<p>“And what skills might those be? The most sought-after are problem-solving (49% ranked it No. 1), collaboration (43%), and critical thinking (36%). Also in demand is the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively in writing (31%).”…
This sounds to me like a strong argument in favor of a liberal arts education.</p>
<p>I already had a lot of work experience when I got my first real job (in the area that I was studying) starting at 11 (no real child labor laws back then). I had no problems hitting the ground running. A kid today with a couple of years working at McDonalds or anywhere else should have many of these non-technical skills already down.</p>
<p>We’ve hired many that haven’t been the best at collaboration and communications. But they can get the job done and others will make up for the communications skills. In some jobs, your talents and skills are more important than those soft issues. In the old days, we had some really oddball people (they’d be labeled today) and we stuck them in offices or cubes where they didn’t interact much with other people. Many of these guys were brilliant but weren’t going to win personality contests. In meetings, they told you what they thought of something - they didn’t hide the truth for office politics.</p>
<p>Agree with posts #9, 10 and 12. When our newly-graduated S switched departments after one year in the company, his boss literally went ballistic when he learned he was losing him. S commented that his boss has very poor work ethic and time management skills, and lacks both the knowledge and ability to do what S did. Who knows how he will train anyone new. This boss barely shows up to the office, and would routinely dump a ton of work on S after 6 PM to be completed by the next morning. But the guy can schmooze the big deals so they keep him around. This complaining stuff can go both ways.</p>
<p>That said, I don’t doubt there are plenty of graduates who are poorly prepared for today’s work environment. I often wonder what happens in the workplace when a company hires the kid who was a “C” student in our rigorous high school, but went off to a really easy college where he got all A’s while partying his head off. Our HYPS college student D is so disgusted to hear about all those lazy kids from her high school who are having the time of their lives in college and have GPA’s higher than hers. Her favorites are the kids who were in “Elements of Algebra” and “Business Math” in high school who are miraculously acing their college calculus exams.</p>
<p>DH is an algorithm engineer and works with interns every year, and after 20 years of this he is convinced that more and more students lack simple basics like manners (saying thank you, not interrupting in meetings, showing up on time, not texting and calling instead of working) and more profound skills like independance (interrupt others’ work to ask what to do next or how to do what they’ve given or can you check this to see if it’s okay) and knowledge (don’t seem to have paid much attention in coding or process classes). They are given very specific duties with very specific task lists but seem offended by the notion of having to work. Last intern was actually fired, which was a first for the department.</p>
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<p>I need school names here. Thinking about going back to school at 46 yo. I am not very good at math! ;)</p>
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<p>Actually, not all C students are created equal…especially if a given high school is highly rigorous. Some of the former C/D students at my high school ended up graduating from some highly impressive schools like Reed, Columbia, CMU, etc as STEM majors with 3.5+ cumulative GPAs after spending their first year or two at a local CUNY/SUNY. They are now successful engineers, medical doctors, computer software engineers, elite/Ivy university grad students, and bankers at some well-known investment banks. Many more who remained at their initial public/private schools also tended to do respectably/well for themselves. </p>
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<p>That sounds similar to a few HYPSM grads at one high school reunion who were so irate at how “lesser students” were doing so much better than them careerwise and financially despite having earned stellar high school/college records(3.8-4.0+ college GPA types). </p>
<p>Unfortunately, their attitudes immediately telegraphed to anyone who wasn’t oblivious the reason for their relatively slow career progression…unconcealed snobby attitudes and mediocre-horrid social skills. Most of us “lesser students” felt it just wasn’t worth dealing with their angry bitter attitudes and left.</p>
<p>Lazy won’t get them by in life no matter how high their GPA is-unless they have some connection and have to be tolerated-or can generate business and have other people do the work. </p>
<p>Every applicant is taken to lunch as part of the process. Greenpoint raised something that is very important-manners. Holding the door open, using the “magic words” please and thank you, and generally being able to eat in a nice restaurant and pull it off are important things that do matter.</p>
<p>The brilliant ones that might be less adept socially still are considered-although not if they want to be on the auditing side since those people are out at clients. The tax department may lobby for them-but they better be really a cut above the rest of the applicants with their technical skills.</p>
<p>Of course this is a public accounting firm-other places would be looking for different qualities.</p>
<p>I do think that many college kids today do not have the verbal communication skills that hiring managerrs are used to these days. With all the all the time kids spend texting/FB they do not “talk” over the phone or in preson with ease sometimes.</p>
<p>^I will agree with you rushedmom, especially the phone skills–which I harp on our DS every time he answers his cell phone by saying “what” instead of “hello”. I don’t care if you know it is ME calling or not. I do think that recent grads have more interpersonal skills in group settings than we had back in the dark ages though.</p>
<p>I agree they are better at projects and public speaking and group work. They didn’t teach like that in my day. That’s funny about your son mn. :)</p>
<p>I was pretty horrified the first time we took our son out and he was old enough to order a steak. We brought his friend with us-this must have been 4th or 5th grade-and his friend took his knife and fork and cut the meat properly. My son jabbed at the steak with fork held wrong and proceeded to wield the knife as if he were trying to stab it to death! I hope he never does that on a job interview!</p>
<p>I think if an applicant can write, especially in a more numbers oriented field, that is a big plus. </p>
<p>Haystack I just saw your post-I am going to ask my husband that question.</p>
<p>Pepper–there are days I have to “help” Dh with those eating out niceties. I also would chalk it up to “you can’t remember to teach them everything” :). We moved when our oldest was going into 9th grade and he came home from freshman orientation a little miffed with us because he had to fill out some forms and didn’t know his new address—just kind of forgot to tell the kids, oops.</p>
<p>Do we have the same husband? He always jokes with the kids he has another family in a far off state-perhaps he does?</p>
<p>Yes he thinks that is funny.</p>
<p>I have to agree with some of what greenbutton said. </p>
<p>In my experience, even the brightest young employees are hampered by a constant need for affirmation, the need to text/answer mobile phone calls at work when they are supposed to be doing work exclusively, a reluctance to work their way up (expecting, instead, to instantly get that management job that their management major has so well prepared them for, for example (laughable!), and a failure to understand that sometimes you have to work long hours even when you had dinner plans (cancel them) or want to go away for the weekend (sorry about that). I’ve often heard it discussed that people would simply prefer not to hire recent grads for these reasons.</p>
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<p>Such sentiments seem to be deeply ironic given the Parade of Horribles that senior management has unleashed upon the world in the last few years. How did the senior management of Lehman Brothers do? {Heck, one could throw in the senior management of most of the banking industry in general, which was in technical default and would have been bankrupted and liquidated with extensive job losses for senior bank management if not for historically unprecedented worldwide bailouts that we provided.} How about Eastman Kodak? Or American Airlines? Such performance seems to be likewise ‘unimpressive’ and bereft of ‘problem solving’ and ‘critical thinking’ skills. But they were paid well nonetheless and they’re not giving any of it back. {So perhaps I’m wrong: the ability to drive your firm into the ground while continuing to be paid well anyway demonstrates evidence of impressively cunning problem solving and critical thinking.}</p>
<p>It’s not about a snobby, superior attitude, cobrat, it’s about standards. A college level class should be a college level class. If a student who was in remedial or special education math all through high school can ace college calculus freshman year (barring 24/7 tutoring all summer long), I’d contend it wasn’t truly college calculus, that’s all. Obviously there will be variation of rigor from school to school, however minimum standards need to apply. When our state flagship is telling professors they are failing too many students in core classes and must start passing more of them regardless of demonstrated mastery of the material, then we have a problem. When an employer hires someone with a degree there’s an assumption of college level literacy and knowledge. Unfortunately, there are 4-year colleges whose classes are high school level, or which provide 2 years of glorified high school plus 2 years of college, or where grade inflation means students pass who don’t have mastery of the material. Yet these schools confer the same bachelor’s degree as a “real” college or university. Also, in some but not all cases, community college classes are not even close to the same caliber as classes at the state flagship, yet there are agreements in place which allow kids to transfer to the state flagship for their final 2 years. In theory we all love this idea because of the money-saving, the benefit to non-traditional students and late bloomers, and various egalitarian ideas. But the reality in our area is that many of these kids are arriving on the state univ. campus woefully unprepared for the academic level of the classes.</p>
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<p>They offer remedial/special education math at your D’s “rigorous high school”? Ok, that’s outside my experience as if someone needed remedial courses…especially math…my high school’s entrance exam would have screened them out from the get-go. Got it.</p>
<p>Cobrat–are you implying that only high schools with entrance exams are “rigorous”? That high schools can’t be “rigorous” if they have a range of students, some of whom may need help with math?</p>
<p>Surely not.</p>
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<p>Not always. However, if the presence of remedial students reaches a critical enough mass, that is a valid parental concern about how mainstream K-12 systems tend to emphasize LCD teaching/remedial education and to de-prioritize the needs of above-average/high achieving students. </p>
<p>Several friends who are/were public high school teachers at a variety of mainstream high schools in a variety of areas have confirmed that those parental concerns have some basis in fact…and is one of the reasons why some of them burned out and left the profession in frustration and would never send their own kids to those high schools.</p>
<p>I have hired/mentored young graduate for over 15 years. The skill sets coming in are different and require different coaching- that is all. Students come in (IMO) with better presentation skills, the ability to collaborate, work in groups, research skills. So much stronger than they were in my day. Issues I see are often a result of the overreliance they have on social media/texting. They will often rely on an email, when a phone call would be the better approach. In fact phone skills are one of the things I always address. In generaly they just dont have them. Also, I like to address the constant checking of the phone for messages/texting during work/iphone usage. </p>
<p>They definitely need much more feedback and sometimes don’t get that showing up and participating dont equal outstanding performance. </p>
<p>I am not disapppointed at all by the recent graduates. I still love working with them!</p>
<p>What hasnt changed since I started this? I still have to remind them to carry a notebook and a pen to meetings 
I am sure I got the same talk as a recent grad.</p>
<p>cobrat–Every public high school is going to have some kind of remedial classes. That is just the way it is in the US. Your kids might be attending a “public” high school but once they require an “entrance” exam you can no longer compare them to a regular public high school.</p>
<p>Having said that, we have remedial kids in our high school but that doesn’t bring down the advanced kids as they never have them in class. We still have a 99% graduation rate with about 96% of those kids going on to 4 year colleges. It’s a rigorous school. </p>
<p>Even at inner city school somewhere that only has a 45% graduation rate you will still see some good students taking AP classes and scoring high on ACT/SAT. Same situation, they aren’t IN the classes with the “remedial” students.</p>