Rob Thompson lists 10 things a Six Sigma Black Belt needs to demonstrate to land a job...
Perhaps you want to hire a Six Sigma Black Belt, or you may currently be a Six Sigma Black Belt and want to know what skills, responsibilities, and competencies are commonly asked for by employers when they are recruiting. Well wonder no more! A trawl through various job advertisements revealed the following top ten most commonly requested items:
1. Act as a change agent to deploy enterprise-wide six-sigma, in other words, change organizational culture. This may also, in some instances, involve the external supply chain as well.
2. Proven delivery of significant operational improvement and financial benefits, partnering with Process Owners and Champions: objective examples are required. This links to point six below. Be willing to provide an overview of the projects you’ve led or been involved in.
3. Align Six Sigma and project objectives to business strategy. Obviously, this calls for excellent communication skills with top management. Also mentioned with some frequency is the ability to create and implement a dashboard to monitor performance and improvements in key metrics.
4. Develop and implement a Six Sigma training curriculum, and deliver tuition to all levels within the organization, for example, Process Owners, Champions, Black Belts, Green Belts and project teams. This links strongly into point 8 below.
5. At least five years of experience in Six Sigma, with a minimum of two years of experience as a Master Black Belt to get the big bucks.
6. Completion of at least three manufacturing-related and transactional projects with demonstrated success and financial results. This is a minimum requirement, the more projects successfully completed to the better.
7. Strong leadership skills with proven ability to facilitate cross-functional teams.
8. Excellent written and verbal communication, presentation and facilitation skills.
9. Proficiency in Windows, Minitab, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and simulation software. Minitab appears to be statistical software of choice in almost all of the advertisements I reviewed.
10. Formal Master Black Belt training and ASQ certification seems to be generally preferred.
How does this list compare to your current skills or needs?
Comment below.
By Rob Thompson of Learn Sigma blog.
