Transitioning from School to the Workplace
Navigating The Transition From School To The Workplace
AS PUBLISHED BY THE DIANE REHM SHOW ON APRIL 14, 2016
Freshly minted graduates will soon take their degrees and set out into the workplace. But the path from college to career is not as obvious as it once was. Over the last few decades, unemployment among young college graduates has gone up while wages have gone down. Today, nearly half are underemployed. Add the burden of student debt and life post-graduation can seem pretty scary. A longtime chronicler of higher education says it doesn’t need to be that way. In a new book, he lays out a blue print for navigating the transition. A panel of experts joins him – and us – to discuss life after college.
The Diane Rehm Show invites four guests to discuss the transition and how recent graduates can navigate successfully in the workplace.
Guests Include:
Jeffrey Selingo regular contributor on higher education, the Washington Post; author, “There is Life After College: What Parents And Students Should Know About Navigating School To Prepare For The Jobs Of Tomorrow”
Anthony Carnevale director and research professor, Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University
Kristen Hamilton CEO and co-founder, Koru
Andy Chan vice president for innovation and career development, Wake Forest University
EXCERPT:
MS. KRISTEN HAMILTON: But, for example, I think what sits in the chasm between college and career really boils down to three things. It’s that they are missing relevant skills that are specific to jobs. But it’s, as Jeff said, it’s not just about those hard skills. It’s also about a set of experiences and a set of networks. And just even knowing that they need to network, right? Which is just this sort of idea that there’s this whole set of other impact skills and soft skills which really tend to be the most important things that they are lacking that helps them to make that transition. And so what we’re really done at Koru is we’ve taken the employer view. We really tried to understand what is it that employers need for our early-career hires? And we try to communicate that to college graduates. We try to help employers select people based on those right things. And then we also try to help those college graduates to really gain those things to land in jobs that they will love.
