourself, dress or hold a
conversation are in demand. And employers rue that these traits are not easily
found in todays graduates. Fresh engineers from West Bengal have sound
theoretical knowledge but lag behind in communication and interpersonal skills,
says Kalyan Kar, managing director of the Calcutta-based IT company Acclaris
India. Lack of soft skills also makes them incapable of translating their theoretical
ideas into practical solutions in the workplace, he adds.
Kars observations were confirmed by a recent survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and
audit firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers. The survey found that most new recruits from West Bengal lack
communication skills especially in service-oriented industry where dexterity in such skills is required, says Saugat
Mukherjee, regional director, CII. They were also found to be wanting in their ability to maintain composure while
working under stress.
Experts blame the education policy of the West Bengal government for this. Doing away with English from the
primary level was a big mistake, says Ashim Ghosh, director, IBS, a Calcutta-based business school. Ghosh, who
was in charge of recruitment at a top IT firm a few years ago, also blames the coaching class culture among
engineering aspirants that encourages rote learning.
Ravi Kumar, a soft skills trainer, agrees. Our basic education and upbringing force students to focus on limited
domains, ignoring the fact that, in a globalised world, they have to communicate across transnational cultures.
Mukherjee points out that the problem is not limited to spoken English. Its also how you carry or present yourself to
a global audience, he says.
There was a time when engineers just needed to know their subjects. But increasingly, like professionals in fields
such as the media and hospitality, they find they need other skills in the work place. Soft skills can help in projecting
the professional image of a company, in creating a good first impression, and in helping to close a business deal
Nowadays many deals are closed over the dining table, says Arup Dasgupta, managing director of software firm
Metalogic Systems. People are the key factors in any businesss success and many profitable alliances are lost
because of unintentional breach of protocol, he adds.


To address the problem, a CII-led consortium of local companies launched a programme to help faculty members of
the Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu), Howrah, train students in soft skills. Its a short course on
personality development and communication skills, says Subhash Chandra Saha, director, Besu School of
Management.
Management consultant Ma Foi also conducts short-term courses in soft skills in
top engineering schools, including IIT Kharagpur. With the exponential growth of
the services sector, soft skills have come to occupy centre stage, says K. Pandia
Rajan, managing director, Ma Foi. NIS-Sparta, a New Delhi-based training
company, trains tech school students. Director Manoj Chawla believes students
need to learn inter-personal behaviour and business etiquette while focusing on
technical skills.
Dasgupta, who helped develop the training manual at Besu and is a member of the
CII-Besu consortium, says the first batch of students performed exceptionally well
in campus interviews. The consortium now plans to replicate the programme in
engineering colleges across West Bengal ( ).
Top Calcutta tech schools such as the Institute of Engineering and Management
(IEM) are dealing with the subject. Our training is conducted by teachers trained at
Infosys, says Gopa Goswami, head, placement cell, IEM. The Heritage Institute of
Technology, Calcutta, has also constituted a special grooming cell for students.
At soft skill classes, students learn the importance of gestures, the right clothes, the
way to wine and dine or even what to do when food accidentally spills on a
clients clothes. The role of small talk such as the ability to discuss the English
Premier League while interacting with British clients is emphasised. The experts
tell them how to raise a toast, handle unfamiliar food and what cutlery to use when.
Things are changing fast, says Mukherjee. The engineering services industry
demands people who have a flexible attitude and are ready to adapt to adverse
situations in a globalised world. And what they need is presence of mind. The idea is not to know why manhole
covers are round. Its to be able to come up with a credible answer.