What do employers want? Making the Most of College Part III

Skill: Real-world problem solving.

Problem solvers are the people who get things done. When things get complicated, they brainstorm, deliberate, reason, and disentangle. They don’t complain, whine, panic, or freak out. At least they don’t let you know they are doing it. The person who can get things done is the one you want on your team.Life is really just one giant word problem when you think about it. What do you do if you have just planned an event for 200 people and the venue burns down two days before hand? What do you do if you are presenting a research project to a class of 200 people and your laptop crashes? If the answer is go to pieces, you’re not our ideal candidate.

How do I get that skill?
Choose classes that have practical exercises and projects. These tend to be upper level courses and labs, but if you are resourceful, you can ask your professor to help you turn a project, paper, or assignment into a case study more reflective of the real world. Doing a PR paper, try working with a children’s museum to solve a current PR issue of theirs. Working on a computer course, try creating a software that actually does something necessary to a real organization.You might notice that the answer to many of these questions is to talk to someone, a professor, an organization, etc. Problem solvers are people who are not afraid to call on other people for assistance or advice. They are the people who will get creative and find ways to make things work.

Imagine going into an interview and saying that one of your best qualities is to work with others to make the best of every situation. And then pulling out real-world examples of how you made your class work more productive by negotiating with your teachers. It’s a great example of real-world problem solving.

Skill: Learning New Skills

Most students celebrate the end of their college career. Never having to take a test or attend a class again. The truth is, college is just a primer for all of the training, learning, and skill building that will follow in your professional life. You will spend countless hours training for your job and the employees who succeed are the ones who learn fast and often.

The willingness to learn any and every skill, and to learn them well, will differentiate you from countless other employees.Learn new software, learn new sales skills, learn new ways of managing a project, learn to be a better speaker, learn the newest technological advances in telecommunications. The more you are willing to learn with and without prodding, the better.

How do I get this skill?
One of the problems with college is that the grading system often seeps the learning enthusiasm out of students. The desire to get an “A” becomes the end goal beyond the need to actually learn the material. Compound that with the requirement to take courses on topics about which you care nothing and the fun of learning is destroyed.

In order to really become a lifelong learner (LLL) you will need to move beyond the basics of getting good grades. You will have to think about your classes as opportunities to learn something. What that something is depends on the class. You will have to set your own goals and challenges and decide how you want to meet them. That doesn’t mean you should dump your concern for grades. Grades matter. But you need to have a secondary goal or vision beyond just the endpoint of getting out with a decent GPA. Create a Learning Objective for each class and a plan for achieving that goal.