How To Build Up The Skills Employers Think Students Lack

By Gretchen Kernbach on July 31, 2016

A national survey on the college hiring outlook was conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder.

According to prnewswire.com, the survey was conducted “between February 10 and March 17, 2016, and included a representative sample of 2,186 hiring managers and human resource professionals in the private sector across industries and company sizes.”

One of the questions referred to what type of abilities employers think recent college graduates lack the most. Among the various answers, interpersonal (people) skills and problem-solving skills were utmost mentioned. Besides those, others answered with leadership, teamwork, written/oral communication, and creative thinking.

It is important to address these certain skills to assure you, first of all, a job, and therefore a functioning work environment. Coming straight out of the classroom can be tough for new employees but if you are strong suited in even just a few of these mentioned skills, your transition will be that much easier. So how can you improve yourself?

Interpersonal skills refer to your ability to communicate and interact with people. This includes verbal and nonverbal communication, listening, negotiation and assertiveness. To better yourself in this department the first thing you need to do is learn to listen. And to do that, you need to stop talking.

According to skillsyouneed.com:

“When somebody else is talking listen to what they are saying, do not interrupt, talk over them or finish their sentences for them. Stop, just listen. When the other person has finished talking you may need to clarify to ensure you have received their message accurately.”

Furthermore, empathize and be patient, not to mention avoiding personal prejudice. This means ignoring someone’s habits or mannerisms that you might find bothersome. It is important that you focus on the message, not the delivery.

After you listen, choose your words carefully. According to skillsyouneed.com, “Practice clarity and learn to seek feedback to ensure your message has been understood.”

Image via blog.shepell.com

Relax before you speak and make sure you clarify whatever is being said. Miscommunication often leads to problems in the workplace. Lastly, empathize and always be positive. Talk to all your coworkers in a constructive tone and you will receive the same back. Remember, everyone has different points of view so always keep that in the back of your mind when conversing. Understand where the other person is coming from.

If you follow these small tips, your interpersonal skills will greatly improve and have a positive impact in your work environment.

In addition, problem-solving was another skill employers mentioned that they found college graduates lacking. This is not just doing math problems; this refers to analytical thinking.

The first step in improving your problem-solving skills is to fully understand the problem.

According to wikihow.com:

“If you don’t properly understand the problem, your solutions may be ineffective or fail entirely. To define the problem you will have to ask questions and look at different angles. For example, is there one problem or actually several? Can you restate the problem in your own words?”

This means you will probably also have to gather more information. In order to get a clear picture of everything, you need to know everything. Once that is done is when you can begin the second step — making a plan.

When you start formulating a plan, look at your gathered information as a whole and order its importance. Following that, you can start drafting multiple solutions. It is important to have choices; it gives you more options to solve the problem. That way you are not stuck trying to make one solution work.

According to wikihow.com:

“Use analogies and similarities. Try to find a resemblance with a previously solved or common problem. If you can find commonalities between your situation and one you’ve dealt with before, you may be able to adapt some of the solutions for use now.”

Once you have planned out a couple solutions, evaluate them and pick one. Now you have to implement it.

When you put your plan into practice, do a trial-run first (if you can). See how it works for a few days or weeks, depending on what the original problem was. Review the results and if nothing has changed, you go back to the drawing board, or try out one of your other options. Make adjustments as you go along; new problems always arise.

There are other ways to work on your problem-solving skills as well.

According to wikihow.com:

“Play video games. Video games have been portrayed as ‘intellectually lazy’ for a long time. However, new research shows that playing video games can improve parts of thinking like spatial perception, reasoning and memory.”

Choose the game wisely, as obviously not all video games are suitable for training your problem-solving skills. Try a puzzle game or a role-playing game, something that makes you think.

In addition, try taking up a hobby that forces you to do some strategic thinking. This includes chess, learning a foreign language, Sudoku, or web design.

Tackling interpersonal problem-solving skills, the most answered in the said survey, will improve your meaning in the work place. Therefore, your employers will be happy and the transition from college to the working world will be smoother.

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