What Do You Most Want When Hiring Recent College Graduates?
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What Do You Most Want When Hiring Recent College Graduates?

It’s hiring season for college graduates, and as I research my next book about the transition from education to the workforce, I’ve been asking employers what they most want when they recruit those with newly-minted bachelor’s degrees. I wasn’t interested in hearing about the specific skills for a particular job, but more so about the overall attributes these recent graduates need to succeed in the workplace now and in the near future.

Many of the same characteristics came up over and over again in my conversations with employers ranging from Pinterest and Facebook to Enterprise Rent-a-Car and Vanguard. Here are the some of the qualities they think today’s college graduates should have. Do you hire recent college graduates, and if so, what do you think? Add your comments below.

Curiosity.

Today’s college graduates have been heavily programmed since they were young: their playtime was scheduled, they participated in dozens of organized activities, and their time in school was very structured. The dynamic nature of the economy today demands learning animals who are curious about the world around them, investigate new ideas and solutions, want to learn something new every day, and are willing to take risks.

Experience with Failure.

The A is now the most common mark given out on college campuses nationwide, accounting for 43 percent of all grades. Given the rapid rise of grade inflation on college campuses, most college students today have little experience with failure. They rarely have seen the iterative process that most professionals follow to eventually get to success (perhaps those of us who are writers should share our early drafts more often). College graduates who have had some experience with failure whether it’s on the athletic field, in a lab, on a research project, or just in life in general are better able to deal with it on the job.

Contextual Thinking.

I call this making the connections between disparate ideas and strategies. Most jobs for new college graduates are no longer task-based, they are contextual. Yet college students are trained how to move through their undergraduate degree in a very task-oriented way: there are defined semesters with tailored courses that have discrete time blocks each with their own syllabus. They are rarely asked to think outside of those silos and across the whole of their experience.

Digitally Aware.

Sure, today’s graduates are what we like to call “digital natives,” but they also need more awareness about the risks and opportunities of technology, and how it really works. Programming, Big Data, and social media are now at the foundation of most jobs in the knowledge economy, not just in technology.

Socially Aware.

This is a catch-all category that includes important skill sets like written and verbal communication as well as the ability to deal with negative feedback, ask good questions, speak in public, and most of all, interact on a basic human level with co-workers and clients that doesn’t involve texting with them. It’s what the folks at Koru, a new start-up that helps college graduates launch into their careers, call “polish.” I’d love to hear if you have a better name for this category of attributes.

Comment below if you have any examples of ways graduates could get these skills while still in college or if you have other characteristics you look for when hiring.

Jeffrey Selingo is an author of two books on higher education. You can follow his writing here, on Twitter @jselingo, on Facebook, and sign up for free newsletters about the future of higher education at jeffselingo.com.

He is a contributing editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education, a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Grade Point blog, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University.

Watson Mavis

Sales Clerk at Wal-Mart Rockingam, NC 28379

9y

My most disappointment after college was going home to my hometown excited to use my new education or learning in the teck world to find out most businesses were not up to date with digital technology.

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Rob Humphrey

LinkedIn Career expert l Super- Year Sales MVP | Snowboarder | Unlock LinkedIn

9y

Over 5 years LinkedIn I have worked with hundreds of employers around the world on the topic of college to career hiring (interns, new grads) While these traits may be exactly what they seek, they can't measure for this capacity. So they revert to degree or school in particular as a proxy for experience (or capacity)

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Seb Robin

International Innovation Management Consultant

9y

Hi Jeff Selingo, your article gives a good insight into what some of the biggest, most admired employers are looking for, but I wonder if we can paint the same "Disneyworld-type" picture, generally speaking. In all honesty, if every graduate had all those attributes, they'd probably start their own business, and by what I'm reading here and there about Millennials, that's pretty much what many of them do or think of doing. On the other hand, through my different ventures, I was lucky enough to speak with a relatively significant panel of graduates from all over the world, and what's preventing them from landing the job they expect is lack of experience. I would also add that the expectations of employers may not actually fit the hard reality: do you truly believe that once employed a newly-recruiting graduate, with little if no work experience at all can just walk into a room, ask loads of questions, fire new ideas, and stand up in front of a crowd to make a case? they might feel like it, but company politics don't allow that to happen. Even in the biggest companies with all that compliance and CSR in place. Now, I don't blame employers for making those wishes. They seem fair. But do they lack realism? Are we asking too much of graduates? Shouldn't we, in companies, invest more in gearing graduates up? Maybe then employers wouldn't make wishes; they'd actually participate in helping graduates acquire those attributes.

Emily Basca

Moderator, Facilitator, Trainer and Coach for Speakers, Mentor, Leading workshops using the LEGO® Serious Play® Method

9y

Skills training for speaking to audiences and facilitation skills for leading meetings leads to better communication skills in the interview and on the job. We're working to bring that training to high school/college students with PresentR™ using a gaming approach to teach and reinforce skills. Thanks for this interesting article.

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Pamela Majidy

Administrative Assistant

9y

does the server you use for e-mail truly affect your candidacy?

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