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Skill-Sets for Prospective Careers of Highly Qualified Labor
Until recently, the career prospects of engineers and researchers have changed considerably. The chances of getting a permanent job, of getting a good position at a university or research center depend not only on one’s academic degree but also on individuals’ experience, competencies, and portfolio. Skills received during the period of study at the university or dissertation research can no longer be considered as sufficient for career. Lifelong learning is becoming the dominant model and should become an integral part of all career plans by means of constantly updating and developing the individuals’ “portfolio of competencies.” At the same time, successful companies should focus not on the staff but on the organizational stock skills, i.e., the aggregate “portfolio of competencies” of employees with different professions, which allows the company to formulate for specific tasks and projects different sets of competencies required in each specific case.
The chapter analyzes the most in-demand and dynamically changing sets of competencies in two high-tech areas – robotics and biotechnology.
