Skills and characteristics that are valued by employers in the IT industry. JOSHUA OLIVERID: BTEC ICT Level 2 DiplomaMr Mangera

Communication Skills Communicational skills that are valued by employers in the IT industry are:  The ability to vary their voice depending on the situation e.g.: if they were giving a presentation they would use a louder tone than if they were talking to one person.  Situation specific Terminology (knowing what terminology to use in certain situations) e.g.: not using fashion terminology in an IT presentation.  Accuracy when giving facts/statistics (especially numbers) so that the (target) audience know what they are talking about (the more accurate the better, but specifics is just showing off).

Attitude (Communication skill) Attitude is an extremely important skill in communication because if you don’t have a good attitude then that may (or will) rub off onto the audience and can ruin the presentation.

Interpersonal Skills Interpersonal skills that are valued by employers in the IT industry are:  Verbal exchanges like asking questions to keep the audience engaged and prevent them from dozing off.  Body language like knowing where to stand during a presentation so that the speaker isn’t directing the message towards one specific individual.  Paying attention to the speaker to make it look like their paying attention and not be rude.

Assertiveness (Interpersonal skill) Assertive communication is important around the workplace because it means that you can clearly get your message across, it means you are able to get a message across to the person (or group of people) who require the message.

Communication in writing Written communication skills valued in the workplace are:  Following guidelines and procedures. i.e. not going off on a tangent and writing something completely irrelevant to the task at hand.  Identifying and conveying key concepts/messages – showing the main point of the task to the reader.  Reviewing and proofreading their own written work to stamp out any error that may occur.

Structure (Written communication skill) Structure is important in written communication because without it whatever you are writing will be a jumbled up and an un-understandable mess. So it is Imperative that all written assignments/tasks (not that thing you seem to always forget about – SO FORGET ABOUT IT) have some form of structure. An easy way to do this is to think of it as a sandwich that needs to be made in a specific way.

Audience Things that you will need to take into consideration when creating a presentation for a specific audience is:  Age and gender – you wouldn’t give a younger audience an extremely long-winded speech as it would bore them to death.  IT knowledge – how much does the audience know about IT so that you know what terminology that you can or can’t use and to prevent you from looking like a total idiot.  Culture/Country – To make sure that you presentation doesn’t offend the audience on one or more occasions because they may become uninterested in the presentation.

Smiling (Audience skill) Smiling is important when giving a presentation because it makes the audience not know that you may be absolutely terrified. This makes the audience more prepared and ready for the presentation even if your not. And remember Smiles go for miles.

General Skills General skills that are necessary in the workplace are:  Timekeeping – so that you can keep track of time on when a task/assignment/that one thing that you always seem to forget about is due.  Teamwork – how well a person is able to co-operate with other people.  Public speaking – How well the person is able to address the message of their presentation to an audience.

Planning and organisation (General skill) Planning and organisation is vital in the workplace to complete specific tasks before they need to be handed in (Its basically a bit like structure in the workplace – this time no sandwich reference) and it also means you should keep you work area tidy (so it doesn’t look like a landfill site) which will make other people think of you as a reliable person who gets the work done.