Bengaluru, The Executive Director of IBM, Krishnadas Unni, said on Friday that language is longer a barrier in seeking jobs in corporate companies, as a basic skill set is what is expected from the employees.

Participating in a panel discussion organised on the theme 'Beyond Bengaluru', as part of Good Governance Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at the Vidhana Soudha here, Unni argued that the requirement of 'speaking good English' is a myth, as he strongly felt that an accountancy degree holder from Mandya or Madduru with accountancy skills can be made to talk to the CFO of Europe.

"It is a myth that good English communication skills are essential to get employed and have a bright career growth in corporate companies. What the MNCs seek in the employees is a basic skill set. If one has this, other required expectations for the specified roles can be met within four weeks and one can see career growth even with broken English," he explained.

He also argued that an accountancy degree holder with basic skills need not come to the Manyata tech park in Bengaluru seeking employment. "All that the industry needs is a co-working facility in a place like Bidadi," he said.

Unni added that the Covid situation has proved that now work can be done from anywhere. "After the lockdown, about 20 per cent of IT professionals have moved out of Bengaluru and are working from their respective places. IBM was able to make 99 per cent of its employees work from home within 10 days. And this did not affect the deliverability of the company in any way," he said.

According to Unni, there is plenty of talent and dedication in the aspirants from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and towns. "What is needed is they must to be made aware of what corporate companies expect out of them," he said.

Co-founder and CEO of 1Bridge, Madan Padaki, argued that Karnataka should have a vision to create one million entrepreneurs by 2030 and each of them should generate at least 10 jobs.

"If this is realised, at least one crore jobs will be created in the next 10 years. For this to happen, opportunities should be matched with capabilities," he said.

He also said that Hubballi, Mysuru and Mangaluru have the potential to grow as IT/ITeS clusters.