Make a New College Grad Employable

Great article in the NYTimes on Saturday: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/your-money/a-quest-to-make-college-graduates-employable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

Colleges haven’t changed that much in the past 40 years: they never prepared students for the skills discussed in this article: collaboration, interpersonal relations, dealing with ambiguity, flexibility and professionalism. They were also never very good on the job hunt front: how to search for a job, how to present yourself in interviews or how to write a powerful resume that gets noticed (and very important now, how to navigate the world of internet and social media in the job search process).

Let’s assume the job of a college is to educate, not help with the “soft” skills mentioned. One would then ask where this development of really important social and personal skills should develop. (and I’m not saying that I believe colleges shouldn’t do a better job in this area….)

I’m a firm believer that people grow these skills over time—mostly starting in high school, after puberty when some rational thought about what the future holds can develop. Some kids know innately what to do; others not so much or not at all.  Parents can help by getting kids involved in long-term volunteer internships as soon as possible. Working on an election is a great idea. Colleges and universities also need to look again at work experience for credit, and how to get students involved in meaningful long term projects. 

There are many success stories of adaptation by colleges. For example: the Charlotte N.C. area is a hot bed of Insurance companies—many of whom recruit local students because of the wealth of young people going to college in the area. UNC Charlotte adapted by offering specific coursework in different types of insurance. What if Microsoft and IBM (who also maintain huge operations in that area) got together with the local Universities and said we need students who can graduate knowing drupal, unica, HTML or be able to navigate from a creative and strategic perspective the new landscape of social media? And then provide them with internships during the school year or summer doing that work? Or direct the University in types of in-depth skill building projects that can be developed.

The NY Times article is well written and thought out, a good job Alina Tugend who wrote it. I’d like to see more like this with information from colleges/universities and corporations in need of talent.