|
|
|
Corporate Flight Attendant Job Hunting Tips
Writing a résumé can be one of the most daunting parts of any job search. Quite frankly, it is one of the most important elements in helping you find work. A good résumé can ease doors open while a poorly written one will certainly shut these very...
Jump Start For An MBA Education
Traditional MBA programs provide students with a two-fold advantage: a wealth of business knowledge, and the credentials necessary to advance in the business world. Yet many of these programs require previous managerial experience, not to mention an...
Teacher Inservice Workshops And Professional Development Courses Are What University Teacher Training Should Be
Today's teachers are prepared for yesterday's students. The truth is that college and university teacher training has been stuck in the 1950's for the past 50 years. Content and testing have remained the central focus of teacher preparation, while...
Want That Job? Improve Your Interview Skills!
Although it's been said that "You can't judge a book by its
cover," it happens all the time. In business as well as in life
in general we are always judging and being judged. That all
important first impression is lasting.
It's been...
What Questions Should I Ask During An Interview?
What are good questions to ask during an interview is a good
question in itself, and one that always comes up when a
conscientious person is preparing for a big job interview. The
fact that a person even wonders that sets them apart from...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Education Needs to Emphasize Soft Skills that Translate into Hard Cold Cash
No Child Left Behind mandates have school systems scrambling to improve teaching, update curriculum, improve teacher quality and analyze data between different populations just to name a few of the many actions each school is facing. Yet, given the recently released Nation’s Report Card, securing significant change is going to require some non-traditional solutions.
Maybe it is time for public education to take a lesson from corporate America who is just now also realizing the impact of soft skills on the bottom line. During the last two centuries, businesses focused on controlling their employees. The work environment was one of control where individual actions required a chain of approval that went vertically up, then vertically down. This type of management style produced excessive waste and failed to capitalize quickly when opportunities were presented.
According to annual Michigan State University’s national college employment survey, today’s knowledge worker must have the following skill sets:
Analytical ability
Communication including verbal and written
Decision Making
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
Leadership both individual and group
Personal attributes including work ethics, flexibility, initiative and motivation
Problem Solving
Team Building
Time Management
Yet, looking at most curriculums the focus is on cognitive content specific to the academic disciplines. The presumption is that this knowledge and the supporting skill sets as mentioned above will easily transfer to the workplace. Unfortunately, American business owners know that this is a fallacy because of information that is retrieved from such surveys conducted by Michigan State and other organizations.
For example, American students spend 12 plus years learning how to read and write. Yet if communication is more
non-verbal than verbal depending upon how much of Dr. Albert Mehrabrian’s research you believe, then most young people except for those in speech and debate have already been set up to fail because they don’t understand that effective communication extends far beyond reading and writing.
Time management is another great example. Many adults have issues with time management or rather with better self management since you can’t manage a constant that being time. However, the osmosis learning strategy once again rears its inefficient and ineffective head during the kindergarten through high school learning experience. Can you remember as a young student when you actually had a class on effective time management? In today’s classroom with the ever-expanding curriculum, would it not make more sense to actually instruct young people on such a valuable skill instead of leaving it to the osmosis learning strategy?
Developing and nurturing those critical soft skills are what employers know will translate into success for their employees and cold hard cash for them. If public education wants to be truly effective, then the leadership needs to get ahead of the ball and look at the desired end results. Practicing another 33 years of reform where nationally 17 year olds have not gained any reading improvement will absolutely remove us from being the number one world economic force.
Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, www.processspecialist.com
About the author:
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. speaks nationally to student leadership and works with under performing schools to help them achieve world class status. If improving your school's performance is a goal, then visit www.processspecialist.comor email info@processspecialist.com or call 219.759.5601.
|
|
|
|
|
|
