Office Application still holds importance for all Job Seekers

One of the biggest tasks for an HR team is to shortlist CVs which are relevant to the jobs posted, in case, if the applications are received through a non-filtered job portal. In the continent i work, due to emergence of economies and increased availability of university education resulting into more number of graduates from universities in all fields, numbers of applications for all types of jobs are in hundreds. It does not mean that the unemployment is high, but it signifies that graduates are now available more than what it used to be a decade back for skilled jobs. I see that as a good trend.

Since highest paid jobs and highest number of jobs openings are STEM jobs, which involve the fields of science, technology, engineering or math, do these graduates possess soft skills which are essentially required along with their domain specific knowledge. During my interaction with numerous job seekers in interviews, I realized that most of the applicants are good in their area of study, but when it comes to soft skills (communication, presentation, documentation,  data analysis and alike), they lack practical skills. I understood that their interest in learning these basic skills are very low, since they don’t find it to be interesting or useful during their tenure at the university. For example, a graduate with computer science would not prefer to have good working knowledge of Office Application, but he or she will be excellent in programming or network technologies. This selective skill development of student in any institution is due to lack of awareness within the graduates that Office Application still holds importance while looking for any job.

One of my admired mentors once shared his experience from his first job. After getting his MBA from one of the top-notch B school in India, he was working with the business unit of a heavy duty automobile company. As per the company restructuring in early 1990's company wanted to give voluntary retirement to 300 of its employees. The finance department was assigned with a task to work on the payouts for those employees based upon the number of years served and remaining years of employment. This is the story of an era, when office automation was just picking up in India and departments across organisations were looking at automation as a threat to their jobs. My mentor, although was not associated with the finance department, due to his affection for spreadsheets, worked out complete compensation to accuracy using lotus-123. Till date i admire him for his spreadsheet skills.

Above illustration is just to stress upon the importance of office application skills for excellence in job. It infuriates me when today also in the era of 21st century technologies, we have graduates who prefers to press Space Bar on the keyboard five times to give five white spaces in MS Word, instead of pressing TAB once.

As per a white paper commissioned by Microsoft Corp. and released by IDC on Most Important Skills for Students and how top candidates for current and future jobs will be measured by capabilities and competencies, it is quite evident that apart from oral and written communication skills new hires must have good competency in Office Application as their top most skill sets. The study provides insight into the skills students need for the top 60 high-growth, high-wage occupations that will account for 11.5 million new hires and 28 percent of job growth by 2020. Out of those skills, oral and written communication, detail orientation, and Microsoft Office proficiency top the list.

With technology and innovation booming, the global economy is changing and business needs are evolving. IDC research found that although a number of positions require technical skills, even more require knowledge and cognitive skills. 

Two key findings of this research (https://news.microsoft.com/2013/10/15/new-study-reveals-most-important-skills-for-students/) are:

• The 60 high-growth occupations include jobs in medical support and nursing; sales and marketing professionals; education, teaching, and instruction; computer programming and specialists; and office managers/business operations.
• Communication, integration and presentation skills (CIPs) are required for about 40 percent of all positions and make up 11 of the top 20 skills that are required by 39 percent of the fastest growing, highest paying positions.

Fig: IDC Study: Top Skills Comparison – High-Growth/High-Wage Positions Versus All Occupations (* Indicates Communication, Integration, or Presentation skill; Source: IDC, based on Wanted Analytics and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data, October 2013. Source: https://news.microsoft.com)

Findings presented above clearly indicates that knowledge of an office application is as important as domain specific skills. Any employment entails preparation and presentation of reports to be submitted to the supervisor. These reports must be presented in a format which helps supervisor to understand the information presented and judge employees work. This can only be achieved if an employee is having an effective office application skill. An employer expects an employee with a degree, for example, in network engineering and working as a network administrator to present network infrastructure or machine status report in a presentable format which can be analysed and decision taken. But how do network administrators present these reports, if they don’t have Office Application skills? Recently few of my students from creative field encountered me and asked why they should learn MS Office, when, as per them, they are not going use it in their career. I have to explain them that to prepare a portfolio also nowadays they need word processing and presentation skills which are part of Office Application.

Perhaps no other technology resource has had as great an impact on education as word processing. Not only does word processing offer high versatility and flexibility, it also is "model-free" instructional software; that is, it reflects no particular instructional approach. A teacher can use it to support any kind of directed instruction or constructivist activity. 

Hence it must be understood that importance of Office Application skills in graduates looking for jobs are very important and our education system must encourage students in acquiring and using these skills within the institution itself. I conclude that Yes, Office Applications still holds importance for all Job Seekers.