It doesn’t seem to make sense: Employers complain of a lack of suitable applicants despite being inundated with a glut of highly educated jobseekers. Applicants are confused, too. A recent study from McKinsey & Company’s Center for Government found that 44 percent of young U.S. jobseekers included in a survey weren’t sure that their postsecondary education improved their chances of finding a job, and 45 percent of U.S. employers said a lack of skills is the main reason they’re not able to fill entry-level jobs.
In another study, this one by The Chronicle of Higher Education and American Public Media, researchers found that almost a third of employers surveyed said colleges are doing only a fair or even a poor job of producing good employees. Employer complaints focused on graduates who lacked basics such as adaptability, communications skills, and the ability to solve complex problems.
Despite noting shortcomings on the part of colleges and universities, more employers than ever are insisting that their employees have college degrees. The Chronicle of Higher Education study says two-thirds of employers almost never waive degree requirements when hiring. Also, the kinds of jobs that once didn’t require a degree now often do.
Certainly technological advances have made higher education more necessary than it once was in some segments of the economy. Manufacturing is on example. Factory work that once required little education beyond on-the-job training is often more complicated now and may require high-level math and computer skills. But since the recession, other jobs that might not require a degree are now often filled by people who have graduated from four-year institutions.
The Chronicle study asked employers how they value a bachelor’s degree today versus five years ago. Thirty-nine percent said about the same, 26 percent said less, 25 percent said more, eight percent said a lot more, and just two percent said a lot less. By industry, manufacturing employers were the ones most likely to value a bachelor’s degree more now than five years ago, followed by service/retail employers.
The McKinsey study, which was conducted in the United States and eight other countries, found that employers, education providers, and young job seekers “have fundamentally different understandings of the same situation,” according to the study’s executive summary. “Fewer than half of youth and employers, for example, believe that new graduates are adequately prepared for entry-level positions. Education providers, however are much more optimistic: 72 percent of them believe new graduates are ready to work,” the report says.
The study concludes that when jobseekers, employers, and educators aren’t on the same page it’s because they aren’t engaging with one another. “One-third of employers say they never communicate with education providers; of those that do, fewer than half say it proved effective,” the study summary says.
But getting employers, jobseekers, and educators on the same page may be the answer, according to the study. “Two features stand out among all the successful programs we reviewed,” the summary says. “First, education providers and employers actively step into one another’s worlds. Employers might help to design curricula and offer their employees as faculty, for example, while education providers may have students spend half their time on a job site and secure them hiring guarantees.”
The second feature of successful interaction between educators and employers relates to how they form relationships with students early on. “Instead of three distinct intersections occurring in a linear sequence (enrollment leads to skills, which lead to a job), the education-to-employment journey is treated as a continuum in which employers commit to hire youth before they are enrolled in a program to build their skills,” the study summary says. “The problem, then, is not that success is impossible or unknowable – It is that it is scattered and small scale compared with the need.”
There are a glut of “college grads” looking for employment that have attained a degree from the “strictly for profit” or online colleges. These students truly think they have a college education – very few do and if they attended a traditional program, would not be able to handle the curriculum. Attending a traditional educational institution oftentimes is where students learn those communication skills, adaptability, etc. That day-to-day interaction with instructors and other students is not something you can bottle and sell through an online only program or a program where you get “work credits”. For example, we have a young lady who attained both a BA and MA through mostly an online program. She is working as an administrative secretary and there is no way in the world I would hire her for a professional position – she lacks those adaptability skills, dresses unprofessionally and does not “play well” with others – constantly complaining about every little thing/tattling/late for work. Her work product is just average – but she truly thinks she is “above average” and is talking about getting a Ph.D. She has $153,000 in education debt that she has no intentions of paying back because these schools are incredibly expensive. They simply have no clue and it is obvious within a couple minutes of conversation with them.
In my experience w/ college graduates, they expect way to much and offer little. We are seeing newly graduated individuals expecting to make 80K a year w/ no experience in the job they are applying for. Not for sure if colleges are giving them false hope or if this is what the younger generation really believes they deserve. Experience and skills will when out over a degree and no experience any day.
I totally agree with Beth – many want everything right now – there is a certain amount of entitlement mentality with this last generation. Some of it comes from the educational institutions but most of it is how they were raised.
I work in higher education, straddling the line between occupational attainment and academic training. In theory having employers “design curricula” and teach sounds logical, but when you factor in academic accreditation issues, timing, untested professionals as teachers (teaching is a skill too), and understanding the student learning process, you have a recipe for mediocrity at best. As much as we all ought to work together, there are distinct differences in the roles education and employment require and offer people. They need to be recognized as well as respected.
I would agree and also add that much of the principles discussed also apply to high school graduates. A degree is typically not required in the call center environment; however, as an employer, I would appreciate potential employees out of high school to be more prepared by being well-rounded in their educational experience–communication, team work, creativity, problem solving, etc.
What about those employees that have been in the workplace for a number of years and have excellent experience but may not have the education required now? It seems like we have somewhat of a double standard here. What it means is that employers will not even give those older employees a chance for an interview without the required education! Tough job market!
The reason most college graduates are not ready for the workplace is because school is for “learning” only; it does not give a student any skills. Work skills are only achieved by doing the actual task in a workplace environment. I agree with what Jeff says, employers should not be taking the place of a teacher in the classroom. Instead, more employers should be offering Internships at their place of business. A teacher can give the student knowledge while an employer can give the student work skills. With this combination, a college graduate would then be ready for the workplace upon graduation.