5 Skills IT Companies Look For When They Hire Freshers
As the IT job market is booming in India with new companies, it is important for freshers to know which skills companies look for when they recruit from the campus hiring process. IT companies conduct several rounds of recruitment process testing candidates on different skills, in this article we list down major skills IT recruiters check during this process.
Arithmetic Reasoning Skills
Companies conduct aptitude test as a first round of recruitment to filter out candidates with bad arithmetic reasoning skills. These tests are not complex or dive too deep in technical skills, they cover a range of topics — Arithmetic Reasoning, Analytical Thinking, Mathematical critical thinking, Logical reasoning, Communicative English, etc. Freshers can be able to solve these tests with generic knowledge from +2 studies. But still brushing up these skills are important as a cut-off in this round is very thin and a majority of students are filtered out in this round.
Communication Skills
Communication includes all three-writing, reading & listening. As most of the IT projects involve working with clients, it is mandatory for a candidate to have proficient communication skills. On a day-to-day basis, candidates need to communicate with clients over emails, messages, meetings & other engagements. They need to clearly understand client requirements during this engagements, get their doubts clarified & deliver as per the agreed conditions. All these require candidates to have good communication skills.
Negotiation & Persuasion
Being the client-serving industry, IT staff should have good negotiation skills. Clients tend to ask to do more than the agreed requirements or may ask for early projects delivery. If you’re willing to say yes to all the client requirements you may not be able to handle the project well. You need to know how to consult the client during these tricky situations by making sure the client also doesn’t get unhappy from your response too. Companies do not look for highly strong negotiation skills but candidates should have some level of persuasion skills to handle these tricky situations.
Team Work & Planning
IT companies run on projects — some run for short length (few months) while some run for a longer period (few years). Working on different projects require working with different teams across different offices. Working on projects also require planning — how the project requirements will be fulfilled, how much staff will work on the project, what does a typical project timeline look like, etc. Companies look for candidates who have prior work on small projects during college or internship as they have better & clear understanding of working with teams.
Motivation & Enthusiasm to Learn
In today’s fast-paced world, IT & technology industry get new changes every day & it’s necessary for the IT staff to adapt to these new changes quickly. Gone are the days when you can survive in the job role for 30–35 years having only one skill. New technology, new platforms come & disrupt industries. Clients also want their IT partners to get into this journey quicker. Even if you don’t know all new technology at the time, it’s important for you to have motivation & enthusiasm to learn new things. Because a technology currently in trend may become redundant in 3–5 years. Companies always look for candidates who are passionate & quick learner.
IT companies are one of the biggest recruiters right now for Indian Colleges in their Campus Recruitment drive. Companies do not look for the specific background — they invite candidates from all different backgrounds & select them from their own designed recruitment process. People from the non-IT background (Commerce, Marketing, Mechanical, Electrical & more) too can IT jobs easily if they have the right qualities companies are looking for. As most companies spend ~6 months in training new joiners, candidate selection is done based on their personal characteristics & skills like Communication, Teamwork, Negotiation, etc. If candidates have these soft skills, they can crack any IT interview recruitment process easily.
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