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There are jobs to be had, but you keep getting rejected. Are employers
expectations unrealistic or are university grads really ill-equipped for the
real world?
By Ronald Alsop
19 November 2015
For Catherine Nguyen-Cat, the struggle to find a job has been mostly a
confidence issue .
The University of Westminster graduate sent out more than 100 CVs to UK
employers and has been called in for 16 interviews, including three group
presentation exercises. Unfortunately, she said, she often was more reserved
than other applicants and didn't make much of an impression.
For an advertising job recently, she said, the recruiters told me I was a
strong team player during the group assessment, but that I didn t have an
individual moment where I talked a lot and showed I was passionate about the
ideas we were presenting .
Having studied animation in school, the 23-year-old Londoner broadened her
search this year to also include design and illustration work. I know I am a
creative person who can do many of these jobs, but I think employers have these
expectations that an applicant must bring a mid-level professional s work
experience and technical skills even though it s only an entry-level job,
said Nguyen-Cat, who has been working as a sales assistant at Ryman s, a
stationery and office supplies retailer, during her search.
Finally this month, she landed a job with a small luggage and handbag designer.
Her technical knowledge proved to be a good match for the company s needs.
I m excited, but also nervous, she said. They said my web skills secured me
the job, along with my ability to use [the software program] Illustrator. It
turns out they might open a factory in Vietnam, so my ability to speak
Vietnamese fluently was another reason for why I was hired.
Measuring up
Nguyen-Cat s long job quest is far from unique these days. Many employers say
today s university graduates don t quite measure up. In survey after survey,
they rate young applicants as deficient in such key workplace skills as written
and oral communication, critical thinking and analytical reasoning.
As the job market gradually improves, businesses say they aren t finding enough
savvy graduates who can start contributing from day one on the job.
CareerBuilder, the online job search site, surveyed employers in the UK and
India this year and found that they believe recent graduates are most lacking
in problem-solving skills (60% India, 40% UK), creative thinking (56% India,
39% UK), and interpersonal skills (50% India, 49% UK).
Many new graduates have one or more internships on their resumes, which makes
employers think they can start at a higher level, said Rosemary Haefner, chief
human resources officer at CareerBuilder. But do they really have much
tangible experience? The employer needs to tease that out in the interview and
find out how much they worked on projects and how much they were getting coffee
for everyone.
Glass half full or half empty?
Some studies show a big gap between employer and student perceptions. In a
survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, students and
employers clearly didn t see eye to eye on how well prepared the students were
in oral communication (62% of students versus 28% of employers); working with
numbers and statistics (55% versus 28%); teamwork (64% versus 37%); applying
knowledge and skills to the real world (59% versus 23%); and analysing and
solving complex problems (59% versus 24%).
Employers say students don t have the ability to think critically, innovate,
solve complex problems and work well in a team.
Is the problem that employers have unrealistic expectations or that
universities and students are failing to develop critical skills? A little of
both, most workplace experts say.
The Ivory Tower image is real in much of academia, and schools are going to
have to pay more attention to careers and what employers want, said Anthony
Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the
Workforce. Employers say students may have textbook knowledge but don t have
the ability to take that knowledge to think critically, innovate, solve complex
problems and work well in a team. They want students to come to the workplace
with skills that people used to develop on the job.
While universities can certainly focus more on the so-called soft skills
employers seek, he said, the job is still the best teacher for critical
thinking and interpersonal skills .
Redesigning curricula
The AACU is taking the skill gap seriously and working with schools to try to
redesign the curriculum to more effectively develop job-related skills.
The curricula that have evolved over time are very disorganised and leave
students with too much freedom in picking their courses, said Debra Humphreys,
vice president for policy and public engagement. Now, we need to design
curricula that are more aligned with employer expectations and that are more
scaffolded, so that students keep moving up until they get to the highest level
of writing or other skills.
About two-thirds reject candidates because they can t clearly articulate their
abilities.
Some organisations are trying to help young people discern skills they may not
realise they can offer employers. YouthNet, a UK charity, has just launched an
online tool called Define Me that s designed to help young people identify
job-related skills they have acquired in everyday life experiences such as
playing sports, traveling and volunteering, and then find the right words to
describe them to potential employers.
A YouthNet survey of UK employers found that nearly half feel young applicants
don t understand required job skills, and about two-thirds reject candidates
because they can t clearly articulate their abilities.
If young people don t have much practical [internship] experience from working
in an office, they need to realise that they have other talent that is
transferable to jobs, such as writing blogs for social media or learning
time-management skills from working in a bakery or restaurant kitchen, said
Oliver Drackford, head of marketing and communications for YouthNet.
Tools to help
UBS, the global financial-services company, provided funding for Define Me
because it wanted to encourage young people to become more self-aware. When
young people present themselves to employers, so many say, You haven t got
what it takes, , said Richard Hardie, chairman of UBS Ltd. Define Me makes
people think about themselves. It can rescue people with low self-esteem who
haven t been advised on how to promote themselves.
Another tool for unemployed young people is Jobipedia, http://
www.jobipedia.org, a website where they can ask questions about recruiting and
workplace issues and get advice from human resources managers at about 30 major
companies, including AT&T, Merck, American Express and DuPont.
Students have the ear of the people who are reviewing resumes every day and
hiring early career candidates, said Mike McGuiness, executive director of
Jopipedia.org, which was created by the HR Policy Association in Washington DC.
They can learn what employers are looking for that they might need to work on.
Employers want the millennial generation to learn to communicate in a
respectful manner that gets the idea across well.
Of all the complaints he hears from employers, he said, they especially want
the millennial generation born in the 1980s and 1990s to learn to
communicate in a respectful manner that gets the idea across well. General
professionalism and work ethic are other areas where millennials are found
lacking.
Some universities are spurring students to focus very early in their studies on
workplace preparation. At Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts in the
US, freshmen take an introductory career development class and a skills
assessment to get a better sense of their aptitudes, as well as weaknesses.
Employees of such companies as Fidelity and TJ Maxx visit the class and provide
feedback on resumes, elevator pitches and interview skills
Bentley also gets input from businesses about the curriculum. For example, EMC
broached the idea of a professional sales major, Gloria Larson, Bentley s
president, said.
We discussed it with faculty and other companies and now have a sales major,
she said.
Most students major in business at Bentley but also take some liberal arts
classes. I have worked in teams in most of my classes, much more than my
friends at other schools, said Amanda McCormick, a junior at Bentley who hopes
to work in fashion marketing. Teamwork, plus her experience making
presentations in class, proved valuable for an internship this year at fashion
designer Kate Spade.
The most valuable thing was getting to see what a corporate workplace is
really like, she said. It was eye opening.