Why are so many college students failing to gain job skills before graduation?

[Hikin' Mama]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/01/26/why-are-so-many-college-students-failing-to-gain-job-skills-before-graduation/

 

Thoughts? Particularly interesting to me was the difference in many areas between how well- prepared the students thought they were versus how well-prepared the employers thought the students were.

[Lolly]

I don't think it is anything new. I think employers have always known that they were going to need to train new employees in their jobs. The one big difference dh sees in employees today is that they seem to think that if the weather is bad or life throws them a lemon, they shouldn't have to try to get to work. If local schools are closed, they shouldn't have to go to work. Ummm....no. You are still needed at work. Sorry that it rained really hard. Come to work. It snowed. Not shutting down. Your grandchild is sick with the flu and you need to go in with your dd to take the kid to the doctor???? Why? You had to stay up late because you chose to go to the midnight showing of a new release? Tough crackers, drag your sorry rear to the office. The attitude toward work is what he is seeing difficulties with. He is completely used to having to train them for their jobs. Nothing has changed there. That most likely goes back to when people did internships instead of college. They learn the job on the job. Always have.

[EKS]

My thought is that college is not designed to teach job skills.  It's simply not the point of college.  Employers have used a college degree as a proxy for intelligence for years, and it works fairly well that way.  But this idea that college is supposed to prepare kids for employment specifically, the way a vocational school would, is a fairly recent one.

 

I was hired right out of college for an entry level position in a lab.  They didn't expect me to know anything about the specifics of what I was doing.  They were happy that I knew the difference between DNA and protein and that I could learn quickly.  

 

Later on, I hired numerous others right out of college for the same position.  We were getting graduates from a selective UC school and a less selective CSU.  We interviewed so many people, and ended up hiring quite a few, that I was able to make some generalizations about the various types of graduates.  

• Having directly related lab experience had no bearing on how well a candidate did in the job
• Graduates of the UC school were generally better employees than the graduates of the CSU
• Biochemistry majors were generally better employees than biology majors

We needed people who could learn and having related experience wasn't as helpful with that as you might think.  It was a regulated lab, so we had to do things a certain way.  As for UC vs CSU and biochem vs bio, I think what both of those were selecting for was intelligence.  Frankly, the more intelligent the employee, the better he or she did on the job.

 

 

[SamanthaCarter]

I really wish there were more opportunities to learn on the job, for internships and for apprenticeships.

 

College was never really about learning a job skill. I went to college to become a CPA, and I've heard a lot of people say that accounting and science are exceptions to that, that colleges DO teach skills in those areas. I can say that's not true of accounting. College doesn't teach you the skill for a job in accounting. It is purely theory. Which is needed and of course you couldn't do the job without a good grounding in that. 

 

But even though I wanted to be an accountant I couldn't get a job as a teenager/college student to learn basic office skills. No one would hire me because I didn't have basic office skills. I had a senior year summer internship, but there was no attempt to train me and I didn't get much out of it other than to be discouraged. I had to learn all of the practical skill AFTER I had my master's degree. That's so backward!

[SamanthaCarter]

...

 

I was hired right out of college for an entry level position in a lab.  They didn't expect me to know anything about the specifics of what I was doing.  They were happy that I knew the difference between DNA and protein and that I could learn quickly.  

 

Later on, I hired numerous others right out of college for the same position.  We were getting graduates from a selective UC school and a less selective CSU.  We interviewed so many people, and ended up hiring quite a few, that I was able to make some generalizations about the various types of graduates.  

• Having directly related lab experience had no bearing on how well a candidate did in the job
• Graduates of the UC school were generally better employees than the graduates of the CSU
• Biochemistry majors were generally better employees than biology majors

We needed people who could learn and having related experience wasn't as helpful with that as you might think.  It was a regulated lab, so we had to do things a certain way.  As for UC vs CSU and biochem vs bio, I think what both of those were selecting for was intelligence.  Frankly, the more intelligent the employee, the better he or she did on the job.

 

Well, I'm only one data point but my personal experience was different. I graduated with a 4.0 in undergrad and 4.0 in masters from a good state university with a good track record. I passed the CPA exam on the first try. I like to think of myself as intelligent, but the lack of experience left me seriously hamstrung when entering the public accounting world. 

[Jenny in Florida]

Wild guess?

 

Because:

 

a. Students are going into college without appropriate preparation.

b. College isn't job training.

[In The Great White North]

 

 

My thought is that college is not designed to teach job skills.  It's simply not the point of college.  Employers have used a college degree as a proxy for intelligence for years, and it works fairly well that way.  But this idea that college is supposed to prepare kids for employment specifically, the way a vocational school would, is a fairly recent one.

 

They are calling it "job skills" but the list in the article is actually not for a particular job:  "working with others in teams," "ethical judgement and decision making,"  "written communication,"  etc.

 

I would not call any of these "job skills" and would have assumed they had been learned long BEFORE college.

[BarbecueMom]

I've seen "can't work in teams" be code for "goes above and beyond the required work and doesn't realize it makes the apathetic, older employees and managers look bad" more times than I can count. When I was a dispatcher, there were three of us in our twenties, and the rest of my coworkers were in their late 40's-50's. There was a LOT of eye rolling and complaining and smoke break b*tching that us "newbies" were figuring out how to use new computer systems faster (or at all). Teamwork is apparently all about not drawing attention to your coworkers flaws.

 

I don't know many people my age willing to play those games anymore.

 

ETA: Many of us young workers (what are we, millennials? Gen y?) learned very early that if you want something done right, you do it yourself. So when our big science projects in 5th grade were assigned pairs (and the teacher assigned the highest grade students with the struggling students), I should have been prepared for my partner to draw white dots on a piece of black poster board instead of a mobile of styrofoam planets and call it her contribution to our solar system model. Even though I had a carefully labeled star map, I got a C because her part was not done.

 

So years later, when we were supposed to "work together" to write a new set of dispatch protocols (which was actually my lazy supervisors job, but she had been putting off annual revisions for 15 YEARS), like heck was I going to rely on the coworkers who were complaining, "But we've always done things this way!" because that excuse was not going to save MY job if the poo hit the fan.

 

Quit making it an "every man for himself" environment and people will stop treating it like one.

[3in9th]

Wild guess?

 

Because:

 

a. Students are going into college without appropriate preparation.

b. College isn't job training.

 

My dh teaches problem-solving skills in his classes. He regularly fails half the class. Those that fail are often times unwilling to do anything 1- challenging 2- time-consuming or 3- that requires sit-in-chair study/work.

 

I don't know if it's worse than 20 years ago when we were in college, but since he's been teaching, the students have gotten progressively 1- less prepared 2- lazy 3- whiny 4- unable to think 5- unable to manage their time.

[MBM]

Maybe the *talent acquisition* people at Enterprise should start hiring STEM grads instead of athletes. My bet is STEM grads choose to work elsewhere. From the article:

 

The big difference between the skills of graduates depended on their college major: Students who studied math and science scored significantly higher than those who studied in the so-called helping and service fields, such as social work, and in business, which is the most popular college major.

 

 

[plansrme]

I think this is a parent failure more than anything else.  We are raising a bunch of lazy, self-centered kids with no work ethic or attention span and are blaming it on the schools.  I can't believe the things I see, even on this board, that schools are expected to rectify.  Parents need to fix this, not schools.

[kitten18]

Maybe the *talent acquisition* people at Enterprise should start hiring STEM grads instead of athletes. My bet is STEM grads choose to work elsewhere. From the article:

I got the impression that they weren't really talking about their athlete employees not having the skills.

[Tap]

I think this is a parent failure more than anything else.  We are raising a bunch of lazy, self-centered kids with no work ethic or attention span and are blaming it on the schools.  I can't believe the things I see, even on this board, that schools are expected to rectify.  Parents need to fix this, not schools.

Why is it parent failure?

 

I have had kids in home school, religious private, secular private, public elementary, public STEM high school, regular high school, Running Start (community college in liu of high school, and private college at 17yo......so lets just say, I have some experience with different teachers for my kids.

 

 

My kids often tell me how  the teachers have such low standards and that trying harder....often just means you spent more time on a project than necessary. A prime example,  last semester, dd16 (public high) did so much work for her English class, filling in packets with quotes from novels and summaries of the days work, all properly and thoughtfully done.  Then at the end of the class the teacher told the students that she didn't grade the packets on the content, but they got 100% if they had any answer at all written down. So, the kid who just wrote anything down, got the same A as the students who took the 10 minutes per problem to look up quotes and accurately identify them.  DD is Dyslexic, it was hard work for her, so now she knows that for that teacher, there is no real point in turning in good work.  There is no benefit or consequence.  That anything is Wonderful and worthy of an A.   

 

She has had the same attitude at her top private school too.  Where almost all the math students got an A in the class, but barely passed the state assessment or failed it all together.  When we toured the school, the administrators bragged about how the high school students would go back to their middle school math teacher for help on homework.  They thought that it was great that there were such a great bond between teachers and students.......nope.  It was that he gave everyone an A on homework and valued tests so low that they could get an A just by turning in homework.  They were going back to him because the kids didn't know what to do!  They were lost and confused. 

 

These are two examples but we have seen it every single year in my kids classes.  The overworked teacher who can't grade with quality comments because they just don't have the time......or the bored teachers who really don't care about actually teaching the kids.

 

When there is no expectation of quality from the teachers, students are going to loose the drive to contribute quality work..

[MBM]

I got the impression that they weren't really talking about their athlete employees not having the skills.

 

I doubt they were talking about STEM majors, either.

[kitten18]

I doubt they were talking about STEM majors, either.

No, but I don't know why a STEM major would be working the desk at Enterprise.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

From the article:

 

Employers tell me that students who dedicate time and effort to their major or an outside-the-classroom activity, secure multiple internships during their four years, and take on leadership roles are more likely to possess the skills needed for the workforce than students who drift through college. The best skill that students can learn in college is actually the ability to learn.

 

Um...hasn't this always been the case? Even when I was in college, I didn't learn any of my job skills there. I worked p/t from age 13 on, and in college I worked two jobs for a little while, plus I did an internship (what a nightmare). Maybe the problem is that kids either can't (because of school/extracurricular demands) or don't have to (because their parents provide everything they need) work in HS or college anymore, so they're not doing anything that would help them develop these skills? Even in college, I didn't know anyone who didn't also have a job, either p/t during the school year or almost full-time during the summer.

[MBM]

According to the following article, Enterprise hires athletes to have them play in rec leagues around the US. The first two paragraphs from the article:

  

 

Recreation league officials across the United States are conducting investigations into alleged cheating by basketball, softball, soccer, and flag-football teams sponsored by Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

 

The allegations leveled against the automobile rental company, which has more than 6,000 locations throughout the United States, claim Enterprise is purposely hiring formerNCAA athletes and then funneling them onto sponsored teams with the intention to dominate recreation and church leagues.

 

Another paragraph from the same article:

 

"I think it's less a car rental company and more a rec sports factory that uses a car rental company as cover," said Al Hankson, whose 30-and-over men's basketball rec league team lost 117-22 on Tuesday night to an Enterprise team featuring Trajan Langdon and Marcus Fizer.

 

http://www.sportspickle.com/2013/04/enterprise-rent-a-car-accused-of-hiring-former-ncaa-athletes-solely-to-help-company-softball-team

[Hikin' Mama]

Thanks for your input! Even though I do quite a bit of work in our business, I haven't been in the "work force" for a long, long time. We have employees, but none of them have gone to college, and they all do a great job. Their work is mostly physical, but sometimes there is problem solving to be done. (BTW, in light of all the threads on income, let it be known that we pay WAY more than minimum wage plus benefits and some of our employees have been working for my husband longer than we've been married, which is nearly 22 years. I just don't want to be classified as one of those evil, greedy people when I mentioned that we have employees.)

 

Therefore, I was interested in what other people thought about this article. I just love coming here and seeing others' perspectives. Thanks again!

[Lanny]

I really wish there were more opportunities to learn on the job, for internships and for apprenticeships.

 

<snip>

 

 

This does exist in the USA now!  When the viewers in the USA are shown commercials, the viewers overseas see "Extras". There is one I have seen, several times. There is at least one and probably more, organizations or companies involved in helping employers and applicants match up. There is one young woman in that "Extra" who was in college, but she decided that getting the on the job training/experience would propel her Software career faster and that she would not be rejected for future employment opportunities, because she lacked a degree, because she had great skills she learned on the job, actually producing something for her employer.

 

I cannot recall the organization(s) involved as I write this post.

 

Years ago, I helped the son of a next door neighbor, a number of times, with assignments for his C.S. major.  Having worked as a Software Engineering Consultant, I was, frankly, bewildered, by why they would study things that are only of interest to those in an Ivory Tower. People in industry would not waste their time and energy on such things.

 

Using Engineering as an example, because I worked in that field, the universities that prepare successful graduates have Professors in their schools who have actual working experience in their field. People who have never worked in industry have only theoretical knowledge, but no actual experience outside the Ivory Tower. Their theories may or may not work...

[Jenny in Florida]

I can tell you a couple of things I see. I work tutoring and teaching reading and study skills for two different companies. One is online, and I work with students for just 20-30 minutes at a time on specific assignments. I rarely work with the same student more than once, and in the year and a half I've been doing that job, I've encountered a LOT of students. The other is in person, and I often work with one student two to four hours a week for weeks or months in a row. 

 

The biggest issues I see with students in both venues are lack of initiative, lack of critical thinking skills and ignorance of vocabulary/language.

 

Not all, of course, but the majority of kids I work with don't want to take any action without being told exactly what to do. If they encounter a problem, they can't move forward without outside help. If we put them on a straight path from here to there, most are good about chugging along to the end of the line. If they encounter a bump, though, they more often than not just wait and kill time until someone comes along to help them.

 

The majority also just don't seem to be able to follow an idea beyond what is explicitly stated on the page or explained to them. Many have a simply terrible time making inferences or deductions from text, figuring out the author's point of view, etc. There are entire curricula designed specifically to walk students through this process, and many --  even at the high school level -- find it a struggle.

 

But the one that upsets and frustrates me the most is the ignorance of language and vocabulary. I'm dumbstruck over and over again not only by the words these kids don't know but by the fact that they seem to have no clue how to attack an unfamiliar word. All of the books that are used in prepping for the SAT/ACT have lists of the most commonly tested words in the last five years. The number of words and which words varies a bit from book to book, but it's usually somewhere between 50 and 100 words that the books suggest students study. Just for fun, we pulled up a few of those lists online one night while all four of us were home and tested ourselves. Each of us knew the overwhelming majority of those words off the tops of our respective heads. Meanwhile, I have students who might kind of know 10 of them. And these are not dumb kids. These are, for the most part, middle and upper-middle class kids attending private or very good public schools and who have parents who value education enough to seek out (and can afford to foot the bills for) private tutoring. They are getting good grades, joining honor societies, planning to apply to selective colleges . . . but they don't know any words and have no clue how to use context to decode them.

 

Here's an example list, by the way: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/eduadv/kaplan/kart_ug_sat100.html

 

What gets me about the vocab thing is that most research shows kids learn language mostly by being talked to when they are young and then by reading. So, what on earth are these kids doing with their lives that leaves them with such limited vocabularies? I know most of them aren't reading, but is no one talking to them? Honestly, I would think even watching most decent children's TV programming would introduce more challenging vocabulary than these kids seem to know. 

 

I will try to stop ranting now, but I'm honestly flabbergasted by how often I see these issues.

[EKS]

A lot of the soft skills mentioned in the article are, frankly, just common sense.  In my experience, either you have that or you don't.  It's certainly not something to be taught in college.

[In The Great White North]

A "rec sports factory" ?  What's in it for Enterprise?  

[MBM]

A "rec sports factory" ?  What's in it for Enterprise?  

 

I have no idea. Maybe the CEO is just a huge sports fan.

[Hikin' Mama]

This does exist in the USA now! When the viewers in the USA are shown commercials, the viewers overseas see "Extras". There is one I have seen, several times. There is at least one and probably more, organizations or companies involved in helping employers and applicants match up. There is one young woman in that "Extra" who was in college, but she decided that getting the on the job training/experience would propel her Software career faster and that she would not be rejected for future employment opportunities, because she lacked a degree, because she had great skills she learned on the job, actually producing something for her employer.

 

I cannot recall the organization(s) involved as I write this post.

 

Years ago, I helped the son of a next door neighbor, a number of times, with assignments for his C.S. major. Having worked as a Software Engineering Consultant, I was, frankly, bewildered, by why they would study things that are only of interest to those in an Ivory Tower. People in industry would not waste their time and energy on such things.

 

Using Engineering as an example, because I worked in that field, the universities that prepare successful graduates have Professors in their schools who have actual working experience in their field. People who have never worked in industry have only theoretical knowledge, but no actual experience outside the Ivory Tower. Their theories may or may not work...

This is interesting, Lanny. One of my sons is a mechanical engineering major. The past two summers, he has been paid to help build a mountain cabin, just he and his employer. He said that he feels that a lot of what he learns in college is more theoretical, while things he had to do during the cabin building were obviously more practical. They couldn't drive directly to the cabin, so he had to create a gravity flow water system to get water to mix with the 8000 lbs. (yes, you read that right) of concrete he carried to the cabin site. They had to get big beams up in the air for the roof and I can't remember how he said they did that. He has already been accepted into an excellent internship program in which he will work for 6 months at each of two different engineering firms (there are many firms that participate, but the students only work for two of them). I am very thankful that he has that opportunity!

[HSmomof2]

Maybe the *talent acquisition* people at Enterprise should start hiring STEM grads instead of athletes. My bet is STEM grads choose to work elsewhere. From the article:

Maybe we should get rid of the 'talent acquisition' people (aka HR) altogether, and let the people actually doing/supervising the job be responsible for hiring and training people. I've worked with a lot of people over the years, and I don't think you can generalize who will be a hard worker based on college major. There will be good, enthusiastic workers, as well as duds from all majors.

[hornblower]

I think there are several interesting things going on.

I agree that companies are extremely reluctant to train anyone now. They expect fully trained units that they can just plug into their system without investing any effort in getting them ready for the job.  In areas and times when unemployment rates are high, companies can continue to do this & just be ultra picky.

When unemployment rates fall & employers are more desperate, they put in more effort to train. 

 

They also complain about this to everyone who will listen because of course it cuts into their bottom line. Sure they want perfect staff that they don't have to train. I don't blame them for wanting it but I take their complaints with a grain of salt...

I also think companies need to spend more effort on employee retention. Having got an employee trained & working, spend more effort on actually keeping them. Staff turnover is a huge drain & is not getting enough attention - & again, when unemployment is high, there's little incentive for companies to focus on this but it's a mistake, IMO.

For the team work & communication stuff - I would actually dearly love to see all colleges & all faculties make it mandatory to do a workplace communication, conflict resolution & teamwork workshop before graduating. I hate the group project part of classes & I would not make it part of any other class. I do think it is something valuable however; so valuable, that it should be taught separately.  Something that's a mix of Dale Carnegie, NVC & maybe some productivity stuff like GTD.  Students are stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure this stuff out .. we should give them the tools explicitly rather than trying to fold it into other courses.

 

[kitten18]

Maybe we should get rid of the 'talent acquisition' people (aka HR) altogether, and let the people actually doing/supervising the job be responsible for hiring and training people. I've worked with a lot of people over the years, and I don't think you can generalize who will be a hard worker based on college major. There will be good, enthusiastic workers, as well as duds from all majors.

My DH used to work for a huge company and they let him hire his own people. Sometimes the national HR department would find applicants and pass along suggestions but the hiring was done locally. They also made sure to get applicants into the field and meet as many employees as possible and they didn't hire anyone unless all the division V.P.s liked the applicant/thought they fit in well. It worked great.

Well, I'm only one data point but my personal experience was different. I graduated with a 4.0 in undergrad and 4.0 in masters from a good state university with a good track record. I passed the CPA exam on the first try. I like to think of myself as intelligent, but the lack of experience left me seriously hamstrung when entering the public accounting world. 

 

I'm curious, specifically, what sort of experience you were lacking?  Was it skills specific to being a CPA?  General office stuff?  I really dislike the idea that University is the place for this -- especially as we hear now that kids graduating today may have four or five completely different careers in their adult lives.  Are they supposed to go back to a four year university for each career change?

[Susan in TN]

"My thought is that college is not designed to teach job skills. It's simply not the point of college. Employers have used a college degree as a proxy for intelligence for years, and it works fairly well that way. But this idea that college is supposed to prepare kids for employment specifically, the way a vocational school would, is a fairly recent one." -EKS

 

I couldn't agree more.

Though probably not what the article was going for, this is not necessarily true in the Arts. Music, theater, art, and recording engineering related majors are taught necessary skills up the wazoo. Let the scoffing commence!

[Jenny in Florida]

Though probably not what the article was going for, this is not necessarily true in the Arts. Music, theater, art, and recording engineering related majors are taught necessary skills up the wazoo. Let the scoffing commense!

 

I was thinking about that, too.

 

My son is in his freshman year as a musical theatre/dance major. The majority of his classes are skill based. This semester, he has classes in dance, movement for actors, music theory and musicianship, and opera as well as private voice lessons. 

 

(He is required to do the usual general education stuff, too, and some classes related to the teaching aspect of his dance program. It's just that he completed a good chunk of those dual enrollment before he went to college.)

[SamanthaCarter]

I'm curious, specifically, what sort of experience you were lacking?  Was it skills specific to being a CPA?  General office stuff?  I really dislike the idea that University is the place for this -- especially as we hear now that kids graduating today may have four or five completely different careers in their adult lives.  Are they supposed to go back to a four year university for each career change?

 

Mostly general office stuff, some stuff specific to public accounting. Things like a good working knowledge of Excel and offsite networking. Also how to fax, scan and operate other office equipment (I had almost no experience with this stuff which was mortifying!) Some things specific to auditing like documentation, knowing what we could use from the client that would satisfy our needs, etc. But it wasn't anything that a good office job couldn't have adequately given me, or at least given me some confidence. I couldn't find it. All my job skill pre-college was food service, so those are the jobs I could get. (again this was a rural area, so my experience might not be representative.)

 

My point is, it would be nice if there was some way to gain the skills you're looking for apart from first college, then sink or swim. And I think that there are a lot of industries that could just apprentice people and have them forgo college or send them through the necessary education while working simulatneously. I guess that's a big investment, perhaps too much to ask....

[3in9th]

But the one that upsets and frustrates me the most is the ignorance of language and vocabulary. I'm dumbstruck over and over again not only by the words these kids don't know but by the fact that they seem to have no clue how to attack an unfamiliar word. All of the books that are used in prepping for the SAT/ACT have lists of the most commonly tested words in the last five years. The number of words and which words varies a bit from book to book, but it's usually somewhere between 50 and 100 words that the books suggest students study. Just for fun, we pulled up a few of those lists online one night while all four of us were home and tested ourselves. Each of us knew the overwhelming majority of those words off the tops of our respective heads. Meanwhile, I have students who might kind of know 10 of them. And these are not dumb kids. These are, for the most part, middle and upper-middle class kids attending private or very good public schools and who have parents who value education enough to seek out (and can afford to foot the bills for) private tutoring. They are getting good grades, joining honor societies, planning to apply to selective colleges . . . but they don't know any words and have no clue how to use context to decode them.

 

 

Here's an example list, by the way: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/eduadv/kaplan/kart_ug_sat100.html

 

What gets me about the vocab thing is that most research shows kids learn language mostly by being talked to when they are young and then by reading. So, what on earth are these kids doing with their lives that leave them with such limited vocabularies? I know most of them aren't reading, but is no one talking to them? Honestly, I would think even watching most decent children's TV programming would introduce more challenging vocabulary than these kids seem to know. 

 

I will try to stop ranting now, but I'm honestly flabbergasted by how often I see these issues.

 

Yeah, they don't read. One of my dh's students was complaining about her grade to another. The good student says to the failing student, "You HAVE to read the book." The failing student replies, "Well, I'm not gonna do that..."

 

Maybe one of the other things is that they kids aren't talked to once they get to school age. How many kids just seem over committed to afterschool activities. How many parents are driving them around in SUVs with screens on the back of the head rests? How many kids have devices in their hands while waiting for sissy's dance class to end instead of talking with their parent or playing with other kids?

[Laurel-in-CA]

From the article:

 

 

Um...hasn't this always been the case? Even when I was in college, I didn't learn any of my job skills there. I worked p/t from age 13 on, and in college I worked two jobs for a little while, plus I did an internship (what a nightmare). Maybe the problem is that kids either can't (because of school/extracurricular demands) or don't have to (because their parents provide everything they need) work in HS or college anymore, so they're not doing anything that would help them develop these skills? Even in college, I didn't know anyone who didn't also have a job, either p/t during the school year or almost full-time during the summer.

 

Yes, I wish they had compared how students with p/t employment OFF campus did compared to those who had p/t on-campus employment vs. those who had no employment.

 

Frankly, my kids have learned a lot of this in places like 4-H, Chinese Assn., various scouting programs. I am so thankful that my college students have been able to work. They may have missed out on extra-curriculars, but they've learned to talk to people of all ages from all over the world and work as part of a team w/o whining, show up on time, etc.

[Hikin' Mama]

My professor prepared us ( creative writing undergraduates ) for the job market on the first day. He gathered us in his office, looked us in the eye and said 'You will never make money from this.' I found that adequate preparation :)

Love it!

[MBM]

Maybe we should get rid of the 'talent acquisition' people (aka HR) altogether, and let the people actually doing/supervising the job be responsible for hiring and training people. I've worked with a lot of people over the years, and I don't think you can generalize who will be a hard worker based on college major. There will be good, enthusiastic workers, as well as duds from all majors.

 

Sure. I agree with you that it's possible to find duds from all majors but the article mentioned that STEM students fared the best.

[Lanny]

I really wish there were more opportunities to learn on the job, for internships and for apprenticeships     <snip>

 

 

I saw the "Extra" again tonight when I was watching the news. Here's the URL:

http://www.enstitute.org/

[bettyandbob]

I think there are quite a few people graduating from college without basic "how to behave on the job skills" . I think there is a percentage of undergrads who have not worked part time entry level jobs prior to college and while in college. I think there are a number of internships that students might get that don't require these skills and treat interns as fluff, so it's not a good example of a work experience. I think some people who had jobs through high school depended upon parents a lot for things like filling out the application and figuring out how to talk to supervisors about anything.

 

Some basic skills I'm talking about are

Show up to work on time, this includes paying attention to weather issues do you can plan around weather and get to work

Do work while at work--don't solely socialize, don't try to push off undesirable stuff on a coworker

Don't whine

Don't call in sick for the slightest thing (or lie because you don't feel like working)

 

Really just having the mindset that in any job you do your best, until you find a better job and give reasonable notice to the job you leave. A lot of young people do not have this mindset. When I was first working (early 80s) all of my friends found jobs without parental input and we did our best until we found better. Today, I teach students an alternative high school and that segment does not seem to have a work ethic. I have a second job teaching swimming. Many of my young coworkers both lifeguards and swim instructors are lacking in these skills. Yesterday, the facilities manager told another staff member to call a lifeguard at home to remind her to get to work on time-- she wasn't late yet, but he was expecting it. He has fired kids for chronic lateness and this young woman has become notorious, but he didn't want to get to the point of firing her, so now it seems he's acting as her reminder alarm for leaving home to get to work.

 

My 2E ds is having trouble with these basic skills and I expected that. However, I don't think the vast majority of teens and young adults have the same issues. And 2 E ds realizes he's "behind" . I find some of my coworkers don't really understand that they have a problem at all.

 

My typically developing dd is picking up of these skills just fine. She's been working. She did not skip out on work to go to an anime convention. She has only ever asked off for the SAT and ACT testing. She did that by informing boss of dates months in advance. She knows being dependable at work is important. She also gets along with coworkers. She doesn't whine on the job.

 

College shouldn't be expected to teach these skills. These are things learned in low skill jobs before you get into that post college in field job.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I don't know.  Makes no sense to me.  Everything and everyone is going to hell in a hand bag.  Nobody can read.  Kids can't do math.  Schools suck.  People graduate and have no skills.  Come on.  I'm not buying that it's that bad.  How can they say that balancing school, jobs, etc. etc. doesn't require any time management or organization skills?  I had to get pretty creative with my organization!

 

[TammyS]

 Come to work. It snowed. Not shutting down.

 

Well, gotta say, I mostly agreed with everything else you wrote, but we don't go to work until the roads are clear and safe.  Not risking my car, much less my neck, for a boss.  Uh-huh, no.

[TammyS]

No, but I don't know why a STEM major would be working the desk at Enterprise.

 

Honestly, I don't know why any college graduate would be working the desk at Enterprise.  Maybe there's something I don't know, but it doesn't strike me as all that tough a job.  I was the night manager of a hotel when I was in high school.  Not the same thing, exactly (renting cars vs renting rooms), but it gives me some idea of the sort of job it is.  I didn't special skills for that job (literacy, numeracy, and the ability to deal with jerks).

[Joker]

Maybe we should get rid of the 'talent acquisition' people (aka HR) altogether, and let the people actually doing/supervising the job be responsible for hiring and training people. I've worked with a lot of people over the years, and I don't think you can generalize who will be a hard worker based on college major. There will be good, enthusiastic workers, as well as duds from all majors.

 

My dh doesn't have time for this. There are too many resumes submitted for his open positions for him to find time to actually view them all. He relies heavily on HR to weed them down to a manageable size. After the initial weeding, he is given a stack of resumes. He tells HR who he would like to interview and they schedule those (he doesn't have time for that either) and then he tells them who to hire based on those interview.

 

 

ETA: Dh says one of his biggest problems with new college grads is a seeming lack of common sense. They take no initiative. They wait to be told how to do every little thing. He tries to guide them and point out times they could take some initiative to help out the team but he has to point it out often and for a long while before it seems to sink in (and sometimes it just doesn't).

 

He has also had to have way too many conversations on what should be basic office behavior. He's had to continually point out that email is monitored and some need to quit using their work email to send inappropriate things to friends, that they are in cubicles and calls can be overheard, and that they should use proper English when using written communication with anyone in the company.

 

These are all graduates of some sort of mathematics field as dh is an actuary with a large health insurance company and most have beyond a B.A., yet they don't seem to know these things. 

Mostly general office stuff, some stuff specific to public accounting. Things like a good working knowledge of Excel and offsite networking. Also how to fax, scan and operate other office equipment (I had almost no experience with this stuff which was mortifying!) Some things specific to auditing like documentation, knowing what we could use from the client that would satisfy our needs, etc. But it wasn't anything that a good office job couldn't have adequately given me, or at least given me some confidence. I couldn't find it. All my job skill pre-college was food service, so those are the jobs I could get. (again this was a rural area, so my experience might not be representative.)

 

 

I can't speak to the CPA stuff, but none of these activities sound super difficult to learn.  If taught in college (which I'm not recommending!), this wouldn't even be enough to fill a one semester class.  It sounds to me like the only thing you were really lacking was confidence to learn new things, and maybe the gumption to ask existing employees for help working the copier and whatnot.  Do we really need internship programs or classes to teach this kind of stuff?

[HSmomof2]

I think there are quite a few people graduating from college without basic "how to behave on the job skills" . I think there is a percentage of undergrads who have not worked part time entry level jobs prior to college and while in college. I think there are a number of internships that students might get that don't require these skills and treat interns as fluff, so it's not a good example of a work experience. I think some people who had jobs through high school depended upon parents a lot for things like filling out the application and figuring out how to talk to supervisors about anything.

 

Some basic skills I'm talking about are

Show up to work on time, this includes paying attention to weather issues do you can plan around weather and get to work

Do work while at work--don't solely socialize, don't try to push off undesirable stuff on a coworker

Don't whine

Don't call in sick for the slightest thing (or lie because you don't feel like working)

 

Really just having the mindset that in any job you do your best, until you find a better job and give reasonable notice to the job you leave. A lot of young people do not have this mindset. When I was first working (early 80s) all of my friends found jobs without parental input and we did our best until we found better. Today, I teach students an alternative high school and that segment does not seem to have a work ethic. I have a second job teaching swimming. Many of my young coworkers both lifeguards and swim instructors are lacking in these skills. Yesterday, the facilities manager told another staff member to call a lifeguard at home to remind her to get to work on time-- she wasn't late yet, but he was expecting it. He has fired kids for chronic lateness and this young woman has become notorious, but he didn't want to get to the point of firing her, so now it seems he's acting as her reminder alarm for leaving home to get to work.

 

My 2E ds is having trouble with these basic skills and I expected that. However, I don't think the vast majority of teens and young adults have the same issues. And 2 E ds realizes he's "behind" . I find some of my coworkers don't really understand that they have a problem at all.

 

My typically developing dd is picking up of these skills just fine. She's been working. She did not skip out on work to go to an anime convention. She has only ever asked off for the SAT and ACT testing. She did that by informing boss of dates months in advance. She knows being dependable at work is important. She also gets along with coworkers. She doesn't whine on the job.

 

College shouldn't be expected to teach these skills. These are things learned in low skill jobs before you get into that post college in field job.

ITA^^^

[Laura Corin]

I can't speak to the CPA stuff, but none of these activities sound super difficult to learn.  If taught in college (which I'm not recommending!), this wouldn't even be enough to fill a one semester class.  It sounds to me like the only thing you were really lacking was confidence to learn new things, and maybe the gumption to ask existing employees for help working the copier and whatnot.  Do we really need internship programs or classes to teach this kind of stuff?

 

I agree.  I went back to work a few years ago and had never franked a letter or dealt with a large photocopier with many functions.  There were lots of other bits and bobs of office protocol that I wasn't familiar with.  None of it was hard.

[TechWife]

 

For the team work & communication stuff - I would actually dearly love to see all colleges & all faculties make it mandatory to do a workplace communication, conflict resolution & teamwork workshop before graduating. I hate the group project part of classes & I would not make it part of any other class. I do think it is something valuable however; so valuable, that it should be taught separately.  Something that's a mix of Dale Carnegie, NVC & maybe some productivity stuff like GTD.  Students are stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure this stuff out .. we should give them the tools explicitly rather than trying to fold it into other courses.

 

 

 

 

As a marketing major, I had to take two speech classes. One was Public Speaking, which was where I had to research, plan and execute various types of speeches. The second one was Interpersonal Communications, where we covered the skills you are mentioning here. It was one of the most helpful classes I took in college. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well, gotta say, I mostly agreed with everything else you wrote, but we don't go to work until the roads are clear and safe.  Not risking my car, much less my neck, for a boss.  Uh-huh, no.

 

Yup.  So glad DH has the luxury of working from home if he wants to or needs to.  Most products and services businesses provide aren't the sort of thing that is so critical that a day not there due to severe weather conditions is such a huge problem.  As it is I think many employers ask too damn much.

[Lolly]

Well, gotta say, I mostly agreed with everything else you wrote, but we don't go to work until the roads are clear and safe.  Not risking my car, much less my neck, for a boss.  Uh-huh, no.

 

:lol: :lol: Clarification...We live where the schools shut down because snow is predicted. Snow prediction is not a good reason to not come to work. While some may think that a light flurry where there is a sprinkling of snow on the grass might be a good reason to not drive, it isn't. If you live on a main road that is plowed and salted early during average snowfall, it isn't. (Buy a danged snow shovel and get up earlier to shovel like we had to the last couple of weeks.) I am not talking about dangerous road conditions. He isn't asking them to do that. Real point is that just because the school system decides not to have school doesn't mean work should be closed too.

[regentrude]

Well, gotta say, I mostly agreed with everything else you wrote, but we don't go to work until the roads are clear and safe.  Not risking my car, much less my neck, for a boss.  Uh-huh, no.

 

I am sure an employer understands that an employee really can not make it if he has a long commute and the roads are really bad.

However, there are plenty of people who take the snow as an excuse even if the could got to work - by walking.

 

I see that with my students. I understand that the guy who lives 10 miles out of town can't be there if we get snow- but most of them live less than 1.5 miles from campus. There is no reason they can't get up earlier and walk on their able feet. Heck, if I middle aged woman can walk 2.5 miles in the snow to be on time for my 8am class, so can they.

It's an attitude issue.

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

:lol: :lol: Clarification...We live where the schools shut down because snow is predicted. Snow prediction is not a good reason to not come to work. While some may think that a light flurry where there is a sprinkling of snow on the grass might be a good reason to not drive, it isn't. If you live on a main road that is plowed and salted early during average snowfall, it isn't. (Buy a danged snow shovel and get up earlier to shovel like we had to the last couple of weeks.) I am not talking about dangerous road conditions. He isn't asking them to do that. Real point is that just because the school system decides not to have school doesn't mean work should be closed too.

 

They don't cancel easily here.  I can see what you are saying.

[FaithManor]

I don't think we an blame colleges for not being able to remediate interpersonal skills and learned helplessness and laziness in four years when those are things that should have been taken care of in the 18 years prior to college writing class!

 

The fault is not with the college or the trade school. It lies with parents and schools. Frankly, my local high school is completely infantilizing high schoolers removing all choices, allowing them no opportunity to mature, and holding their hands through everything. Not the college's fault.

 

The parents who don't do anything to counteract this message by finding ways for their children to learn responsibility and interpersonal skills have contributed greatly to the problem.

 

It is just simply not the college's job to teach "common sense", personal responsibility, and playing nicely with others.