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 ...
it is an employers market right now, and if you dont want to take a 25% pay cut, we will just hire someone else..
This has happened before ( twice in my lifetime )..
The problem these newbie managers do not see is that the pendulum always swings back the other way..
loyalty pays off in the longrun..
Absolutely.
What happens when all of the institutional knowledge walks out the door? You can't pay money for a lot of institutional knowledge. Once it's gone, it's gone.
I took a bit of a pay cut when I left a job I'd spent 13 years in, but a reduction of stress was worth it.
The best way to predict future performance is to look at past performance. I’m amazed that people make selection decisions based on one interview. Look at our President. What was his past performance like? He talked a good fight and was elected. Now, we have an economy in the dumper, unemployment that is astronomical and a foreign policy that is the joke of the world. No sir, no more rhetoric rangers that talk a good fight. Romney has shown that he understands business. Obama has shown that he understands.....how to tee up a golf ball.
Does you judgment of people skills include hiring only those who can agree with you on every point, or those who may disagree with a small point during an interview but have the polite poise and confidence to back up their opinions during that said interview?
One of the earlier posters mentioned the problems with hiring at many companies were women run HR departments who reject some applicants out of hand because their own subjective emotional reaction to them was negative, not because they were doing anything wrong or had no real people skills.
In my experience, a judgment of “people skills” can be extremely subjective and unconsciously governed by the moods of the examiners. True, some habits and behaviours of applicants can obviously be no brainers in terms of rejecting them but I saw one person rejected because the examiner in question just had a “bad feeling about that person”. Luckily that examiner got over ruled by a higher up and the person in question got hired and was a model employee last I heard. Even our “gut instincts” can be wrong sometimes if we are not personally in touch with why we dislike or reject the people we do in our lives and work!
How are they mis-representing it? What are the schools actually telling kids about obtaining employment? Is it included in any of their classes? Which subject would it be taught under?..ie, which teacher would teach it in high school?
As do supporters of the War On Drugs, which provides motivation for the wars by hyperinflating drug profits.
If the drugs werent being used by the primary users there would be no murderous cartels
And if the drug profits weren't hyperinflated by the War On Drugs there would be no murderous cartels - just as there are no murderous cartels dealing in the legal mind-altering drug alcohol (although there were when that drug was illegal).
Long term established Companies dont want illicit drug users because theyve had the time and experience to see how such folk hurt the bottom line and in some cases can put others at risk.
I've never been drug tested by any of the established, successful companies I've worked for.
And if that isn't enough, I also minored in Sub-Saharan homoerotic music. What more do employers expect?
Sounds fishy to me - can you cite a snigle specific instance of such a finding of fault? And why doesn't the same risk apply to employees using the mind-altering drug alcohol - which as far as I know is rarely if ever screened for?
As do speeding tickets. How often are they screened for?
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.
Speeding tickets show a willingness to break the law regardless of whether the position is one that travels - so there's no support there for your original claim.
I would suspect one of the missing “soft skills” is the ability to show up on time for work on a regular basis.
Perhaps we "calculate" multiplication tables?
I catch myself making the same slip. This same generation substitutes "DO" for the action verb best describing a person's meaning.
I think this common expression manifests our lack of diligent thought available in language.
It's a fun challenge to encourage a youngster's response to "DO", with the action verb best communicating the intended meaning.
I will quote my daughter’s Biology teacher - “Just get a degree. You will succeed if you can just get a degree.” This came up during a parent teacher conference. I later had to show my daughter that I made way more than her teacher did and (at the time) I did not have a degree.
While this is just one example, others include guidance counselors, librarians, administrators etc. Each to a different degree have pushed the idea that all one needs is a sheepskin. Granted that was before I pulled my children out of the public school and sent them to a charter school. However, there is still a significant push for the “degree” even within the charter school.
I cant tell you how long it has been since I have heard any teacher talk about starting and owning their own business or (gasp) going to trade school!
- I am also not buying any of the crap talk from the over 50s who see all the youngsters as a bunch of un/miseducated immoral hooligans. Quite frankly, America went to hell in a handbasket, ON YOUR WATCH. Maybe you didn't vote for the socializing of America, but you didn't stop it either. It's certainly not the fault of some 20 year old.
Thanks to health insurance requirements, if you get laid off over 40 these days you're pretty much out of the game for good - at least from large and mid-sized companies.
Without a complete rewrite of the tax laws to favor use of 1099 independent contractors (which will never happen because unions go ballistic every time it is hinted at) there isn't much hope for over 40's until after the Great Collapse is complete.
That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!
LLS
You obviously have a fight to pick and are looking for someone to fight with. Not me - I dont have a dog in this fight. Here are some pages for you go after someone:
http://www.acde.org/employer/DAwork.htm
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/substanceabuse/index.html
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=OSHACT&p_id=3371
Who would talk to students about business, other than in a business class. Do many hight schools even offer business classes? I imagine anyone that knew enough about business, probably wouldn’t be teaching in public schools.
Ding, ding, ding, ding! You win.
These are ‘manufacturers” who are destined for slave state China.
The point of the article was businesses can’t find “qualified” workers. If your qualification is employee never smoked a MJ cigarette or had a traffic ticket, good luck. You may as well shut your doors.
Sounds fishy to me - can you cite a single specific instance of such a finding of fault?
You obviously have a fight to pick and are looking for someone to fight with. Not me - I dont have a dog in this fight.
Your dog is your still unsupported claim about legal fault.
Of your three links, the first two say nothing about legal fault and the third says nothing about drug use - so no support there for your claim.
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