'Do the job you love and love the job you do'

In this era of global competition, the focus of education should be on enhancing employability of the students of professional courses rather than merely seeking employment. This is the only way to ensure sustainable employment.

What's employability?

When an employee adds value to the employer's investment in the human resource by effectively performing intended functions, he/ she is employable. It's important that educational institutions focus on integrated development of knowledge, skills and attitudes of students for holistic personality development.

Knowledge based on information and data should lead to understanding and wisdom. Skills in its multifaceted dimensions require the capability to use domain knowledge wisely for good of humanity. This calls for communication, interpersonal skills and personality pre-dispositions like initiative, leadership, team playing, positive thinking, integrity, respect for self, others and the environment and of course time management.

'Total quality person'

A positive attitude comprising both time and work discipline is perhaps the most powerful attribute to enhance a person's employability quotient. Every problem has a solution for anyone with a positive attitude. A negative attitude finds problems with every solution offered. A great mind and a greater mindset are essential for excellence. Integrity and trustworthiness are vital for success. In domains of technology, a set of good human values is a pre-requisite to ensure that technology contributes to progress and improved life quality. Hence, every engineer, scientist, professional or manager would succeed in life if he/she is also a good human being. It is an interesting coincidence that the weighted sum of the words 'ATTITUDE' and 'DISCIPLINE' in each case adds up to a perfect 100 by giving increasing weight to alphabets (A=1, B=2 etc.). They make you a 'total quality person'.

Patience, entrepreneurship, innovation, integral thinking, eye for details and capacity to analyse as well as synthesise are some other attributes that will stand you in good stead. In today's world of electronic revolution one must update one's computer skills on a regular basis .

Learn to learn

Learning to learn is the trait that enables us to update our knowledge fast and retain our employability quotient. Knowledge is said to double every 72 hours and if we do not update, unlearn and re-learn, we are left behind. Today we have to run to remain at the same place!

Weakness to opportunity

Analyse your strengths and weaknesses and choose a career where your strengths are leveraged and weakness minimised and converted to opportunities to improve. 'Do the job you love and love the job you do' is a mantra for success in life. Excellence and indifference can not coexist. If we nurture our young talent well, the demographic dividend that we have in India, can ensure that we lead the knowledge driven society and become a major supply source of globally employable Indian talent.