Posted on 10/01/2012 8:32:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It isn't just high tech positions in American manufacturing that aren't being filled. The consultant company Deloitte surveyed the industry and found 600,000 perfectly good jobs going unfilled because of a lack of "soft skills."
What are soft skills?
Wall Street Journal:
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.
[...]
American manufacturing has become more advanced, we're told, and requires computer aptitude, intricate problem solving, and greater dexterity with complex tasks. Surely if Americans were getting STEM education, they would have the skills they need to get jobs in our modern, high-tech economy.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I'd been an electronics tinkerer for a dozen years before getting into my Jr/Sr EE courses. By that time I was working in one of the EE labs as a technician, and one of the PhD students there was a mentor.
But this guy was the exact opposite of your stereotypical grad student. He'd been repairing TVs and such since his early teens; he didn't have too much respect for those highly "edjumicated" (his word) engineers who "didn't know which end of a soldering iron to pick up" (his words again).
Lady Die and I were watching `The Deadliest Catch’ the other night. Captain `Wild Bill’ of the crab boat Kodiak was almost apoplectic because his crew were unable to provide him with a crab count. He gets fined if they have too many.
You would think teachers would be able to pound simple arithmetic into kids’ heads, along with the diversity and self-esteem indoctrination.
As do speeding tickets. How often are they screened for?
and do end runs around company rules and procedures.
Sounds like circular reasoning: we should screen in order to catch people who do things we screen for.
The science is settled on the effects of MJ on the hypocampus which controls initiative, motivation, and judgment as well as diluting the activation flight or fight reflex. Wouldn’t want an individual like that operating my machinery or doing health care.
Nor a regular boozer. But for many jobs, showing up straight is good enough.
Ilicit drug users have blood on their hands in terms of the killings that go on in the wars to control the drug trade.
As do supporters of the War On Drugs, which provides motivation for the wars by hyperinflating drug profits.
Of course, the answer to that query is sometimes,
"Your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor."
Took the words out of my mouth!! There was a good story several years back where an American whose heritage was India applied for software job. The software companies interview her and no job offers, even after she dropped her salary demands to a lower amount. So she decided to strike her American citizenship and replaced it with Indian citizen on a six month visa. She was interviewed and immediately offered a job. Then they got mad when she told them she was actually an American born citizen after she was hired.
If you go to court they all but your honor anyway.
How droll, taking apart teaches relationships between parts, reassembling means making money, the kid likes his bucks, though if the scrap value is high enough......
The crunch is coming unless we turn around societal attitudes toward working with our hands and once again, find honor in the work itself, and not necessarily how much the worker is paid.
How much a worker is paid is EXACTLY the value of the job. Money is a medium of exchange for easily measuring the value of goods, services, labor, etc. The employer should pay the employee in accordance with the value he gets from that employee's work. Neither the employer nor the employee is engaging in the activity out of the goodness of their hearts. If the job is worth less to you as an employer, then pay less, but don't then go griping about a lack of enthusiasm or good applicants.
The U.S. is becoming a 3rd world country. Obama , democrats and the media are to blame. They are all democrats and have caused the destruction of the greatest country ever. America with freedom and capitalism built technology and living standards and a country above all others. Then when we reached this peak democrats destroyed it all with growing government. Anyone think the U.S. won't collapse with this growing Obama debt of 16 trillion?
I don't know about factoryrat's hiring methods. When I worked for local government here I was severely restricted by HR as to how to interview and hire people for technical positions. In the old days we would use comprehensive written and logic tests. But nowadays we can't ask more than a few questions that have to be pre-approved by HR. Made it extremely tough to find any diamonds in the rough. The fresh college graduates were poor interviews, and demanding more money than was offered. Young graduates are really dumbed down nowadays.
Exactly! I was going to say something about this, but everyone seemed to be on the "blame the stupid employee" bandwagon on this thread.
At least you can proof-read your diplomas.
My mom and I have both been in positions that required training new hires. We both have come to the agreement that we’d prefer to hire someone with “people-skills” who needed technical training, rather than someone with lots of technical skills but who isn’t as good with people.
People with both people-skills and a solid work ethic are amazingly hard to find.
If the drugs weren’t being used by the primary users there would be no murderous cartels and no national war on drugs. So who is using circular reasoning and not looking at the triple 800 lb gorillas in the room?
Personal accountability, personal integrity, and personal morality are all coupled with the ability to have a sense of the effects of one’s personal behavior and and how it effects our own small corner of the world as well as the cumulative effects of millions who follow a similar behavioural path as one’s own. If I decide to do drugs and purchase them from a dealer whose supply chain includes a legacy of death and destruction then I become guilty of that same blood guilt, and God will not hold me guiltless !!!
Another words, my own(hypothetically speaking) “harmless to others” drug habit has actually contributed to the death and misery of the populace in those areas where the cartels operate as well as diminished my productive capacity and has made me a source of sadness to the loved ones in my own corner of time and space. I will have become a wasted soul with a deadness eminating from my eyes!(I am an RN and have seen many young people WITH DEADNESS EMINATING FROM THEIR EYES wasted away with Hep c, AIDS, kidney failure, before the the age of 25. All telling me the same thing...MJ AND ETOH WERE THEIR GATEWAY DRUGS!)
Long term established Companies don’t want illicit drug users because they’ve had the time and experience to see how such folk hurt the bottom line and in some cases can put others at risk. Pot’s effects are insidious in that the damage occurs over time, but the damage to the flight or fight activation centers, and the areas that govern motivation and personal judgment can be considerable and is, according to our state of science, irreversible.
Tools for motivation are: goal setting (Zig Ziglar’s Goals), long term multi-stage projects, rewarding excellence (not this everyone is a winner crap), etc.
Tools for discipline include marching, focus based games such as chess and other strategy games, memorization (memorizing the multiplication tables has gone out of style)
But the truth is ... it is not entirely the schools job. Much of this falls on the parents. My objection is that schools are MISS-REPRESENTING the elements of obtaining employment.
It has to do with RISK.
Companies get sued all the time. If there is someone on the payroll who has a history of drug use, and if the plaintiff finds out about them, then the company is automatically at fault because the employee “could have” caused the issue with the defective product / service. It sucks but that is the way the modern legal battle shapes up.
Further, if the company KNEW or should have known about the employee’s drug use, then there is the possibility of triple damages. It is a lot less expensive to simply not hire someone in the first place.
The company I work with does a drug screening and a background check. Speeding tickets show up in the background check. If the position is one that travels, too many moving violations (I don't make that determination, so I don't know how many) or a DUI will result in a no-hire.
Ping for later so I can read the FReeper comments:-). Great article and so sadly true.
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