Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    Hands-On Career Preparation
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    Alternative Pathways
Sign In
The Review

Career-Ready Education Needs Colleges and Businesses Working Together

By Adam Peck September 30, 2018
Career-Ready Education Needs Colleges  and Businesses Working Together 1
David Cutler for The Chronicle

Business can be a fickle friend to higher education, though the symbiotic nature of the two entities is irrefutable. Colleges entice students with the prospect of finding a good job. Business leaders need colleges to prepare a well-trained work force.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Business can be a fickle friend to higher education, though the symbiotic nature of the two entities is irrefutable. Colleges entice students with the prospect of finding a good job. Business leaders need colleges to prepare a well-trained work force.

Whether colleges are holding up their end of the bargain, however, is a source of contention. A common refrain from employers is that colleges must do a better job of preparing students to be ready for “Day 1" on their jobs. In other words, businesses want students to be prepared to succeed with little or no additional training. Given the stunning variety of jobs and careers in our modern age, this is no small feat. However, it is an expectation that higher-education professionals have tried to meet through campus programs and resources, many within campus-career centers.

The efforts seem to be having some success. A recent survey of employers conducted by the Association of American Colleges & Universities found that business executives appeared to be more bullish on higher education than in the recent past, with 82 percent saying that a college degree is essential and 88 percent saying it is worth the time and money to earn. What’s more, 60 percent of hiring managers and executives believed that recent graduates had the skills and abilities to be successful in entry-level positions.

While this was heartening news, it was coupled with an additional assessment: Colleges and universities were not doing enough to prepare students for success beyond their first jobs. For many of us in academe, it is exasperating to realize, perhaps for the first time, that business leaders expect us to prepare students to be ready not only on Day 1 but also for jobs well into the future — in a world that is changing every day. We are expected, in the words of the educator Karl Fisch and others, to prepare students “for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” When the challenges are stated in such blunt terms, it seems outrageous to critique higher education for its inability to do that.

My colleague Michael Preston and I recently released a leadership model, published in the Journal of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, that provides a structure for meeting this seemingly impossible expectation. We propose that, to be successful in preparing students for leadership and success throughout their careers, higher education and business leaders must seek alignment.

Leadership programs on college campuses are often designed to provide practical guidance to students, but they can end up confirming some of the very stereotypes about leadership that they are designed to dispel. Among these are the myths that leadership is a personal quality possessed by some and not all, or that leadership is simply a set of tools that one can acquire and then use to “become a leader.” These cotton-candy notions of leadership melt quickly in the heat of one’s first professional experiences, in which outcomes often gain priority over style or even process.

Additionally, business leaders often invest in management training rather than leadership. While the two share many similarities, management is focused on employing existing strategies and technologies to solve problems that can be predicted, while leadership focuses on developing strategies for problems and opportunities as they emerge. It seems reasonable to conclude that as individuals advance in their careers, the latter ability becomes increasingly instrumental in their success. It also seems logical that leadership programs in college will have only limited power to affect that outcome. Business leaders, too, must adapt what they do to bridge the gap.

Our model proposes that cocurricular experiences on campus — planned learning activities, like structured leadership-development programs, and more-emergent learning experiences, such as participation in a student organization, fraternity or sorority, campus publication, or job — be used to draw students into deeper levels of involvement and leadership. From this engagement, we can create learning outcomes in which students accomplish higher-order learning. This can replace a common method of developing learning outcomes in which broad skills such as “teamwork” or “communication” are encouraged without regard for how students might advance within the skills we identify. That is the rough equivalent of asking a student to take introductory composition in all four years of college.

Skill development is certainly important, but as others have pointed out, what employers often see as a skills gap might actually be an awareness gap. There is ample evidence to suggest that students do develop desirable skills from their experiences both inside and outside the classroom.

The proposed antidote to the awareness gap has been to focus on teaching students to articulate the skills they are gaining. But data from the most recent “Job Outlook” survey, produced annually by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, suggest that this approach may have limited utility. In nearly every competency studied, a considerably higher percentage of students rated themselves proficient than did employers. This suggests that the students’ problem may run deeper than simply learning to recognize their skills.

ADVERTISEMENT

That is why we advance the “Five A’s” of skill development: awareness, acquiring, applying, advancing, and, finally, articulating. Students must first be aware of a skill they want to develop. They then begin the process of learning about it, finding opportunities to apply what they learn, and making a plan to get better. Eventually they can gain the ability to articulate their skill to others.

That dovetails well with the central theme of the model, which is that cocurricular experiences can help students bridge both the skills gap and the awareness gap. These experiences provide learning environments in which students can gain essential skills, which are focused on application, and, even more important, are compelling and fun. Cocurricular experiences are, after all, mostly just group projects that students enjoy doing.

For all of their differences, employers and higher-education professionals have similar goals. Colleges want to prepare students to be knowledgeable in their fields, excel in their careers, and be lifelong learners who can adapt to changes over time. To reach those worthy ideals, however, colleges and industries will need to work together.

Adam Peck is assistant vice president and dean of student affairs at Stephen F. Austin State University.

A version of this article appeared in the October 5, 2018, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Opinion
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Photo-based illustration of scissors cutting through a flat black and white university building and a landscape bearing the image of a $100 bill.
Budget Troubles
‘Every Revenue Source Is at Risk’: Under Trump, Research Universities Are Cutting Back
Photo-based illustration of the Capitol building dome topping a jar of money.
Budget Bill
Republicans’ Plan to Tax Higher Ed and Slash Funding Advances in Congress
Allison Pingree, a Cambridge, Mass. resident, joined hundreds at an April 12 rally urging Harvard to resist President Trump's influence on the institution.
International
Trump Revoked Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students. Now the University Is Suing.
Photo-based illustration of an open book with binary code instead of narrative paragraphs
Culture Shift
The Reading Struggle Meets AI

From The Review

Illustration of a Gold Seal sticker embossed with President Trump's face
The Review | Essay
What Trump’s Accreditation Moves Get Right
By Samuel Negus
Illustration of a torn cold seal sticker embossed with President Trump's face
The Review | Essay
The Weaponization of Accreditation
By Greg D. Pillar, Laurie Shanderson
Protestors gather outside the Pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
The Review | Conversation
Are Colleges Rife With Antisemitism? If So, What Should Be Done?
By Evan Goldstein, Len Gutkin

Upcoming Events

Ascendium_06-10-25_Plain.png
Views on College and Alternative Pathways
Coursera_06-17-25_Plain.png
AI and Microcredentials
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin