A couple years ago, I faced a very difficult dilemma. It was the point in my junior year where I had to decide on my college major…and I had no idea what to do! There were the majors I knew I should study if I wanted to be “employable” and there were the subjects I actually liked studying.
I didn’t know what to do! Then my adviser said something that I’ll never forget. He told me that “whatever you study, you’ll develop skills that can be used in the real world.” I was flabbergasted! I had always thought that the college major I studied would directly impact my future career. But I trusted his advice and got my degree in Classical Languages.
Not surprisingly, however, I still had lingering doubts. After all, the ability to read Homer’s Odyssey in the original is not a skill that organizations specifically list as something they desire! So, this summer, I asked 555 businesspeople (who hire college-educated young people) how important certain skills and college majors are to them in hiring decisions.
What to see the results? Click through to the next page!
In Question 1, respondents were asked to rank the relative importance of each skill on a scale of one to seven. This scale was used to give respondents a reasonable amount of flexibility in ranking each item, while still keeping the scale tight.
In this chart, it can be seen that Ability to Communicate with Others is ranked as the most important skill, Ability to Manage Time and Self is second, Ability to Learn and Adapt to Change is third and the Ability to Collaborate with Others just barely scrapes into fourth over Creativity and Problem Solving Ability.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Cross-Cultural Understanding and Foreign Language Skills, averaging slightly higher than “Somewhat Important,” appears to be the least-critical of the choices. The next-lowest skill, Specific Field Knowledge, finishes slightly under the categorization of “Important” while Writing Skills and Logical and Critical Thinking lurk between “Important” and “Critical” in value to potential employers.
Only a small percentage of the respondents marked the Ability to Manage Time and Self, Writing Skills, Creativity and Problem Solving Ability, Ability to Adapt to New Situation, Collaborate with Others, Ability to Communicate with Others and Logical and Critical Thinking as less than “Important” on average. This was expected, however, because all of the skills were selected because they are considered valuable to employers.
The abilities to Communicate with Others and to Manage Time and Self are the only two choices to be ranked as “Critical” by respondents.
Question 2 asked respondents to choose which three skills they considered most important in job applicants. This question was designed to offset tendencies to give high scores to every skill by forcing respondents to choose the three they deemed most important.
In Question 1, seven of the nine skills averaged rankings of “Important” and above. In Question 2, however, the differences become more obvious when employers were only allowed to designate three skills as “Critical” in their hiring decisions.
Even though employers were forced to choose, their importance standing of the skills is almost unchanged. In both questions, Communication Ability is the most important, Time Management Skills are next, and Adaptability rounds out the top three. Interestingly, when employers were forced to choose their top three skills, 91 more respondents (16.5%) chose Creativity and Problem Solving Ability (45.2%) as one of their top three choices than choose Collaborate with Others/Work in Teams (28.7%). The other skills’ rankings are the same.
Click here for survey results about how important an applicant's college major is in an employer's hiring decision!
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