Soft skills are as important in the job market as software is to a computer.
Soft skills include areas such as communications, leadership, problem-solving, self-management and professionalism – some of which must be developed over time rather than taught in a classroom – but the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) is taking a look at how their courses might be adjusted to do more to develop those skills.
To that end, they did a survey this year, which participants at the AgCareers.com 2011 North American Ag HR Roundtable last week got a preview of prior to it being officially unveiled at the APLU National Summit on Curricula Reform. Over 8,000 survey participants included students, faculty, alumni and employers from 31 universities and 282 companies.
APLU’s Associate Director for Food, Agriculture & Natural Resources Programs Wendy Fink says they found through the survey that the base of all the soft skills was communications. “If you can’t communicate, you really can’t do the others,” she told me. “That’s quickly followed by decision making and then self-management.” She says the biggest surprise in the study was that international experience was not valued as highly by employers as they expected.
The results of the study will be used by universities to evaluate their curricula going forward.
Listen to my interview with Wendy here: Wendy Fink with APLU
Attendees at the Ag HR Roundtable were able to participate in a live survey based on some of the questions in the soft skill survey. Watch a couple of the question and responses in this YouTube video: