The Soft Skills Companies Need Most in 2020 (Source: LinkedIn)

1) Creativity

Connecting dots—that are seemingly unrelated—to generate original, useful solutions is an incredibly valuable skill in every employee, regardless of what industry or country you’re doing business in.

2) Persuasion

Persuasion is convincing others to buy into your idea or a different way of doing things to build consensus or make a decision. It’s one of the most powerful communication skills for all employees to have in their skillset.

3) Collaboration

People who can work effectively and efficiently to achieve a common goal—or influence others to the right end game.

4) Adaptability

The only constant in life—and in business—is change. Employees who thrive in a dynamic environment and bounce back quickly in the face of challenges are the ones who can handle anything that comes their way.

5) Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, evaluate, and respond to your own emotions and the emotions of others. New to the most in-demand skills list this year; emotional intelligence underscores the importance of how employees interact with each other.

The Hard Skills Companies need most in 2020 (Source: LinkedIn)

1) Blockchain

Blockchain is typically used to support cryptocurrency. But blockchain’s novel way to store, validate, authorize, and move data across the internet has evolved to securely store and send any digital asset. As companies explore how to take advantage of this technology, they have a huge need to build this skillset, as it is extremely difficult to hire for.

2) Cloud Computing

Today, companies are built and run on the cloud. They need talent who have the skills to help them drive technical architecture, design, and delivery of cloud systems like Microsoft Azure.

3) Analytical Reasoning

Today, data is the foundation of every single business. Organizations want talent who can make sense of it and uncover insights that drive the best decisions for the business.

4) Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) augments the capabilities of the human workforce. The people who can harness the power of AI, machine learning, and natural language processing, are the ones who can help your organization deliver more relevant, personalized, and innovative products and services

5) UX Design

It seems like the average attention span of consumers decreases every year and they have no patience for products that aren’t intuitive. Organizations need more expertise to help them build more human-centric products and experiences.

6) Business Analysis

Business analysis made the most significant jump of any skill on our list and it’s one of the few hard skills every professional should have, as most roles require some level of business analysis to make decisions.

7) Affiliate Marketing

With the decline of traditional advertising and the rise of social media, affiliate marketing is rapidly rising as a must-have hard skill. Affiliate marketing leverages influencers on social media to tie their brand to personal experiences and stories of an influencer in their target audience.

8) Sales

You’d be hard pressed to find a company that doesn’t need great sales people—those who can effectively manage a sales team, the ability to understand the sales funnel, work with cross-functional partners, and sell into the highest levels of the business. That’s why it maintains it’s spot on the top hard skills companies need.

9) Scientific Computing

Scientific computing skills are held by data science professionals, engineers, and software architects. Companies need more professionals that can develop machine learning models and apply statistical and analytical approaches to large data sets using programs like Python, MATLAB, and others.

10) Video Production

Video continues to be top-of-mind for companies because the consumers have an insatiable appetite for watching videos. Cisco estimates that video will account for 82% of global internet traffic in 2022.

The post LinkedIn Research: 15 Skills in demand which you should learn appeared first on DU Times.

The 14 categories are as follows : Creative Writing, Dance, Debate, Digital Media, Fine Arts, Music (Vocal), Music (Instrumental Indian), Music (Instrumental Western), Theatre, Quiz, Divinity, NCC, NSS, Yoga.

Registration for admission through DUET will close on July 31 but registration for merit-based admission will be open till 31st August.

ECA Admission Details 2020

Candidates can register for a maximum of three ECA categories. Admission will be based on merit or participation certificate of the candidates. Candidates will be able to upload a maximum of five certificates, dated between 1st May, 2017 and 30th April, 2020. The University will not accept Undated certificates.

“The marks under ECA category will be awarded based on sum of the total marks awarded in the three best certificates uploaded by the candidate,” an official statement by the University said.

Certificates will be evaluated out of a maximum of 100 marks. Those who score 20 marks and above 20 Marks will be eligible for final merit list of ECA admission.

The maximum marks under ECA categories is as follows:
Participation/Prizes in Competition – 44
Training/Examinations – 28
Workshops – 16
Performance / Published work / Exhibition (Public) – 12

“Not more than 15% concession in academic merit vis-à-vis, unreserved category applicants from the last relevant cut-off will be given for admission to a specific course subject to course-specific eligibility criteria. The specific concession shall be declared by each college,” the statement added.

Applicants can edit, correct and upload certificates in the registration forms that have already been submitted by applicants.

“Applicants would be allowed to replace or update the documents – caste certificate, EWS certificate, mark-sheet, Minority certificate, medical certificate, supporting documents for ECA and Sports,” the official statement said.

The post ECA Admission 2020: Check Details Here appeared first on DU Times.

The Notice

“Considering the ongoing pandemic, and the many requests submitted by the resident junior members, students who are unable to vacate their rooms will be allowed to retain their rooms with a modest room rent charge of Rs 100 per day starting from August 7, 2020,” a notice posted on the college website said.

“Resident Junior members are also hereby notified that, if and when the government gives the permission to reopen the residence facilities, all belongings and luggage will be moved a week prior to the date of residence reopening to facilitate necessary cleaning and renovations. In such occasion, the college will not be responsible for loss or damages,” the notice added.

Before this, another notice was sent on June 23 asking the students to vacate the rooms.

John Varghese, Principal of the college has said that the students have been sent repeated reminders since the beginning of July. The college has to Fumigate and sanitise the rooms for the students who will be coming after the new session begins.

Students express disappointment at this notice

A hosteller, currently living in West Bengal said that the college is being unfair. It is charging almost double the amount of what they would usually pay for the room. He left Delhi for his hometown before March 19, when the mid semester break started. The break was due to end on March 15, but DU announced that it would be closed due to the COVID outbreak.

“Subsequently, the lockdown was announced and we were unable to come back to Delhi. Even in the current situation, it is not safe to travel. Students are stuck in northeast and far off places and won’t be able to come back in time to collect their belongings. We usually pay Rs 1,400 as the room rent but going by the current rate, we will end up paying Rs 3,000 for a month,” the student said on the condition of anonymity.

He also said that students have been provided the option to authorise their local guardians to collect their belongings. But that is also not possible since the keys of the rooms are with the hostellers.

Another hosteller currently living in Kashmir cited safety issues while travelling during the pandemic. He said he was written to the dean (residence) but there has been no solution.

Further Clarification by The Principal

“By the time the lockdown happened, a lot of the students had gone for the mid-semester break. Since the lockdown happened, they didn’t come back. Nobody is talking about the fact that the college is not charging them from the period from the time they were not here till August 7. They have not been charged a single paise for the period they were not here,” Varghese told PTI.

“We have admissions and we have to get ready for the fresh set of students and in our hostels, applications are made every year. So we have to get ready the rooms, carry out repairs, fumigation, sanitisation and then get rooms for the fresh set of students, who will come, but we don’t know when,” he added.

“Unless the things are removed, we cannot carry out either repairs or sanitisation,” he said, adding that the dean (residence) has been telling all of them to remove their belongings. In case they are unable to come, they can authorise a friend or a relative in Delhi to come and remove their stuff. Many of the students have done that.

“Now the lockdown has been opened up and there is no restriction on travel. What is preventing them? That will be true (about restrictions in certain places) but they are in direct communication with dean’s office and they have been asked to authorise someone here. I don’t think a big number of students have their belongings still kept here,” the college principal said.

Varghese said that what they are being asked to pay is not a “rent” but a “penalty”.

“You deposit a luggage in an airport or railway station’s cloak room and you are charged by the hour. But we have to be fair and we have to prepare for the students who are coming,” he said.

He added that there are “certain procedures” that can be followed if the students have taken the keys with them and they are aware about the process.

The post St. Stephen’s College to penalize hostelers Rs 100 per day for not vacating rooms appeared first on DU Times.

“All aspirants desirous of seeking admission to UG, PG, M.Phil and Ph.D programmes  of the University of Delhi through entrance test are hereby informed that NTA is likely to conduct the Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) from September 6, 2020 to September 11, 2020. The detailed schedule will follow”, the Delhi University said in a statement, as stated by The Times of India.

Applicants are advised to carefully go through the bulletin of information available on the website of DU to check eligibility and the courses for which the entrance test shall be conducted. The applicants can choose the courses while filling up their registration form. Once the information regarding courses selected for entrance test and center preferences have been filled and submitted, it cannot be changed.

The post DUET 2020: Entrance Test from September 6-11 appeared first on DU Times.

Several students and stakeholders were calling for restoration of the ECA Quota. Now, Students are expressing disappointment over the decision to admit students only based on certificates without trials, calling it an incomplete restoration.

According to Yashvardhan Shukla, Various Disciplines under the ECA do not have stipulated authorities to issue certificates, unlike the sports quota. He is a student of Sri Venkateshwara College, who has been campaigning for the restoration of the ECA quota.

No way to check authenticity of certificates

Members of the academic and executive council also wrote to the Vice Chancellor on Monday. They argued that depending solely on certificates would not be a sound basis for evaluating the performance of individuals and called for trials. ECA trials can be held at the college level to ensure physical distancing, They suggested.

Competitions are held at various levels, such as inter school, intra school, where judges may be people who aren’t experts. Certificates aren’t a representation of an individual’s ability and may also be easily forged, said Manya Dobhal, who got a seat in Lady Sri Ram College through dance ECA quota in 2018.

Why no trials?

An official said that a university sub committee formed to look into the matter had considered various options for holding trials, before deciding not to. Online Trials were ruled out because of technological issues. There are nearly 25,000 ECA applications. The University’s servers wouldn’t be able to take the load If videos were to be uploaded. In case of live video calls, applicants who don’t have appropriate means or have poor connectivity may be at a disadvantage.

The University is considering another option, holding trials through a third part agency. But this was rejected because the cost of this would be extremely high and participants would still have to travel to the centre.

The post Students oppose ECA Quota admission based on certificates only appeared first on DU Times.