Transcript Slide 1

Coming Full Circle:
Jobs, Skills, Professional
Experience and Young Adults
DR. PHIL GARDNER
COLLEGIATE EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH
INSTITUTE
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
FOR
STUDENTS IN TRANSITION
NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER
HOUSTON
NOVEMBER 13, 2010
FOR SLIDES CONTACT ME AT
[email protected]
The Test:
Do You Know
Someone Who …..?
 Lacks motivation
 Holds lofty and unrealistic expectations (impatient)
 Is ignorant of the world of work (ill prepared)
 Has no respect for business culture
 Displays a poor work ethic
 Excels in social skills for team oriented
environment
 Possesses no internal guidance system
(external voices telling them what to do)
 “What’s in it for me?”
BOOMERS:
INVESTMENT BANKERS
 Monetary success
 Professional prestige
 Elevated goals (for all
behind them)
 Don’t share well (it’s
mine)
 Control
 Principals
 Legacy

Make sure it stays
as we built it
Networked Intelligence
Economy
IT’S ALL ABOUT
MANAGING KNOWLEDGE
AND DEVELOPING SKILLS
Economic Shifts and the Skills Gap
 Knowledge/Networked Economy
 Requires transdisciplinary individuals
 Sourcing
 High quality labor at lowest price
 Technology substitution
 Workforce Succession
 When will they ever leave?
 Lost Knowledge
 Leave your brains behind Grandpa!
The Shifts
What Jobs Will Leave?
Skill Usage: The Funnel
Apply Learning
Writing Effectively
Teamwork
Grasp Realities Workplace
Acquire Learning
Demonstrating Initiative
Communicate Orally
Think Analytically
Acquire Learning
Evaluate Alternatives
Creative Solutions
Teamwork
Leadership
Utilize technology
Grasp Realities
Demonstrating
Initiative
The First Turn
BASED ON SKILLS
REFORMATION 1.0
SEE WWW.CAREERNETWORK.MSU.EDU
CLICK ON GUIDES TO FIND 12 ESSENTIALS
Benchmark: 12 Essentials
 Developing
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
professional
competencies
Communicating
effectively
Solving Problems
Balancing Work and
life
Embracing Change
Working Effectively
in a Team
 Working in a Diverse



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
Environment
Managing time and
priorities
Navigating across
boundaries
Acquiring knowledge
Thinking Critically
Performing with
integrity
Advanced Skills for
Professionals: Star Performers
A Model for Professional Expertise
Organizational savvy
Self-management
Networking
Teamwork
effectiveness
Taking Initiative
Technical Competence
Cognitive Abilities
Perspective
Leadership
Followership
Show&Tell
Kelley, R. & Caplan.J. (1993). How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers. Harvard Business Review: July 1993
The Full Circle
The New Standards
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Build and sustain professional relationships
Analyze, evaluate and interpret data
Engage in continuous learning
Communicate through persuasion and justification
Plan and manage a project
Create new knowledge
Seek global understanding
Mentor and develop others
Build a team
Initiative: The Holy Grail
 Paper is available at www.ceri.msu.edu
TODAY
College graduates must
come to the
organizations as a
STAR PERFORMER!
The New Look for Young
Professionals
THE T PROFESSIONAL
IDEO’S TERMINOLOGY
APPLICABLE TO ALL
EDUCATION LEVELS
The I Professional: Going Deep
Deep in at least one discipline
(analytic thinking & problem solving)
Tinkers
 Claude Levi Strauss
◦ Tinker vs. Engineer
◦ Tinker redefines the means to
do something
◦ “Tinker Toys”
 Judy Estrin CEO JLABS
◦ Today’s best talent
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Deep understanding (respect)
Breadth
(communicate/boundaries)
Infectious excitement (passion)
Compulsive tinker (drive)
T-Shaped Professionals
(Both Deep and Broad)
Boundary Crossing Competencies
communication, teamwork,
networks, critical thinking,
global understanding,
perspective,
organizational culture,
project management, etc
ME
Many disciplines
(understanding & communications)
(understanding & communications)
Deep in at least one system
(analytic thinking & problem solving)
Deep in at least one discipline
(analytic thinking & problem solving)
See
www.ceri.edu
Many systems
Jim Spohrer, IBM Labs
The “New Starting Job”
 Internships
 Co-ops
 Career-related employment
 Other engagement: no longer equal
 Preparatory experiences
The Evidence
Competency
Eng FT
5 yrs ago
Eng Intern
Today
NonengFT
5 yrs ago
NonengInt
Today
Analyze
31%
30%
30%
22%
Communicat.
35%
26%
34%
34%
Teamwork
30%
33%
36%
31%
Customer Ser.
27%
11%
28%
15%
Global
11%
12%
13%
11%
Innovation
7%
10%
9%
6%
Diversity
9%
6%
11%
4%
Plan
39%
34%
37%
31%
Project
45%
46%
27%
38%
Employer Expectations:
“Not What They Used To Be!”
Yesterday’s Outcomes
are
Today’s Intern
Expectations
Internship: A High Stakes Event
 Definition of a HSE
 Characteristics
 Knowing what your interests are
 Frequency
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How do you gain practice?
Feedback
Reflection on practice
 Reflection in practice
 Timing: on going continual
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Difficulty
Difficult
“IF I AM LEARNING, FOR INSTANCE, RUSSIAN, I AM
CONFRONTED BY AN AUTHORITATIVE STRUCTURE
WHICH COMMANDS MY RESPECT. THE TASK IS
DIFFICULT AND THE GOAL IS DISTANT AND PERHAPS
NEVER ENTIRELY ATTAINABLE. MY WORK IS A
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION OF SOMETHING WHICH
EXISTS INDEPENDENTLY OF ME. ATTENTION IS
REWARDED BY A KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY. LOVE OF
RUSSIAN LEADS ME AWAY FROM MYSELF TOWARDS
SOMETHING ALIEN TO ME, SOMETHING WHICH MY
CONSCIOUSNESS CANNOT TAKE OVER, SWALLOW UP,
DENY OR MAKE UNREAL.
IRIS MURDOCH
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOOD
Professional Experience Year
 Sandwiched between junior and senior year
 12 to 16 month assignment in workplace
 Full-time
 Paid
 Boundary spanning takes 8 to 16 months in workplace to
accomplish; traditional internship only learn to transition
 Outcome
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More mature
20% starting salary premium
Job offer in-hand
Think Anew
“STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS NEED
STRUCTURAL SOLUTIONS.”
MOHAMED EL-ERIAN, CEO PIMCO
Joseph Schumpeter
 On the expansion of higher education beyond labor
market demand creates:
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“employment in substandard work or at wages below those of the
better-paid manual workers.”
“it may create unemployability of a particularly disconcerting type.
The man who has gone through college or university easily becomes
psychically unemployable in manual occupations without necessarily
acquiring employability in, say, professional work.”
“…the ideal of making educational facilities of any type available to
all who can be induced to use them. This ideal is so strongly held
that any doubts about it are almost considered to nothing short of
indecent….”

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy 1942
Education Wars
Production Education
Knowledge Education
 Passing exams
 Flexibility
 Meeting course deadlines
 Looking over rim at other
 Disciplined study for sake
of mastery of knowledge
 Willingness to confirm to
an organizational discipline
 Develop the disposition
needed to develop
competence in a
bureaucracy
disciplines
 Cultivation of a different
sort of self
 Psychological and social
aptitudes
 Liberal arts have to be
relevant
Training versus Doing
 Two paths: liberal and servile
 Move from production of goods to production of
brands
 Escalating demand for educational credentials
 Degradation of work is ultimately a cognitive matter;
rooted in separation of thinking and doing
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Lawrence Katz
The Wheelwright
 Creativity comes from disjunctive thinking and is a
product of mastery that is cultivated through practice
The discussion we are not
having together
One Paradox
a surplus of resources
&
a shortage of critical skills
Two Questions
1)
Do successful organizations recruit
more proactively?
OR
2) Are some organizations successful
because they recruit more?
Three Required Elements
Economic
Development
Employment
Education
Action Item #1
Together, business, government and education must:
Make greater investments in science, technology,
business, and design/creative education
Must insure that regardless of educational interest all
young people possess the skills to contribute in the
21st century
Action Item #2
Together, business and education must:
Enable and evolve to a culture that embraces
and enables life-long learning
Action Item #3
Together, everyone must address:
1)
The significant shortage of skills required to create
competitive advantage for many organizations;
2)
Unique needs of the new/developing workforce;
3)
Impact of the retirement of the “Baby Boom”;
and
4)
Need for greater diversity and inclusion in our education
programs and workforce
1)
Educational segregation
Action Item #4
Together, we must:
align our investment in education, with;
We have failed to do this – watch the community colleges
We do not mean vocational education (everyone cannot be a business
major)
current and emergent employment needs, in order to
many companies still can not articulate their needs
support economic development objectives, and
there are none
return our economy to an environment of sustainable
growth
less focus on immediate greed
more focus on long term prosperity, integration and sustainability
Revisiting the Gap
 What employers say about college students?
 Why are “we” so negative?
 The science class: smart without a map
 Gap widens faster than education want to adjust
 Must set higher aspirations and provide a education
framework to get there.