Professional profiles with ICT knowledge and transferable skills in highest demand by companies

As part of its commitment to the employment and empowerment of its students and alumni, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has spent a number of months tracking activity on the job markets, including positions advertised and the skills in highest demand. It has concluded that adaptability; proficiency in the use of ICT; the ability to solve problems, demonstrate responsibility and commitment to the task at hand; teamwork; time management, and decision-making make the top of the list. These transferable skills improve the job prospects of the professionals who hone them. However, companies also look for human skills, such as emotional intelligence and the ability to create positive synergies.

The pandemic has pushed many organizations towards a new pervasive reality: reinvention is no longer an option; it is now a matter of survival. And leading the way on this new stage is young talent, proven to be the main driver for change.

Àngels Fitó, UOC vice president for Competitiveness and Employability, explained that "we have found ourselves in a complex, changing context, and this is having a direct impact on us because a new context of employability has been shaped. It is a trend marked by the intensification of the globalizing movement and the impact of the second wave of technology, which has led to as many changes in business working dynamics as it has in the emergence of new job profiles".

She added: "The trend in companies is to create new ways of working, organized across departments in a circular fashion with distributed leadership, self-managed work teams, and an increase in hybrid work. New professional profiles are also needed that can generate positive synergies with new technologies and draw from other disciplines. These new profiles must, of course, include both transferable skills – such as adaptability and time management – and human skills (known also as soft skills), such as emotional intelligence."

Eva Rimbau, member of the UOC's Faculty of Economics and Business, explained that "the current job market is marked by a clear trend towards automation and digitalization. The reality is such that certain jobs, notably routine or repetitive jobs, have now been replaced by automated machines, examples being plant workers, cleaning staff and assemblers. This is because these jobs do not require critical thinking, leadership, digital skills, adaptability, languages, communication skills, and so on. And these are the skills accelerating the push towards digitalization. So, we need to realize that this new employment setting is going to require professionals that have the skills to adapt quickly to new ways of working and new jobs".

Lastly, Carmen Pagès, head of job prospection and analysis at the UOC, said that "we should be aware that not all jobs are going to meet their demise. Technological advances are indeed pushing for transformation and change, but this does not mean that they will disappear completely. Routine tasks are highly automated but, conversely, a machine will never be capable of performing a task that is not structured. Individuals can use this to their advantage, since we have creativity, emotions, and we know how to communicate. In the future, humans will work in jobs that require advanced social skills, socio-emotional skills, and more complex cognitive skills, and the job market will increasingly demand these. So, we need to keep a firm grip on our ability to get excited, to persuade, to love and to learn, because these are the characteristics that make us irreplaceable by any technology or innovation".

The employment fair also gave students the opportunity to access job and internship offers by companies in search of new talent and to attend a variety of talks in four main thematic areas: entrepreneurship, employability, competitiveness and career opportunities. This year, the characteristic student profile was that of professionals who combine their university studies with work and have less than five years' experience in the workplace, on average. Among their reasons for attending, they cited job seeking but, more importantly, to find out what job offers are out there, to network and to attend the talks. The top fields of the jobs offered by companies were IT, business and economics, and psychology and health. 

The initiative was attended by 150 organizations and companies from diverse areas, including TMB, Damm, Grup Freixenet, Fundació Once, Adif, NTT Data and PwC. They offered a combined total of 745 jobs and internships both in Spain and abroad. UOC students and alumni are characterized by their broad-ranging profiles, experience and geographical diversity, and this fair has given them the opportunity to learn about new organizations, network, interview and grow their contact lists. In all, more than 4,000 people attended the fair, which featured more than 50 talks accumulating over 4,000 views on its online channels. This year, 50 students also took part in the first UOC hackathon to promote entrepreneurship among the University's students.