The document discusses the importance of both hard and soft skills for success in the IT market. It defines hard skills as teachable abilities such as proficiency in programming languages, while soft skills are more subjective abilities like teamwork, communication, and time management. It recommends developing both broad and niche technical skills depending on the market, as well as achieving proficiency in languages like English. Soft skills like teamwork, communication, and an open mindset are also important. The document encourages being active in communities to share knowledge and meet people from various backgrounds.

1. Hard and Soft skills:
be successful in the IT market
Davide Benvegnù
@davidebenvegnu

2. Who am I
DAVIDE BENVEGNU’
 Managing Director & CTO – DBTek Ltd
 Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio ALM
 Member of DotNetToscana e GetLatestVersion communities
 Next: Founder of DotNetHongKong? Microsoft User Group (MUG)?
 Developer, Consultant, Speaker, Trainer…
 GitHub (n3wt0n) – NuGet (DBTek) – SlideShare (n3wt0n)
@davidebenvegnu – www.davidebenvegnu.com – blog-eng.dbtek.it
GetLatestVersion

3. My story – 12+ years of experience in IT
 1° job (not yet graduated): Computer science teacher for a private school
 System Administrator in the biggest regional IT company
 Analyst & Developer in a small Software House
 Head of Development (became shareholder)
 Technical Lead
 Team Leader in the biggest Italian Service Provider
 International Development Manager (3 teams across Europe)
 Started my company in Italy – DBTek.it
 Started my company in Hong Kong – DBTek Ltd
 Director and CTO

4. Hard vs Soft
HARD SKILLS
• Teachable abilities, can be learned
in school and from books
• Easy for an employer or recruiter to
recognize
• They remain the same, no matter
for the situation and environment
SOFT SKILLS
• Subjective skills
• Interpersonal skills
• They change and depend on the
situation and environment
• You can read about them, but the
only school is the life

5. Hard vs Soft: examples
HARD SKILLS
• Proficiency in a foreign language
• Computer programming
• Typing speed
• Electronic devices building
SOFT SKILLS
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Time Management
• Public Speaking

6. Hard skills: what to achieve
TECHNICAL SKILLS
 Quantity vs Quality
 Broad adoption vs Market niche
 Market requests
 HK market: full stack developer
 EU market: FE or BE developer

7. Hard skills: what to achieve
OTHER SKILLS
 Foreign languages
 English at least
 The more, the best

8. Soft skills: what to achieve
 Teamwork
 Good Teamwork skills lead you to be a good Team Leader
 Good communication
 Public speaking helps
 Open-mindedness
 Humbleness
 I’m the best developer in the world, no one can do what I do 
 Perseverance

9. Other
 Be active in communities, user groups and meetups
 Share your knowledge
 Learn from others’ know how
 Meet people from different places, with different stories and different background
 Be always proactive, don’t be passive

10. Q & A
Ask and I will answer…
…maybe

11. THANK YOU
Hard and Soft skills: be successful in the IT market
Davide Benvegnù
@davidebenvegnu