What does the Industry expect from young graduates?

First, it must be clear that any human being can only give to others what he has. That brings us to the question, what does every young human being possess?

Young human beings have:

1. Energy

2. Physical health

3. Playfulness

4. Curiosity

5. Cognitive abilities

6. Innate values

7. Innate talent

8. More life span ahead of them

9. Zest for life

What they can develop through education:

1. Hard skills

2. Soft skills

3. Quantitative skills

4. Qualitative skills

5. Analytical skills

6. Language skills

7. Right understanding through human value education

Building blocks of an enterprise, a company or a business:

1. Processes

2. Resources (assets and financial capital)

3. People

4. Customers

5. Innovation

6. Research

7. Business controls

8. Systems

9. Culture

Nurturing, developing and strengthening these building blocks on an ongoing basis are essential for continuous growth of the company. Additionally due to the disruptive global business climate, it is essential to re-imagine every aspect of the business and build the necessary resilience to survive and flourish. Obviously, industry expects that young graduates are aware of these building blocks and better still understand them to some extent through real world exposure.

At the core of every business are people who manage the building blocks of the business. Therefore, Industry expects young graduates to have impeccable skills in the following areas:

1. Communication

2. Collaboration

3. Critical thinking

4. Creativity

5. Professional values and ethics

Industry expects individuals to be:

1. Self-driven

2. Self-aware

3. Self-organized

4. Self-assured

5. Context aware

6. Focused

7. Learners

8. Listeners

9. Coherent

10. Able to validate their own work

11. Team players

12. Multilingual

13. Multicultural

14. Adaptive

15. Resilient

16. Comfortable with cognitive dissonance

Industries can be from different domains and many industries work across domains. So, the following skills are expected from young graduates:

1. Domain specific (Computer Science, Electronics, Mechanical, Civil etc.)

2. Cross domain

3. Coding

4. Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

5. Analysis and Synthesis

6. Data science

7. Ethnography and Anthropology

8. Sociology

9. Ecology

Industries expect and appreciate skills in the following areas as well:

1. Design thinking

2. Systems thinking

3. Lateral thinking

4. Computational thinking

5. Agile methodology

6. Lean methodology

Another key expectation is Industry readiness. Industries are looking for young graduates who have been through a sufficiently long Industry connect program such as internship. Certifications in technical areas that are essential to specific industries are another expectation. Adequate social media presence and active presence and membership of reputed global on-line technical communities are another expectation that has gathered a lot of momentum in the recent years.

Many industries expect that young graduates should have a mentor who is able to give them a bigger picture of the Industry and possibly connect the graduates with Industry and involve them in real world projects. Industry is now waking up big time to an apprenticeship model.

Finally, Industry expects and treasures conscious leadership skills as well.