{"id":20285,"date":"2019-11-05T12:20:57","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T12:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=20285"},"modified":"2019-11-05T23:31:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T23:31:25","slug":"does-higher-education-still-prepare-people-for-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/entrepreneur\/does-higher-education-still-prepare-people-for-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Does higher education still prepare people for jobs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvard Business\u00a0reveals an interesting look at how universities prepare us for the future of work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and\u00a0<\/a>Becky Frankiewicz<\/a><\/p>\n

We often hear employers and business leaders\u00a0lament<\/a>\u00a0the unfortunate gap between what students learn in college and what they are actually expected to know in order to be job-ready. This is particularly alarming in light of the large \u2014 and still growing \u2014 number of people graduating from university:\u00a0above 40% of 25 to 34-year-olds in OECD countries, and nearly 50%\u00a0of 25 to 34-year-olds in America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although there is a clear premium on education \u2014\u00a0recent reports<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0suggest that the ROI of a college degree has never been higher for young people \u2014 the value added from a college degree decreases as the number of graduates increases. This is why a college degree will boost earnings by over 20% in sub-saharan Africa (where degrees are relatively rare<\/a>), but only 9% in Scandinavia (where 40% of adults have degrees<\/a>). At the same time, as university qualifications become more commonplace, recruiters and employers will increasingly demand them, regardless of whether they are actually required for a specific job. So, while tertiary degrees may still lead to higher-paying jobs, the same employers handing out these jobs are hurting themselves \u2014 and young people \u2014 by limiting their candidate pool to college graduates. In an age of ubiquitous disruption and unpredictable job evolution, it is hard to argue that the knowledge acquisition historically associated with a university degree is still relevant.<\/p>\n

There are several data-driven arguments that question the\u00a0actual<\/em>, rather than the perceived, value of a college degree. First, meta-analytic\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0have long-established that the correlation between education level and job performance is weak. In fact,\u00a0the research<\/a>\u00a0shows that intelligence scores are a much better indicator of job potential. If we were to pick between a candidate with a college degree and a candidate with a higher intelligence score, we could expect the latter to outperform the former in most jobs, particularly when those jobs require constant thinking and learning. Academic grades are indicative of how much a candidate has studied, but their performance on an intelligence test reflects their actual ability to learn, reason, and think logically.<\/p>\n

College degrees are also confounded with\u00a0social class<\/a>\u00a0and play a part in reducing social mobility and augmenting inequality. Many universities do select students on meritocratic grounds, but even merit-based selection is conflated with variables that decrease the diversity of admitted applicants. In many societies, there is a strong degree of\u00a0assortative mating<\/a>\u00a0based on income and class. In the U.S., affluent people are\u00a0more likely<\/a>\u00a0to marry other affluent people, and families with more money can afford to pay for schools, tutors, extracurriculars, and other privileges that increase their child\u2019s likelihood of accessing an elite college education. This, in turn, affects the entire trajectory of that child\u2019s future, including their\u00a0future career prospects<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 providing a clear advantage to some and a clear disadvantage to others.<\/p>\n

When employers attach value to university qualifications, it\u2019s often because they see them as a reliable indicator of a candidate\u2019s intellectual competence. If that is their focus, why not just use psychological assessments instead, which are much\u00a0more predictive<\/a>\u00a0of future job performance, and\u00a0less confounded<\/a>\u00a0with socioeconomic status and demographic variables?<\/p>\n

Having said that, universities could substantially increase the value of the college degree if they spent more time teaching their students critical soft skills. Recruiters and employers are unlikely to be impressed by candidates unless they can demonstrate a certain degree of\u00a0people-skills<\/a>. This is perhaps one of the biggest differences between what universities and employers look for in applicants. While employers want candidates\u00a0with higher levels of EQ<\/a>, resilience, empathy, and integrity, those are rarely attributes that universities nurture or select for in admissions. As the impact of AI and disruptive technology grows, candidates who can perform tasks that machines cannot\u00a0are becoming more valuable<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and that underscores the growing importance of soft skills, which are hard for machines to emulate.<\/p>\n

In a recent ManpowerGroup\u00a0survey<\/a>\u00a0of 2,000 employers, over 50% of organizations listed problem-solving, collaboration, customer service, and communication as the most valued skills. Likewise, a recent report by\u00a0Josh Bersin<\/a>\u00a0noted that employers today are as likely to select candidates for their adaptability, culture fit, and growth potential as for in-demand technical skills (e.g. python, analytics, cloud computing). Additionally, employers like\u00a0Google,\u00a0Amazon, and\u00a0Microsoft, have highlighted the importance of learnability \u2014 being curious and having a\u00a0hungry mind<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 as a key indicator of career potential. This is likely a result of the growing focus on employee training \u2014 one report shows U.S. companies spent over $90 billion on it in 2017.\u00a0Hiring people with curiosity<\/a>\u00a0is likely to maximize the ROI of these programs.<\/p>\n

There is also a huge opportunity for colleges to restore their relevance by helping to fill the learning gap many managers face when they are promoted into a leadership role. Today, people often take on leadership positions without much formal management training. Often,\u00a0the strongest individual contributors are promoted into management<\/a>, even though they haven\u2019t developed the skills needed to lead a team. But if more schools invested in teaching those skills, organizations would have a larger amount of candidates with leadership potential.<\/p>\n

In short, we believe that market demands clearly call for a paradigm change. More and more students are spending more and more money on higher education, and their main goal is largely pragmatic: to boost their employability and be a valuable contributor to the economy. Even if the value attached to a university degree is beneficial to those who obtain it, companies can help change the narrative by putting less weight on \u201chigher education\u201d as a measure of intellectual competence and job potential, and instead, approach hiring with more open-mindedness.<\/p>\n

Read the full Harvard Business Review (HBR) article here.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n