More
men (50%) reported feeling “very” or “extremely” prepared for their career,
while only 36% of women said the same. Overall, nontraditional students—here
meaning those who didn’t enter college within a year of finishing high school—expressed
feeling prepared more often (49%) than their traditional counterparts (34%).
Students in technical and vocational programs were far more likely to see
themselves as well prepared for their career than any other academic
discipline.
Fewer
than half of the 1,000 students surveyed were confident they’d gained the
critical skills necessary to enter the workforce, such as complex problem-solving
(43%), résumé writing (37%), and interviewing (34%). There is, however,
something of a disconnect between stated desires and actions: Although 51% said
they’d like access to more internships and other professional experiences
during college, fewer than half reported taking advantage of the career
services offered by their institution.
There’s
a lot of daylight between students’ perceptions of their own preparedness and
how employers see them. Although more than three-quarters of students were
confident in their own professionalism and work ethic, the National Association
of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2018 learned that just 43% of employers
surveyed felt that recent college grads were up to standard in those areas. And
while more than 60% of students felt their leadership skills were sufficient
for the workplace, only a third of employers agreed with them.
Those
findings dovetail with the results of Building Tomorrow’s Talent: Collaboration
Can Close Emerging Skills Gap, a new study by Bloomberg Next and Workday Inc.,
a provider of cloud-based financial and human-resources management software. The
study, which queried 100 U.S. academic institutions and an equal number of U.S.
corporations, found that only 35% of corporations said new hires possessed both
the hard and soft skills to perform at a high level in a professional setting.
There
isn’t much encouragement on the horizon, as 84% of academic respondents said
budget constraints were the biggest barrier to implementing plans to better
prepare students for the workforce.
