In this article, employers are talking about the most weakest skill graduate students have: communication skills. A lot of employers are highly disappointed during the interviewing process when they hear and see poor communication. By poor communication I mean that they don’t answer the question that they are being asked, they don’t make the contact with the employer that they should to show a strong and confident person, and they lack they proper knowledge of what to say. Thus the number one priority for recruiters today is having strong communication skills.
Having strong communication is not only necessary to get the foot in the door, its necessary for the workplace. Having a strong set of communication skills allows us to fully express the potential we carry within us. It doesn’t matter how well we know how to do something in the workplace if we can’t make ourselves understandable to others. To help college students enter the work force, most colleges have now made speech class a requirement. In some classes, presentations have also been incorporated to strengthen communication skills.
I agree that communication skills are very important and very hard to find nowadays. With instant messaging, people don’t present well curbed and thought out statements. However, the fault isn’t always on oneself. The problem is that different ethnic groups are raised to act a certain way when it comes to speaking and being spoken to. For example, in China, when someone is speaking to you of higher authority, it is considered disrespectful to make eye contact. Whereas in America, if you lack eye contact, you lack attention. Also, different ethnic groups understand communication differently. Someone might understand a Chinese person to be shy when in truth, they’re just being respectful. Whereas someone might understand a Black person to be loud and noisy when in truth, they’re just talking.