10 Job Skills You'll Need in 2020

The world of work —and the world in general—is changing. People are living longer, new technologies are emerging, and we’ve never been more globally connected. That means the skills we use now in the workplace are not necessarily the skills we’ll need in the future.

To get a sense of what skills you might want to start investing your time into developing, check out the infographic in the post. (Note: It might sound like 2020 is really far into the future, but it’s actually only about five years away.)

1. Sense Making
2. Social Intelligence
3. Novel and Adaptive Thinking
4. Cross Cultural Competency
5. Computational Thinking
6. New Media Literacy
7. Transdisciplinary
8. Design Mindset
9. Cognitive Load Management
10. Virtual Collaboration

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Topping Up Skill India: An App To Help Skilled Youth Find Jobs

Is it sufficient to just train the youth? What about jobs? How and where will the skilled youth find jobs? Skilling India is not enough, employing India is equally important.

The Economic Times reported yesterday that Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna has completed 10 lakh enrollments under Skill India mission. Seventy percent of those enrolled, have already completed their training under 382 job roles. There are currently 8749 active centres across the country through which the central government is implementing the scheme with the help of NSDC, local training partners, state governments, local MPs and MLAs.

Why do we need Skill India program?

India is going through a demographic transition. By 2020, 64 percent of its population will be in the age group of 15-34. Every year, 12 million youth enter the job market. On top of that, there is a huge gap between the number of people who are looking for employment and the number of people who are employable. To reap the demographic dividend, a programme like Skill India would help.

So, what’s missing?

Though the NDA government set an ambitious aim to train 400 million people by 2022, the scheme so far has been able to enroll only 1 million. However, this is bound to change once the government expands its programme, becomes more efficient, involves more private partners, and as more people become aware of it. The government is working on these.

Skilling India is not enough. Employing India is equally important.

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The economics of the MGNREGS

Ten years after it was launched, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which promises 100 days of employment to every rural household, is back in the news. More people in rural India are seeking employment through the programme across the country, with job numbers scaling a five-year peak

Although the MGNREGS seems to be reaching many more rural households than before, urban opinion on the programme is sharply divided, both in the mainstream and social media. Even the Narendra Modi government seems divided on the programme, with the ministry of rural development declaring that the 10th anniversary of the programme was a matter of "National Pride" barely a year after Modi had derided the programme as a ditch-digging exercise on the floor of Parliament.

Academic opinion on the MGNREGS, however, appears far more favourable than is evident from the public discourse on the issue. A growing body of research on the MGNREGS suggests that it has helped dent poverty, reduced distress migration and raised the bargaining power of rural labourers, especially among lower castes and women, the biggest beneficiaries of the programme.

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The 33 worst lines ever said by tech recruiters

Everyone loves to talk about terrible pickup lines from the world of romance, but there's a far worse kind of misguided enticement going on right here in the realm of technology. I'm talking about the delicate dance of tech recruitment -- if you work in any area of IT, you probably know precisely what I mean.

The men and women tasked with recruiting tech talent go to great lengths to attract the attention of their targets -- (often unsuspecting) tech pros viewed as valuable "gets." While some recruiters prove to be invaluable in improving your career, finding exactly the right words to pique your interest in a new gig, far more seem to stammer, stumble, and elicit exasperated sighs.

You don't have to take my word for it. Several brave tech workers from around the globe have taken the time to share their favorite (if you can call them that) tech recruiter horror tales, and we have highlights for you here.

Category A: The cliché-loving recruiter
Category B: The trying-too-hard-to-be-hip recruiter
Category C: The shamelessly overselling recruiter
Category D: The woefully-out-of-touch recruiter
Category E: The completely clueless recruiter
Category F: The 'WTF?'-eliciting recruiter

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26 Books Every Recruiter Should Read

Reading resumes, job descriptions, and candidate requirements may be part of the job, but if you’re looking for a change of scene, we have just the thing to one-up your hiring game.

We spoke with The Sourcing Institute President Shally Steckerl to get his list of must-reads for talent pros determined to change, improve, and learn the ins and outs of effective outreach, engagement, and hiring.

What we came up with is the official World’s Greatest Sourcer collection of 26 books that should be sitting on your nightstands, packed in your work bag, marked up and tagged on your desk, passed off to every recruiter you know – you get the idea. Here’s the grand list.

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12 Ways to Make a Great Impression at Work

It takes more than technical wizardry to emerge as a standout success at work. Unfortunately, many professionals lack the soft skills—including dedication, leadership, motivation, team spirit, etc.—that are essential to get ahead. Indeed, nearly one-fifth of managers cite a lack of these skills as a key reason for not hiring job candidates.

With that in mind, we present the following 12 ways to make a great impression. They were adapted from the recent book, You Did What?! The Biggest Mistakes Professionals Make (Career Press/available now). In the book, authors Kim Zoller and Kerry Preston cover everything from written and verbal communications to networking etiquette to meeting decorum to handshakes.

Taken individually, you may conclude that these practices aren't really a big deal. However, when you incorporate each one into your routine, you elevate your professional presence and position yourself for career advancement.

Zoller is president and founder of Image Dynamics, a professional development consultancy. Preston is a leadership, communications, strategic planning and time management consultant.

Slide Show

7 Unconscious Ways Smart People Sabotage Themselves

You've made your list of career goals for 2016, and you're already on the right track to conquering them. Go you! But while you progress toward awesomeness, make sure you're not sabotaging your own success at every turn.

We're not trying to be fear mongers, promise. But making little (yet mighty) unconscious mistakes is easier than you may think. And it happens to the best of us. Here are some typical ways perfectly smart and capable people keep themselves from reaching their full potential.

1. Taking Shortcuts
2. Letting Ego and Emotions Get in the Way
3. Trying to Do it All Yourself
4. Getting it Done, Instead of Getting it Done Right
5. Holding Back
6. Skipping the Homework
7. Letting Others Determine Your Future

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The Future of Jobs

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labour markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape.

This is the finding of a new report, The Future of Jobs, published today by the World Economic Forum.

Executive Summaries

National Employability Report - Engineers Annual Report 2014

The National Employability Report - Engineers,2014 is an analytical study of the employability quotient of Indian engineers. It has over the years become an authoritative source for employability statistics for engineers and an auditory mechanism for higher education. The present report aims to delve further into the employability situation and also focuses on job aspirations of engineers. It also aims to understand what factors apart from merit influence employability outcomes.

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10 top sites to find legit work-from-home jobs

Where to find legitimate work-from-home jobs

The traditional 9-to-5 office has become an abstract concept in today's age of mobile computing and cloud-based services. Workers can now log on and work from virtually anywhere at any time. In the past, finding legitimate work-from-home jobs wasn't easy. But today, thanks to the same technology that has made remote work possible, you can find a number of sites that curate legitimate telecommuting positions.

If you're looking to make the move from corner office to home office, here's a list of websites that will get you on your way to finding your dream career.

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Computer World -- 100 Best Places to Work in IT 2015

Computer World's 22nd annual report ranks top organizations across the country that offer technology pros challenging projects, robust salaries and flexible work/life options. We honor employers that offer high salaries, superior benefits, and unsurpassed access to training and career advancement opportunities.

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Connecting talent with opportunity in the digital age

Labor markets around the world haven’t kept pace with rapid shifts in the global economy, and their inefficiencies have taken a heavy toll. Millions of people cannot find work, even as sectors from technology to healthcare struggle to fill open positions. Many who do work feel overqualified or underutilized. These issues translate into costly wasted potential for the global economy. More important, they represent hundreds of millions of people coping with unemployment, underemployment, stagnant wages, and discouragement.

Online talent platforms can ease a number of labor-market dysfunctions by more effectively connecting individuals with work opportunities. Such platforms include websites, like Monster.com and LinkedIn, that aggregate individual résumés with job postings from traditional employers, as well as the rapidly growing digital marketplaces of the new “gig economy,” such as Uber and Upwork. While hundreds of millions of people around the world already use these services, their capabilities and potential are still evolving. Yet even if they touch only a fraction of the global workforce, we believe they can generate significant benefits for economies and for individuals

In this McKinsey Global Institute report, A labor market that works: Connecting talent with opportunity in the digital age, the current state of employment and the impact these digital platforms could have been examined.

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How to revamp your IT resume

Meet Deron Lespoir, an SAP training consultant with more than 10 years of experience managing learning initiatives for big-name companies. Lespoir wraps up a five-month contract with Viacom/MTV in December and has his sights set on landing another contract opportunity -- six months or longer -- ideally in the New York City area.

Lespoir's experiences fall into two categories: managerial roles and training roles. As a manager, he's responsible for a company's SAP training lifecycle: hiring other trainers and content developers, understanding organizational learning needs and current processes, and then developing a strategy and training plan to facilitate that. On the training side, he is responsible for understanding the company's business processes, developing training materials, and facilitating employee training.

He told us he is looking for a leadership role next. "The one thing I love about my jobs is that [they're] people-based. In every organization, you have easygoing people and difficult people. It's all about being able to relate to them, and I have a great track record with that."

Lespoir met with Felix Fermin, senior technical recruiter with the IT recruiting firm Mondo, to fine-tune his resume for his next job. Here's a look at the resume's positives and negatives, plus how they reworked the resume to better showcase his experience and strengths.

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Education to Employment: Designing a system that works

Around the world, governments and businesses face a conundrum: high levels of youth unemployment and a shortage of job seekers with critical skills. How can a country successfully move its young people from education to employment? What are the challenges? Which interventions work? How can these be scaled up? These are the crucial questions.

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Transforming learning through mEducation

Read the whitepaper on mLearning / mEducation

Education to employment

Young people today are three times as likely as their parents to be out of work. Yet many employers can’t find people with the right entry-level skills to fill their jobs. How to close the gap? In this video, McKinsey directors Diana Farrell and Mona Mourshed share insights from our research with 8,000 stakeholders. We also profile two innovative organizations—one in India and one in the United States—that are pioneering new approaches to successfully transition greater numbers of students from education into employment.

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Internet matters: The Net's sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity

The Internet is a vast mosaic of economic activity, ranging from millions of daily online transactions and communications to smartphone downloads of TV shows. But little is known about how the web in its entirety contributes to global growth, productivity, and employment.

These (the report) findings suggest that corporate leaders will need to sharpen their focus on the opportunities the Internet offers for new products and expanded customer reach. Companies should also pay attention to how quickly Internet technologies can disrupt business models by radically changing markets and driving efficiencies. Public-sector leaders ought to promote broad access to the Internet, since Internet usage, quality of infrastructures, and Internet expenditure are correlated with higher growth in per capita GDP. For governments, investments in infrastructure, human capital, financial capital, and business environment conditions will help strengthen their Internet supply domestic ecosystems.

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The top five in-demand IT certifications for 2013

Now is a great time to set ambitious career goals for yourself in the new year and achieving a professional certification is an excellent means to improve your skill set, get more responsibility on the job and earn more money. The biggest challenge you face today is figuring out which technical certifications will be in demand in 2013. But don’t worry - we’ve done the hard work, and researched which certification you should pursue to achieve new career heights in the new year.

Here’s the top five in-demand IT certifications for 2013, selected based on expert opinion, research, and Google trends.

1, MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate)
2. MCSE: Private Cloud
3. PMP (Project Management Professional)
4. VCP (VMware Certified Professional)
5. CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)

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7 Tactics to Extract the Best out of Your Staff

With a weak economy and a long-running IT skills shortage showing little sign of abatement, technology workers have the ability to pick and choose their roles and dictate terms like never before. Here’s our guide to help you nurture , grow and extract the best out of them.

1. How to Extract More from Your Staff
2. 3 (Cheap) Tips to Win Over Staffers
3. How to Help Staffers Outflank Change
4. Staff Management: Are your Staffers at War with Each Other?
5. 5 Dysfunctional IT Relationships and How to Fix Them
6. How to Become a Better Communicator With Your IT Staff
7. How a CIO Saved His IT Staff from Layoffs

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Interesting articles to read -- 20-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 20-09-2012

India's 2012 TR35: Top Innovators Under 35 Read

Exchange old mobile phone for cash at ATM machine! Read

National IT Policy okayed; aims to make 1 per family e-literate Read

Scrap To Silver: New regulations could herald an inflection point but it may be a while before e-waste transforms into wealth Read

Education and employability - a paradox? Read

10 Ways to Pack Lighter When You Travel Read

An outstanding speech from Kamalhaasan @ IIT Mumbai View

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Interesting articles to read -- 17-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 17-09-2012

Don’t blame it on the professor: Unemployment, skyrocketing prices and other governance-related problems are not the failures of the Indian higher education system. Read

No Indian varsity figures in top 200, says Pranab. Read

Plugging the skills gap - Shortages among plenty Read

Work: Whenever, wherever, however: Organisations recognise that giving people the ability to work from anywhere, any time, is a win-win for everyone. Read

Register for KYC services: Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) on ‘know your client’ registration agency (KRA). Read

WORLD WAR II: PICTURES WE REMEMBER View

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