IT Professionals Guide to Employability Skills

Current Topics In Computer
Technology
Nature Of The IT Profession
Rohana K Amarakoon
B.Sc (SUSL), MBCS (UK), MBA (AUS-Reading)

Content
1. Profession and professionals
2. Professions in IT industry
3. Professional bodies for IT professionals
4. Benefits of become a member of professional body
5. Reservation of title and function
2PST 32220 - Current Topics In Computer Technology (Lecturer : Mr. Rohana K Amarakoon)

Content
6. Software development as engineering.
7. Expected Outcomes

1. Profession & Professionals
• Profession –
Profession is any type of work that needs special training or a particular skill, often
one that is respected because it involves a high level of education.
Ex: lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants, architects & etc.
Characteristics of profession
1. Substantial education and training are required in order to practice the profession.
2. The members of the profession themselves decide the nature of this training and, more
generally, control entry to the profession.
3. The profession is organized into one or more professional bodies.
4. The profession lays down standards of conduct with which its members must comply and ,
where necessary, enforce these through disciplinary procedures.

PST 32220 - Current Topics In Computer Technology (Lecturer : Mr. Rohana K Amarakoon) 5

• Professional –
Professional is a member of a profession. Professionals are governed by codes of ethics,
and profess commitment to competence, integrity and morality, altruism, and the
promotion of the public good within their expert domain. Professionals are accountable to
those served and to society.
Characteristics of profession
1. Keeping up to date with the field.
2. Helping their colleagues advance within their field.
3. Showing concern for the well being of their clients.
4. Adhering to the relevant legislation.
5. Respecting client confidentiality.
PST 32220 - Current Topics In Computer Technology (Lecturer : Mr. Rohana K Amarakoon) 6

2. Professions In IT Industry
• Old IT professions
Network Engineer Software Engineer QA Engineer Project Manager

• New IT Professions
Software/QA ArchitectElectronic Engineer UI/UX Engineer Business Analysts
DevOps Engineer

• Nature of IT Profession – Employability Skills
There are employability skills, general requirements associated with a function or task. Input from
industry clearly shows that without solid mastery of employability skills, an employee can not
succeed in the highly competitive environment of today s technology company.
Employers often say that “technical skills may get you the job, but foundation skills make you a
valued employee and significantly increase career advancement. ”For our purposes, let us identify
nine types of employability skills as below:

1. Self directed & continuous learning about new technologies
2. Communication skills & language proficiency
3. Organizational skills
4. Team contribution and leadership
5. Professionalism
6. Critical thinking and decision making
7. Customer relations
8. Long working hours and stress management
9. Competitive working environment with multi skilled colleagues

• Nature of IT Profession
1. Self directed & continuous learning about new technologies
In the high-technology industry especially in an information technology environment
technologies and practices change rapidly and sometimes radically. To keep up with
technology change, employees must constantly engage in self-assessment against the
technological landscape of skills and knowledge and then take proactive steps toward
enrolling in continual training for their trade.
The employer expects employees to be current in their technical skills. Most organizations
provide the necessary resources for continual training. However, it is often seen as the
employee’s responsibility to identify personal gaps in knowledge and take actions to fill
these gaps.

2. Communication skills & language proficiency
Effective information flow throughout the organization is a critical element in
organizational success.
Communication with team members, supervisors and subordinates, and customers and
clients as well as between groups must be timely and appropriate. Some jobs rely heavily
on written communication, while others depend primarily on verbal communication.
Communication in a high-technology organization takes on many forms: informal or formal
presentations, technical logs, complex reports, proposals, and so on. No matter the form,
communication and language proficiency is vital to individual and team effectiveness.

3. Organizational skills
As employees are asked to handle more parallel tasks with an increased level of
complexity, good organizational and planning skills become important.
Depending on the job, the complexity of the organizational task may vary from scheduling
and prioritizing multiple tasks or requests to planning and tracking complex and capital-
intensive projects involving many people and teams.
Regardless of the size of the project, the ability to identify and define tasks, track
milestones, recognize when a project time line is running into problems, and take
appropriate action is crucial to ongoing success in a technical job.

4. Team contribution and leadership
Most organizations are relying increasingly on teams to accomplish projects. This is
particularly true in high-tech environments where the success of a project depends on the
contribution of many individuals with varied expertise.
The ability to work with team members with diverse backgrounds and communication
styles is highly valued and rewarded in most environments. Being able to read the needs of
the team as a whole and the needs of individual team members, and to adjust one’s role to
increase team effectiveness, is essential to the success of the team process.

5. Professionalism
Dealing with problematic employee issues, attitudes, and behaviors consumes much time
in any organization, and it can be quite detrimental to overall morale.
Employees with good work ethics, who show up on time, who understand and follow
company procedures, and who relate to coworkers and customers with respect are usually
the ones selected for a position with an increased level of responsibility and reward.

6. Critical thinking and decision making
As an organization becomes leaner in management, the employee is expected to assume
increased responsibility.
An employee’s ability to correctly analyze a situation, understand tradeoffs, offer
good recommendations, and make the right choice is often rewarded with increased
freedom to self-manage, and with the opportunity to engage in more interesting and
challenging projects.

7. Customer relations
Customers can wear many faces. An internal customer is the department down the hall or
an offshore division. An external customer is a supplier, client, or end user. The ability to
solicit and listen to customer feedback and to effectively address customer issues and
concerns is required to qualify for certain positions, such as a technical support job.
Customer interaction skills are necessary in every job, whether or not its description
formally includes “customer relations.”

8. Long working hours and stress management
Almost all the Software Development and IT related companies doesn’t have standard
working hours (Ex: 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.) like other government or private sector offices.
Employees in the IT companies are knowledge workers who should have more freedom for
use their analytical skills to come up with new solutions. Not only that most of the time
they have to stress their mind to find solutions. Stress management is a must.
Because of that companies allows them to work flexible long hours and provide more
facilities to make their working environment free and comfortable. Food, refreshments, fun
activities in house and healthcare, transport as external facilities provided.

9. Competitive working environment with multi skilled colleagues
IT industry is not a industry which have routine work to do every day. Every day employees
have to do new things with the newest technologies to satisfy the client requirements.
Employees should learn new technologies fast and adopt them to cater the project
requirements on time. Which is going to be really challenging because they have to learn
while they are working.
Not only that every employee in the industry also in the same game of learn new
technologies and master them. Therefore IT is competitive industry with multi skilled
employees and continuous learning is a must for survival.

• Challenges for the IT Profession
1. Rapid technological advancement
2. Continuous trend changes of end user
3. Energy efficiency and green IT
4. Creating values for the end user
5. Interoperability with IOT
6. Data science and analytics

1. Rapid technological advancement
• Technology advances rapidly and shows up in media on all sides. This means users, managers
at all levels and even competitors pressure IT staff to implement this new technology just
because it is new. The real challenge is deciding which of these new technologies will work to
the best interest of advancing the organization and which is better to avoid for now.
• Organizational priorities and long-term goals tend to remain relatively static. Technology has
become much more fluid and changes more rapidly. IT management must evaluate the
organizational value each technology offers to determine when and if it is a good fit.
• New technologies such as cloud, big data, virtualization and mobility all become tools for
experienced IT managers who understand their organization's priorities. Since every
organization is different, the IT value of each new technology will vary with the organization's
strategic goals.
Challenges for the IT Profession

2. Continuous trend changes of end user
People keep changing their living, buying and entertainment patterns and trends every day.
Because of that Software and IT related businesses need identify them in advance and
cater them to satisfy their clients to keep them with the businesses.
Ex:
• Call via phone Skype / Zoom
• SMS Whatsapp /Viber
• Walkman iPod iTunes
• Manual Cam Digital Cam Smart Phone

3. Energy efficiency and green IT
• According to most estimates, a 25,000 square foot data center will use about $4 million in
energy this year. At that rate, a savings of just a few percent can make a big difference to an
IT budget. With an increasing trend of expanding green initiatives and alternate sources of
energy, organizations are working on ways to improve energy monitoring and efficiency.
• There's an emerging market of tools for energy monitoring and efficiency. More than 25
vendors have entered this market. These tools monitor consumption at the device level and,
in some cases, at the application level.
• Now most of the IT companies shift greener environments which consume more sun light,
sola powered electricity, natural ventilation mechanism within the buildings, low power
consumption lights and machinery usage.

4. Creating values for the end users
• This is a recurring IT issue. It's now a priority. IT departments must focus on improving service
to the organizational user and to the organization's departmental needs. To do so, IT
managers must remove any non-essential activities that are in the way.
• That means a different way of outsourcing non-core activities to keep the focus on value
creation. This outsourcing means moving as many services to the cloud as possible. Why own
or maintain software or hardware? Small or mid-sized firms can easily rely on the cloud for
standardized services.

5. Interoperability with IOT(cloud and fog computing )
• Many organizations have yet to make cloud or fog plans. They choose to keep their data and
applications in-house and manage everything themselves.
• With the advances of cloud and fog offerings and to future-proof the network, preparing the
organization for a potential future cloud or fog move is simple common sense. For example,
what happens when organizational management decides to set up an internal cloud solution.
Maybe that is a step toward moving applications and data off-site.
• The main point: You must create portable applications today that won't hold your company
back in the future, whatever that may hold.
• Desktops, laptops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones are already an integral part of many
users lives. Tablets and smartphones already perform many tasks previously completed by
desktops. That means organizations must adapt to a multiple user systems able to
interoperable at any given time. These days, internal users and customers may access
organizational data and applications via many different methods depending on their current
location.

5. Interoperability with IOT(cloud and fog computing )
• Users and customers are more demanding of the products on their desktops and mobile
devices. It all comes down to communicating with each another. Systems need to send and
receive data that will be compatible on all user platforms.
• Open applications and systems built on open standards are the way of the future.
Development efforts must focus on the system or application itself as well as how that
system/application works with others.

• Data is projected to grow by 800 percent in the next five years. The big challenge is that more
than 80 percent of it unstructured. Unstructured data varies in its formats, including plain
text, email, blog, formatted document, standard and non-standard image, video, voice,
animation, sensor input and web search logs.
• Unstructured data is growing faster than structured data. As a relatively new and untapped
source of organizational insight, unstructured data analytics has the potential to reveal more
important information interrelationships that were previously very difficult or impossible to
determine.
• Part of that unstructured data includes data from communities, groups and social networks
outside the organization known as "the collective". Data mining the collective is a great way
to understand the organization's market and customers.

Data science and analytics is a new area of data related operations in the IT industry. It
uses existing big data in different domains and predict future trends and patterns using
different algorithms and high end super computers to com up with new inventions.
Data science and analytics application areas:
• Military
• Space Science
• Healthcare Industry
• Financial Industry
• Academic Institutes
• Consumer Good Production
• Weather Forecast
• Natural Disaster Forecast
• Geometry
• Entertainment Industry

• What do you need to have
Passion Curiosity

3. Professional Bodies For IT Professionals
• A profession is typically organized into one or more professional bodies.
• A professional body usually starts by a group of people coming together because
of a shared interest in a particular type of activity.
• A professional body may also be started by people engaged in the same type of
activity, who want to protect their business against others who may be trying to
enter it without having the proper knowledge or who may be practicing it
dishonestly.
Ex: CIMA, ACCA, CIM,

• As the professional body matures, it is likely to develop a range of functions, of
which the following are the most important:
1. Establishing a code of conduct to regulate the way members of the body behave in their
professional lives and a disciplinary procedure to discipline members who breach this code.
2. Establishing mechanisms for disseminating knowledge of good.
3. Practice and new developments to its members , typically through publications and
conferences but increasingly through the use of the worldwide web.
4. Setting standards of education and experience that must be met by people wishing to
become members of the body.
5. Advising government and regulatory bodies about matters within its areas of expertise.

• International
1. IEEE - CS : Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers - Computer Society (US 1946)
2. ACM : Association for Computing Machinery (US 1947)
3. BCS : British Computer Society (UK 1957)
4. ACS : Australian Computer Society (Australia 1966)
• Sri Lanka
1. CSSL : Computer Society of Sri Lanka (1976)
2. SLASSCOM : Sri Lanka Association of Software and Services Companies.

Benefits Of Become A Member Of
Professional Body
• Career development with CDP’s
• Professional recognition
• Information and advice
• Networking opportunities
• Conferences and seminars to showcase your talents

Professional Body
• Career development with CDP’s
Continuous professional development (CPD) is essential if you want to forge a successful
second career after leaving the military.
Professional Institutions may offer career development programs, training courses and
assessments.
There may also be the opportunity to upgrade your membership to Chartered or Fellow level,
via further assessment, which gives added professional credibility.

Professional Body
• Professional recognition
Most institutions have an assessment process that applicants must pass before they are
granted membership. This means that, once you have demonstrated that you have the
requisite experience, qualifications and skills, you may join the institution and add the
appropriate letters to your CV and business card.
Membership shows that you have reached a certain level of expertise in your profession, and
adds to your credibility. It also shows that you are serious about your career and professional
development.
But remember just being a card carrying member of an organization doesn’t mean that this will
automatically produce results for you – and you need to analyze the different types of
professional bodies or institutes and chose carefully – simply collecting post nominal
accreditation when taken to extremes can work counter-productively too!!

Professional Body
• Information and advice
Many institutions have web sites offering members password protected access to industry
news, surveys, reports, updates, career information, jobs, and details of events. Some, like the
Chartered Management Institute (CMI), offer a comprehensive on-line research facility, with
downloadable documents and publications, and a facility for answering questions you may
have.

Professional Body
• Networking opportunities
Institutions may have regional networking and professional development events that you can
attend, which can be useful for making new contacts and learning more about what’s
happening in the sector.
National expos and conferences also offer excellent networking and research opportunities. If
you wish to raise your profile you can volunteer to join committees and help organize events.

Professional Body
• Conferences and seminars to showcase your talents
Members are often given priority registration for their organization’s convention and may
receive discounts on conference fees or special rates on related expenses, such as hotel
reservations and car rentals.

4. Reservation Of Title & Function
• In certain cases ,where it is considered to be in the public interest, Parliament
may agree to grant the members of a professional body some sort of legal
monopoly;
1. Reservation Of Title
The use of the name of the profession may be restricted to those people who are
appropriately qualified.
2. Reservation Of Function
The law may state that certain activities are restricted to people with appropriate
qualification.

5. Software Development As Engineering
• The development of software and information systems in general is now usually
regarded as a branch of engineering and the people who practice it are
considered to be engineers.
• Characteristic of engineering:
1. Engineering involves designing and building things that must work properly, that is, must
meet a set of predetermined requirements concerning their functionality, their
performance, and their reliability.
2. The process of designing and building the object must be completed within specified
constraints of time and budget.

• The status of engineers.
1. The legal status of the engineering profession varies a lot from one country to another .
2. In the USA, the profession is very strictly controlled.
3. Both the title of engineer and the function of engineering are reserved.
4. Because the relevant legislation is state legislation rather than federal legislation, the
details vary a little from state to state. However, the position is that:
• It is illegal to call yourself an engineer in a given state unless you are registered with the State
Engineers Registration Board;
• It is illegal for a company to use the word ‘engineering’ in its name unless it employs at least
one registered engineer;
• Academic programs including the term engineering in their title must be taught mostly by
registered engineers;
• It is illegal to carry out engineering work except under the supervision of registered
engineers.

International recognition of engineering qualifications
• Recognition within Europe
The EU has issued several mobility directives. They are intended to encourage the
movement of qualified professional between countries of the EU. The general principle is
that, if you are qualified to practice your profession in one country of the EU, you will be
treated as qualified to practice it in any country of the EU.
• Washington Accord
In 1989, , the engineering professions in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK
and the USA agreed that the standards and procedures that they each used to accredit the
academic component of an engineers' education and training were similar enough for each
of them to recognize and accept such qualifications gained in any of the other countries .

Compulsory registration of software engineers
• A number of disasters can be traced directly to lack of professional competence on the part
of the software engineers who developed the systems.
• There have been calls for the compulsory registration of software engineers and for
legislation to ensure that software engineering activities are carried out under the
supervision of registered software engineers.
• Some members of the profession have advocated a legal requirement that all software must
be written by registered software engineers, or at least under their supervision. Such a
regulation however would be impossible to enforce.

Expected Outcomes
• Understand about the Profession and professionals
• Understand about the nature and challenges for the IT professions
• Get to know about the professional bodies and benefits of become a member of
professional body

Thank You!

IT Professionals Guide to Employability Skills

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