Introduction

The three characteristics that are valued by employers are

1.      Industry specific

2.      General skills

3.      Attitudes

Your Industry specifics are your qualifications previous experience and knowledge required for a particular industry.

Your general skills would be your personal characteristic’s, such as problem, solving being creative, having leadership qualities and working with a team. Also working with minimum guidance would also be a general skill.

Attitudes would be your own personal behaviour, how you show an interest to your work, you have to show a willingness to perform in the job and how you handle certain situations during your daily work day and when under pressure with meeting deadlines.

Glossary of terms and FAQ's

Skills

Interpersonal skills:

Interpersonal skills are sometimes also referred to as people skills or communication skills. Interpersonal skills involve using skills such as active listening and tone of voice, they include delegation and leadership. It is how well you communicate with someone and how well you behave or carry yourself. Everybody has interpersonal skills but how you display and use these skills within any job role is vital.

Time management:

There are some skills that you will need going into the IT industry like time management skills you need to know time management skills because all projects have timelines and deadlines to be meet and if they are not met it could cost the company allot of money and lose them future business in web design you have to have very good time management.

Problem solving:

When you work in the IT industry you need to be a good problem solver because there are allot of problems in the IT industry due to the complexity of creating technology. Being in the IT industry you need to think outside the box to solve problems and come up with solutions that will be beneficial to your company or business being an IT technician you would have to be a very good problem solver because you are working with multiple problems every day.

Organised

Organisational skills are needed every day and there are certain job roles that require you to be well organised such as a secretary if they are not organised and they need to find something quick they wont be able to find it which will cause a lot of problems, being organised requires a lot of time and it takes more time off your research and other activities. Being organised isn’t all bad being organised will help you as a person keep on track of all your tasks.

Creative:

When you work in the IT industry you need to be creative because if you are a web designer you are working with graphics every day, the advancement of technology needs staff to be creative in order to come up with new ideas for products and enhance solutions to existing items, being creative is a fundamental in today’s IT world.

Personal characteristics:

When working in any industry you need personal characteristics such as:

Being nice to people and not overpowering meetings with the sound of there own voice, understanding and accepting other people’s opinions, Being supportive and helpful to other members on your team. Some people can be addicted to work that can be a beneficial personal characteristic because it will show they are determined and committed to work personal characteristics are essential in any job role.

Attitudes

Leadership qualities:

When you work in the IT industry you need to show leadership qualities because when you are in any job in IT you could be working with teams so you may need to take control and lead the team in a positive but effective manner, having leadership qualities is an essential role in the IT industry, if you are a manager in any job role you must show leadership qualities.

Strong and Independent:

When you work in the IT industry you need to know how to take control and work with minimum supervision because your boss will expect you to perform tasks not only as part of a team but independently. It’s important to stay strong and independent when you are in any job role.

Confidence:

When you show confidence in your work and in yourself it shows, so when you show that you are confident enough to work on your own or in a team this attitude will be rewarded and could lead to promotion. It’s important to be confident because if you are not confident being an IT technician you will not understand what people are saying because you are too afraid too look at them.

Self motivation:

In the IT industry you have to be willing to work and you must be self motivated because working in the IT industry  is very challenging, being in any IT job role will come up with new challenges everyday, and often have to handle sudden changes. Being a web designer you have to be self motivated because you are primarily working on your own so you will have to be self motivated to get certain jobs done. 

Relaxed:

Being in the IT industry you need to be relaxed and you have to have a clear head all the time working in IT is a very stressful job but you would have to stay very calm and relaxed. You have to be a very assertive person. You have to look like you know what you are doing even if you don't not to upset the team moral. Being a computer analyst you have to be relaxed because you would have a lot of information coming at you all times of the day.

Principles of effective communication

Verbal and non verbal communication

Effective communication is being abele to get a message, information or data across to someone using different communication types such as verbal, written, email, phone, and non verbal. Effective communication consists of 40% verbal communication, 50% gesture and 10% wording. Verbal communication is what you hear the tone of your voice and how clear you present your voice. The rest of the 60% consists of facial expression, the way you dress and groom yourself, your posture is very important if you are slouching people will feel like you aren’t interested, eye contact is very important because looking people in the eyes tells them you are interested in the subject, touch is also important if a person is feeling down and you simply touch them on the arm this could comfort them. Communication is a two way process if the other person does not interact you can’t really call it communicating.

Effective communication is complicated at times because we all have different opinions different personalities and different beliefs but this doesn’t stop us talking to one another. Sometimes we do clash when talking to each other but to avoid conflict we simply ignore what the other person has said. If you are looking to be an effective communicator its time to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about other people, the art to effective communication lies in you listening and understanding what the other person is saying, its hard for certain people to listen that is why we have to train ourselves to listen and learn.

There are many ways to help you become an effective communicator, the first thing you do when starting a conversation is begin in a friendly way, you have to smile be inviting and open don’t be serious and demanding, smiling and being open will let people know that you are a nice person and they will be able to talk to you easier. You have to give honest and sincere appreciation because people know when your not, you also have to make the other person feel important instead of knocking them down to make you feel better. Praise the person in any way possible this will help you value the other people’s perspectives. Talk to the other person about what they are interested in you can use the other person’s interests to your advantage even if you don’t like the subject.

You need effective communication in a workplace, effective communication is simply having the skills to interact and understand different people in order to have effective communication in a workplace you have to apply these skills and learn from them every day. In the workplace you must trust the people you work with if you don’t this will affect your workmanship to be an effective communicator in a workplace you have to understand and consider other peoples opinions and ideas so they feel like you’re listening to them this will make more people trust you and consider your own ideas.

The Barriers of effective communication and the mechanisms that can reduce the impact of these barriers.

Communication plays a huge role in any business or organization however when you try to communicate sometimes there may be virtual barriers preventing the effectiveness of the communication, communication only happens when the other person is receiving and understanding the conversation.

There are various barriers that can affect the use of communication some issues may include certain background noises these can be a good thing or a bad thing they should not be underestimated. Even a light continuous noise such as the humming of an air conditioning unit, can distract the audience. Slow and gentle music playing in the background creates a motivate and relaxed atmosphere which people are more heightened to background noise could also be a bad thing such as the constant noise of a printer or coffee machine would be able to block out what a person is trying to say. It does this by drawing everyone’s attention to the machine then they will lose concentration of what the person is saying. There are many ways that you can prevent these annoying sounds, in call centres they are all talking at the same time so they use headsets to drown out all the other conversations these can also be useful for drowning out other repetitive office noises like the beeping of computers or the constant noise of a printer. Outside of a building can also be quite noisy due to traffic and in some cases construction you can overcome this by getting double glazed windows and solid insulation installing these factors will be able to drown out the irritating noise of traffic and construction work.

Distractions also have an impact on the way we construct our conversations unintentional distractions can break the flow of a workplace these maybe someone dropping an object or falling over, if people feel bored they will create distractions by tapping a table or fidgeting with certain appliances around their work stations. If you are giving a presentation or speech and you are shuffling your papers or tapping your feet this will distract the audience and take their attention away from the speech you can overcome these distractions by getting training techniques to show you how to act while giving a speech or presentation you could also prepare in advance for your presentation presenting it in advance to some colleagues they will then be able to tell you exactly what you are doing wrong and you will then be able to correct these errors.

It is important to maintain concentration levels despite any distractions.  The length of a conversation or communication is important, the recipient can only take in so much information at a time, anything beyond that is counter-productive. A lack in concentration can also have an impact on the way we produce and perceive information this would be caused by several issues if you are sitting down for a long time this can cause a lack in concentration you can rectify this by taking regular breaks for a little walk and a bit of fresh air. You will start to lose concentration after 30 to 40 minutes, when you are giving a speech and you don’t interact with the audience and you speak too slow the audience will loose interest and this will cause their mind to wander if your speech or presentation is not interesting enough. The way to rectify this is to make your presentation interactive and fun so the audience can interact with you and your presentation and they will not loose interest.

Another factor that can affect the use of conversation would be our body language. If you are having a conversation with someone and you are really interested in what you are saying and the other person indicates a negative attitude this can act as a barrier to communication. You are unlikely to persuade someone to open up and communicate with you if you use closed body language and an aggressive stance. So a solution to this problem may be to do some research on how to present your self while people are talking to you. Or you may practice with friends so that when you have a proper conversation with a lecturer or a business man you will know exactly how to present your self, it would also be important to remember not to be over confident because people might find it a bit annoying. When people are talking to you and you don’t like the conversation just tell the person that you don’t want to talk about it because you maybe can’t relate. If you don’t like the conversation then the person might see that you are not interested in what they are saying and might not want to talk to you again.

The environment can also be a barrier to effective communication, so it would be important that you learn the environmental factors so that so that you can improve your listening skills while in certain conditions. There are many environmental factors that affect the use of information. The most common environmental factors are visual factors which are what we can see. The first visual factor that affects communication is poor lighting conditions if you are in a dark area or you are even just in the classroom with the blinds closed while a PowerPoint presentation is on it may be hard to talk to the person beside you because you will not really be able to see the person, the only way to rectify this is to always make sure that there is light on the person who is talking. Another visual factor that acts as a barrier to communication is the distance you are standing from someone while you are talking to them, if you are too far away from a person then you will not totally understand what a person is saying then you are having two completely different conversations that wont even make sense, you should be standing no further than six feet from each other.

If you are talking to some one and there face and mouth is covered or they are chewing gum it may be hard for you to understand the person. If a person is chewing gum it is said that you can’t really understand there expressions properly. A way that you can reduce this is by talking loudly, clearly and by making sure that your face and mouth are not covered up. When you are talking to someone that isn’t directly in front of you it may be hard for you to understand the person, so always make sure that you are always facing the person talking to you.

Another factor that can affect the use of conversation may be auditory factors which are what we are hearing different factors such as air conditioners, fans, TV, radio and other talkers will create an instant barrier to communication because you would be getting distracted and would not hear your conversation correctly. Ways that you can reduce these factors is if you are talking to someone then move away from the annoying noise so that you can conduct your conversation with your full attention span.

The last factor that will act as a barrier to communication is individual factors which are how well you are feeling. Different factors like Fatigue, illness and stress make concentration difficult. Inadequate ventilation can also make concentration difficult if it was too warm you might not want to talk and if it was too cold you might not want to talk so if you want to talk it would be best if you were in a room that you feel comfortable in. The attitude preparation and situation that you are in can affect the success or failure of a conversation, all I can tell you here to do is to surround yourself with people that you can talk to and feel comfortable around so that you don’t feel any bad or negative factors while having a conversation with someone. After a while you will become used to it and would be able to have a conversation with your worst enemy.