BostInno
What Employers Expect From College Grads -- And it's Not Tech Skills
By: Olivia Vanni
What employers want and what job candidates think that they want are two distinctly different things. And, according to salary information company PayScale, these parties aren’t on the same page in terms of neither job preparedness, nor critical work skills.
PayScale’s report found that 87 percent of surveyed workers feel well prepared for their job either immediately or within 3 months following college graduation. At the same time, 50 percent of hiring managers feel that recent college graduates are well prepared for the workforce. From this data, it’s not hard to see there’s a disconnect between their expectations.
“We hear all the time about the ‘skills gap,’ the gap between the skills needed to succeed in the professional world and the skills with which young professionals leave college,” Katie Bardaro, VP of data analytics at PayScale, said in a statement. “The data we’ve collected show that even though their education may make recent college graduates feel prepared to enter the workforce, only half of hiring managers agree with them; managers feel crucial skills in recent graduates are frequently lacking or absent.”
So how aren’t recent graduates measuring up in hiring managers’ eyes? The report’s findings are surprising. For one thing, 44 percent of managers feel young employees’ most lacking hard skill, instead of some highly technical skill, is writing proficiency, followed by public speaker with 39 percent. With regards to soft skills, 60 percent of managers feel critical thinking and problem solving is in the most shortage across recent graduates.
“Graduates need strong communication and problem-solving skills if they want to interview well and succeed in the workplace, because effective writing, speaking and critical thinking enables you to accomplish business goals and get ahead,” Dan Schawbel, research director at Future Workplace, commented in the release. “No working day will be complete without writing an email or tackling a new challenge, so the sooner you develop these skills, the more employable you will become.”
