Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a central office technician and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A central office technician works in a telecommunication firm to ensure that all the equipment and machinery used there is functioning properly. He/she is responsible for preventing breakdowns in real time.

Other specific responsibilities of this position include installation, repair, and maintenance of electromechanical equipment in central offices and those launched outside the telecommunication firms. They are responsible for installing complex systems. He/she is also mandated to point out errors in the systems before they escalate to problems, which could shut the central office down. Other duties include replacing outdated equipment and ensuring that they integrate seamlessly with the existing system.

Core Skills Required to be a Central Office Technician

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A central office technician should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Public Speaking:

Public Speaking though closely related to presenting differs in that it is the process of performing a speech before a live audience with the purpose of informing, persuading or entertaining.

A Central Office Technician must be equipped with good public speaking skills to be able to address an audience through presentations or talks to drive the point home and create a reputable record.

Safety at work:

Safety is being protected from hurt or other non-desirable outcomes that may tend to overrule a situation and cause damages of different kinds.

A Central Office Technician must learn to keep the organization safe from different risks by developing a high sense of alertness that detects danger from afar and stops it before it causes risk, danger or injury in the organization.

Dependability:

Dependability is the characteristic of being able to be counted on and relied upon by providing services that be trusted within a period.

A Central Office Technician needs to be dependable and hire reliable employees who can be counted on as consistent and beneficial to the business, building their niche as an essential element of the larger team without worrying about bringing less than your efforts.

Emotion Management:

Emotion Management is the ability to realize, readily accept and successfully control feelings on oneself and sometimes in others around you by being in complete authority over your thoughts and feelings that are generated whenever your values are touched.

A Central Office Technician must be able to manage his emotions as well as assist the staff to control their emotions to ensure that the professional reputation, the efficiency, and productivity is not compromised.

Emotional Intelligence:

Emotional Intelligence is the capability to identify your emotions, understand what they are telling me and realize how the feelings are affecting you and the people around you.

A Central Office Technician should be wise to handle different personalities that carry different emotions presented in the workplace while ensuring relationships are managed more efficiently by respecting your perception and the employee's as well.

Attention to Detail:

Attention to Detail is the capacity to achieve a thoroughness and accuracy when accomplishing a task.

A Central Office Technician needs to have this prime characteristic and utilize it in a high performing organization that allows both the customers and staff to understand the need to be keen to all the details required to avoid massive costs for overlooked details that are common in the workplace.

Problem/Situation Analysis:

Problem/Situation Analysis is the ability to solve problems and assess situations to know what kind of solution is required to calm it down.

A Central Office Technician should learn how to identify and analyze problems and situations as well as use available resources to resolve them constructively by reaching a consensus through looking at an issue in a professional, not personal way.

Long Range Planning:

Long Range Planning is setting long-term goals and objectives for your business or project to ensure its growth and sustainability is reached by all the employees.

A Central Office Technician needs creativity in defining long-term goals that ought to be proactive, putting together a full employee focused management strategy that analyzes the major initiatives and translates them into functional goals that employees handle.

Entrepreneurial Thinking:

Entrepreneurial Thinking is a mindset that allows embraces critical questioning, innovation, service and continuous improvement with an attitude of change.

A Central Office Technician should challenge himself to see the big picture and creatively think outside the box too with the ability to fight all the challenges faced and keep going in the face of calamity and the social skills needed to build great teams in the workplace.

Technical Skills:

Technical Skills are the abilities and knowledge mostly related to mechanical, IT, scientific and mathematical needed to perform specific tasks in the workplace.

A Central Office Technician ought to hire employees with particular talents and expertise that helps them perform certain duties and jobs that other skills like soft skills cannot perform to grow both the business and the employee and bring in productivity.

Hard Skills Required to be a Central Office Technician

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A central office technician should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Central Office Technician: Hard skills list

Avaya
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
Cabling
Cellular Services
Cisco Networking
Copper-wire Networks
Cloud Computing
Cross-platform Telecom Systems
Design
Fiber-optics
Innovation
Internet Networks
Interpersonal and Communication
IP Network
IT Support
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Network Architecture/Design
Network Engineering
Network Management/Administration
Network Support
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
Perl or Python
Programming
Project Management
Quality of Service (QoS)
Radio and Television Broadcasting
Satellite Communications
Telecommunications
Telephony Networks
Troubleshooting
WAN/LAN and wireless LANs
Wide-Area Network (WAN) protocol
Wireless Communication Technologies
Written Communication
VoIP

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