Saturday, September 22, 2012

Qualified Applicants Lack Soft Skills


Some things I found especially interesting in a newspaper piece this week. The author, Nick Schulz, was at a dinner with representatives from major American manufacturing companies. The topic turned to how hard it is to find qualified applicants for jobs.
The major things that the company representatives stated are problems were:

To be perfectly honest…we have a hard time finding people who can pass the drug test’ (I have heard this from a manager I know who works at a major retailer)
Interpersonal skills and enthusiasm / motivation were among the most commonly identified soft skills that employers found lacking’

Employers also mention a lack of elementary command of the English language’. ‘More than half of the organizations surveyed reported that simple grammar and spelling were the top “basic” skills among older workers that are not readily present among younger workers’
“…professionalism or work ethic is the top applied skill that young workers lack

Many people lack what the writer R R Reno has called forms of social discipline that are indispensable components of a person’s human capital and that are needed for economic success’
From ‘Hard Unemployment Truths About ‘Soft’  Skills’ by Nick Schulz in the 9.20.12 Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=schulz&mod=DNH_S

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