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We have heard the discussions for decades. Scholarly research articles, noted business publications, and well-respected business executives have been talking about the ongoing challenge of finding employees—and in particular, new graduates—who possess job readiness skills. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, fueled the emphasis on the importance of a skilled workforce. A look back at the literature during those years shows that we were quickly moving to a global world where money, goods, and services knew no borders and employee skill sets needed to adapt to the demands of a global workforce (Reich, 1987 and 1992). The emphasis on a well-trained labor force proved to be the key to the success of an information-driven, global and competitive economy (Reich, 1987).
Where employee creativity was once discouraged, it is now needed for competitiveness in today’s workplace. The recent increase in service jobs requires a new set of employability skills, also known as readiness skills, that encompass problem-solving, decision making, communication, flexibility, self-confidence, social skills, team skills, professionalism, and self-management (Carnevale, 1991; Peddle, 2000; Robinson, 2000; Doria et al., 2003; Apparaju, 2016; Lim et al., 2016; Sake, 2016; Tewari and Sharma, 2016). Two significant questions reiterated in books and articles since the 1990s have dealt with: (1) How employers find good workers with desirable employability skills; and (2) What training is necessary for those lacking the required skills (Hofstrand, 1996; Taylor, 1998; Tanyel et al., 1999; and Robinson, 2000). A larger question raised today impacts colleges and universities around the world: what role do colleges and universities play in providing graduates the requisite soft skills demanded in today’s workforce? In the US, this question has never been more relevant given the growing and well-documented disconnect between perceptions of job readiness—where students claim readiness while employers disagree (Jaschik, 2015)—and the 72% increase in the number of international students in American universities since 2000 (Haynie, 2014).
The paper provides an examination of decades of employers’ pleas for skilled workers, a look at the training historically provided to newly minted employees by organizations as well as the decline of training offered, and the demographic trends impacting hiring. The paper also provides the new employee perspective through the findings of a 2014 survey of 108 recent US graduates about their workplace preparedness and which soft skills are most important in the early months and years of their careers. The goal of the literature and the survey findings that follow is to bridge gaps in our understanding of job readiness for business graduates and to reveal opportunities for colleges and universities to more intentionally incorporate soft skills development in the business communication curriculum and beyond.
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