Group items tagged

With regard to Trend No. 1, 93 percent of the employers surveyed said that "a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate's] undergraduate major." On Trend No. 2, the association's survey found that "more than nine in 10" employers surveyed said it was important that job candidates "demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued new learning. More than 75 percent of employers say they want more emphasis on five key areas, including critical thinking, complex problem-solving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings."

Especially since the recent economic downturn and in light of the increasingly competitive global economy, employers express concerns about whether the U.S. is producing enough college graduates and whether they have the skills, knowledge, and personal responsibility to contribute to a changing workplace and help companies and organizations succeed and grow. This report provides a detailed analysis of employers' priorities for the kinds of learning today's college students need to succeed in this innovation-fueled economy. It also reports on changes in educational and assessment practices that employers recommend.

"One way of defining these workplace skills is to consider what employers actually ask for in job postings. Based on Burning Glass Technologies' analysis of millions of job postings, one in every three skills cited in job ads is a "baseline" skill - that is, skills that aren't specific to any particular kind of job but rather that are requested by employers across the board. (Most of these are soft skills, though the analysis also includes skills like Microsoft Office that are so common as to be considered core to employability in the modern workplace.) A worker who has these in addition to technical skills is going to be welcome anywhere."

"To ensure that education is more relevant to the needs of students and the labour market, assessment methods need to be adapted and modernised. The use of ICT and open educational resources (OER) should be scaled-up in all learning contexts. Teachers need to update their own skills through regular training. The strategy also calls on Member States to strengthen links between education and employers, to bring enterprise into the classroom and to give young people a taste of employment through increased work-based learning. EU Education Ministers are also encouraged to step-up their cooperation on work-based learning at national and European level."

"Digital literacies have a life-wide impact which is not limited to either the academic or the employment domain. Developing critical and evaluation skills results in sought-after and adaptable employees. Yet digital literacy is not simply about learning from content online this represents a deficit model of education (frequently practiced) rather than skills development."

"Horror stories have been published about employers asking for job applicants' Facebook passwords. Recently, psychologists discovered that employers frown upon applicants without a Facebook presence. The lack of a profile raises many red flags: is this person anti-social? Was once tagged in too many party photos? Is he or she just pretentious?"

"Employers report frustration at not finding skilled workers; and, according to the Manpower Growth 2012 Talent Shortage Survey, 49 percent of employers struggle to fill jobs. Jobs wait to be filled - current job seekers just lack the right skills."

"When a college goes out of business, all of its alumni can suddenly find themselves in an unexpected dilemma: How can graduates prove they actually earned their degrees when no one is left at the institution to send academic transcripts to prospective employers or graduate schools? That scenario is one reason that a group of nine universities, led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, today announced a collaboration to build a system that would let institutions issue digital diplomas and credentials in a way that can be verified without needing to check with a human registrar. The idea is to encourage widespread use of digital credentials across all kinds of academic institutions, and even at more informal places of learning, so that students end up taking ownership of how to communicate their learning to employers."

scholarly articles on weak ties and their benefits. (many of these are available through the UD library!) :-)

Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson's contention really is. ­Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology-from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services-are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.

"With so many people on LinkedIn, having a complete profile these days won't raise any suspicions, Teach says. "Perhaps the first place a hiring manager will look when they have a job candidate is at the job candidate's LinkedIn profile. It's best to keep it updated all the time so that you don't have to rush to complete it when you start looking for a new job." However, don't indicate that you're looking for new job opportunities on your profile, in case your current employer monitors your page."

"But the online application for the job included a space in which to enter one's Facebook account. The Navy man, who deliberately didn't have a Facebook account, left the space blank - which seemed to puzzle the company. "They said, 'Well, get a Facebook (account) and we'll interview you,' " Boquist recalled in her public testimony before a Senate committee on Feb. 18. "He said, 'I'm not going to have one.' So he did not get the interview.""

"In the United States, about half the people who start college don't finish, leaving 37 million Americans with some college credits but no degree. That's more than 20 percent of the working-age population. In an economy that increasingly demands workers with knowledge and skills, it is imperative that more opportunities are provided for individuals to obtain a university degree. By serving as the key link between universities and employers, InStride will facilitate partnerships that will positively impact the lives of thousands of people who will benefit from a high-quality education."

"Mr. Bridges represents a new but promising category in the American labor market: people working in so-called new-collar or middle-skill jobs. As the United States struggles with how to match good jobs to the two-thirds of adults who do not have a four-year college degree, his experience shows how a worker's skills can be emphasized over traditional hiring filters like college degrees, work history and personal references. And elevating skills over pedigree creates new pathways to employment and tailored training and a gateway to the middle class."

problems with klout scores are discussed

"If you don't have a resume, what do you have? How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects? Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch? Or a reputation that precedes you? Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up? Some say, "well, that's fine, but I don't have those." Yeah, that's my point. If you don't have those, why do you think you are  remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular? It sounds to me like if you don't have those, you've been brainwashed into acting like you're sort of ordinary."

They've been around for years, but when more than 100,000 people signed up for a Stanford artificial intelligence course it was obvious that MOOCs had arrived. MOOCs and other learning resources are reshaping how people prepare for employment.

Dev Bootcamp, a nine-week intensive program that takes students with no programming background and turns them into world class beginner, job-ready software engineers. More than 90 percent of all Dev Bootcamp graduates, who are called "Boots," have found jobs in the tech community within three months after graduation.

"Prior Learning Assessment, or PLA, is a little-discussed strategy to facilitate time-to-degree, particularly for non-traditional students. The concept is to set up the structure and processes to evaluate corporate training from employment, military training, civic responsibilities, travel, and independent study and award academic credit from these out-of-the-classroom learning situations. As the higher education population diversifies with much higher percentages of working adults, PLA can be an important factor in reducing total cost and time-to-degree."

"Universities quietly maintain the fiction that student work is mostly evaluated by people in a structural position to assess it both independently and generously. Independently, because they are tenured: when they call good work good and bad work bad, they do so because their dispassionate judgments have no bearing on their continued employment.  Generously, because they themselves enjoy consolations of time, resources, and respect that redound to their evaluative practice: they sit in quiet private offices, attentively marking a reasonable volume of student work, and have no fundamental reasons to resent the students they teach nor the institutions which employ them."