Colleges and Universities are Producing Clay
As the owner of a digital marketing agency, I can tell you that I appreciate the work colleges and universities put into their students. I am a product of their factories. I have an undergraduate (always thought undergraduate was an interesting choice of words) degree in business from Kansas State University and a Master of Business Administration from Wichita State University. The system works in some respects, but fails in others.
What did I get out of college?
- Fun
- Independence
- Responsibility
- Endurance
- Perseverance
- A rounded view of the world
- Patience
- General knowledge in a field of study
What did I not get out of college?
- The ability to walk in and help with specific tasks from “Day One”
- A look at the cutting edge of technology. I was in the field of M.I.S. (Management of Information Systems), but still did not know how to run major systems, write code in a marketable language, do SEO, write API calls, etc. I am sure some of this was degree dependent, but not all of it.
- A free job. Believe it or not, I think people actually think this is a thing.
- A guaranteed income. See #3.
An Acknowledgement of the Situation
It would be great to leave employment training to colleges and universities, but that just isn’t realistic. The needs vary by company and by position. It is better for colleges to train generalists than specialists. That being said, we employers must acknowledge that it leaves the specialized training to us. When employees join our companies, we must have training available, documentation in place, procedures outlined, and all of that built in such a way that there is slack in the system for individuals to learn and provide their unique touch.
What would we like to see in a student coming out of college?
This is very specific for my advertising agency, but I need more than a generalized marketing and advertising professional. Did anyone out there take a class on SEO? Is anyone AdWords certified? Could both of those be reasonably covered in a semester? Yes.
We also use quite a few writers. A communication degree is a great start, but there is more to it than simply writing. Sales professionals have no experience selling and have not even read some of the most important books on sales. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure business schools always offer a class in sales. To take this one step further, my business partner and I were talking about how sales is sometimes considered a fall-back for people who don’t get jobs. In reality, sales drive companies. If you hear something to the contrary, then you aren’t hearing the truth.
I know these examples are specific, but they are some I can offer from my own experience. I will leave it to you to extend these to other areas. It’s not that big of a stretch.
The Wrap
Colleges and universities are doing what they do best. They crank out graduates that are ready to go, in terms of general knowledge and availability, and they leave the specialized training to those of us in the business world. We need the people, but we need to help the people get better. The more we can work with high education to help them understand our needs, the better we will be at closing the gap.
