Hard Unemployment Truths About 'Soft' Skills (many applicants fail drug tests, lack work ethic)

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 19, 2012 | Nick Schulz

[reaganaut1]

At a recent dinner in Washington, D.C., with representatives from major American manufacturing companies, I listened as the talk turned to how hard it is to find qualified applicants for jobs.

"What exactly are the skills you can't find?" I asked, imagining that openings for high-tech positions went begging because, as we hear so often, the training of the U.S. workforce doesn't match up well with current corporate needs.

One of the representatives looked sheepishly around the room and responded: "To be perfectly honest . . . we have a hard time finding people who can pass the drug test." Several other reps gave a knowing nod. Applicants were often so underqualified, they said, that simply finding someone who could properly answer the telephone was sometimes a challenge.

...

But considerable evidence suggests that many employers would be happy just to find job applicants who have the sort of "soft" skills that used to be almost taken for granted. In the Manpower Group's 2012 Talent Shortage Survey, nearly 20% of employers cited a lack of soft skills as a key reason they couldn't hire needed employees. "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. A survey in April of human-resources professionals conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management and the AARP compared the skills gap between older workers who were nearing retirement and younger workers coming into the labor pool. 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.

The SHRM/AARP survey also found that "professionalism" or "work ethic" is the top "applied" skill that younger workers lack.

[Durus]

It is certainly relevant as grammar has constantly been conflated with spelling in this thread. Using the possessive pronoun “their” for the contraction “they're” is a grammar mistake, just like using “effect” for “affect” or “your” for “you're”. A spelling mistake would be using “thiers” for “theirs”. As I said there are plenty of people that don't spell particularly well (or type poorly) that understand grammar.

[Monty22002]

Listing off a bunch of mostly blue states is a good way to make me want the opposite of what they do.

Oh, and I don’t care what you think about ‘speeding vs drugs’.

[Moonman62]

This is more whining and bitching from companies that don’t want to pay skilled people more than $8 an hour. I expect they are the same ones that complain about not enough illegal aliens or H1b’s for them to abuse.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Listing off a bunch of mostly blue states

How do you account for the red states that have decriminalized marijuana?

Speeding is a more clear and present danger to others than marijuana use.

Oh, and I don’t care what you think about ‘speeding vs drugs’.

But I was supposed to care that you think, "I’d say illegal drug use is a bit harsher than traffic violations and is a good judgement of character"?