The world’s top employers are pickier than ever. And they want to see more than high marks and the right degree.
They want graduates with so-called soft skills — those who can work well in teams, write and speak with clarity, adapt quickly to changes in technology and business conditions and interact with colleagues from different countries and cultures.
“Soft skills tend to differentiate good college graduates from exceptional college graduates,” says Joseph Krok, university research liaison at Britain’s Rolls-Royce.
“What the employers want is a well-rounded student,” says Jean Manning-Clark, director of the Colorado School of Mines’ career center. “The ones that get 10 to 12 job offers are the ones who have strong soft skills.”
And companies are going to ever-greater lengths to identify the students who have the right mix of skills by observing them in role-playing exercises to see how they handle pressure and get along with others, relying more on applicants who have already proved themselves in internships and co-op jobs in which students work while attending school, and organizing contests that reveal how students solve problems and handle deadline pressure.
“It used to be that the interview itself was where you made or broke your chances with a company,” says Dan Black, head of campus recruiting in the Americas for the accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young. “Now the assessment is a much longer and broader process.”
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via New jobs, new skills – Times Union.
Related Posts
US / The New College Grads Job Market In 3 Graphs
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, bachelor’s degree holders between the ages of 20 and 24 saw average unemployment more than double from 2007 through 2011. But by 2012, it was falling quickly, back to within about a point of where it was at the turn of the century, when times weren’t exactly … Continue reading »
US / Half of College Grads Are Overqualified For Their Current Job
Then last week Susan Adams received a report from consulting firm McKinsey, done together with student website Chegg, which is making that pit in my stomach deeper. In October and November of last year McKinsey surveyed 4,900 former Chegg customers, a mix of young people who went to private, public, vocational and for-profit institutions. The findings … Continue reading »
US / 41% of college grads overqualified for what they do
College just isn’t worth what it used to be. A survey out Tuesday found that 41% of college graduates from the last two years are stuck in jobs that don’t require a degree. Consulting firm Accenture talked to 1,005 students who graduated from college in 2011 and 2012 and haven’t returned to graduate school. In … Continue reading »
US / Half of College Grads Are Overqualified For Their Current Job
Then last week Susan Adams received a report from consulting firm McKinsey, done together with student website Chegg, which is making that pit in my stomach deeper. In October and November of last year McKinsey surveyed 4,900 former Chegg customers, a mix of young people who went to private, public, vocational and for-profit institutions. The findings … Continue reading »
US / unemployment rate for the 2011 cohort of recent college graduates was 12.6 percent
Every year, thousands of recent graduates of colleges and universities across the United States enter the labor force with newly minted degrees and high hopes about their employment prospects.1 In October 2011, 74.5 percent of the 1.3 million 2011 recent college graduates were employed, according to data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The unemployment …Continue reading »
Reblogged this on sureshreddyinc.
I am regular reader, how are you everybody? This article posted at this website is genuinely pleasant.