Business leaders say communication skills, critical thinking more important than major
College students determining how to make the most of their education may benefit from considering the results of a new survey.
The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Robby Soave reports on one organization’s review of the wants and needs of American business leaders.
Nearly 60 percent of surveyed employers said that students’ critical thinking and communication skills were more important than their major, according to a new survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
The survey gauged attitudes from leaders in the business and nonprofit communities. Most said that job applicants with broad-based skill sets were more desirable than those who were defined by their narrow academic focus.
“I think that as companies downsize, and try and consolidate, and try to become as productive as possible, they’re raising the bar for what the employees who they’re keeping on need to know and be able to do,” said Debra Humphreys, vice president of the AACU, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The survey’s findings cut against a current strain of thinking in higher education policy: that students should be encouraged to choose majors that are traditionally more likely to yield employment: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the like. Some state governments, including Florida, have suggested raising tuition for liberal arts majors to divert future students toward STEM fields.
“I don’t think the employers are sort of getting that position at all, I don’t think they would think it’s a smart policy choice,” said Humphreys.
While it’s true that students in certain areas of study are more likely to find jobs, getting a good education is more than picking the right major, she suggested.
“I think we are probably all focused a little too much on what is the undergraduate major and what is the hot major and what is the hot field,” said Humphreys. “So in terms of advice for students, becoming a liberally educated and hardworking professional and getting some experience even if in the end you might end up changing fields is probably the better advice.”
Survey respondents voiced some issues with the current higher education landscape, but three out of four were willing to recommend an American liberal arts education to their own children. Humphreys noted that this endorsement is meaningful when compared with the public’s view on the American K-12 education system.
Comments
I’m guessing that those surveyed were from the human resources departments of employers. I have several observations:
First, it’s probably true that critical thinking and communications skills are quite important. If I were looking for critical thinking skills, or, actually any kind of thinking skills, however, I’d probably head to, say, the physics department before the women’s studies department.
Second, the people in human resources departments, in my experience, rarely have the foggiest idea of what the company does, much less what hiring managers are really looking for.
Third, resumes are, in general, no longer screened by human beings. They are screened by software. This is, of course, facilitated by the fact that the vast majority of resumes are submitted as, for example, Microsoft Word documents. Based on what the hiring manager has given human resources as requirements for the job, the software will reject resumes that do not have the requirements. The software, like the typical human resources employee, doesn’t know that, for example, EE means electrical engineering, so a resume that simply states that the applicant expects to receive a BSEE in June will be screened out, unless, of course, the hiring manager has included “EE” in the list of requirements. For this reason, somebody without the specified degree (and hiring managers do specify degrees for jobs, and, for college students, majors as well) will not make it past the initial resume screening by the software.