The Number One Employability Skill Students Need but Aren't Learning

Many years ago, before I went to college, there was a prediction of a nurse shortage. On nearly every channel the news was talking about it. We needed more nurses and soon or the hospitals would be empty and patients would suffer. They were, of course, right. There are quite a few shortages we can manage, you don’t want them to be in healthcare. All of my friends at the time were going to college to study nursing and get that big fat $50,000 check. It seemed like a huge amount of money to working class families. There were so many students trying to go into nursing that many of the nursing programs didn’t have enough space for all those who wanted to study in the field. The programs became highly competitive. Soon, you had to be a high performer to get into nearly any nursing program in the state. Students were often left to apply and reapply for several years, taking classes in between to try to improve their chances. The select few, the cream of the crop, that made it through and endured the long hours of studying, clinicals and state exams finished their degree and were rewarded with part-time employment and temp work. Some of the lucky ones worked shifts where they had to do the job of multiple nurses, but at least it was full-time. They worked long hours that took a toll on their young tired bodies and their minds. This was not what they had signed up for.

Many of those friends who started out with a plan to study nursing had to choose between hoping that someday they would eventually get accepted or moving on to a new opportunity. For those that decided to wait, some got in. Those who made it had to decide if they could survive in the high-demand career they chose for another 40 plus years. For those that did not get accepted, well, it was often the end of their college dream. They had no back up plan, no other options they could find acceptable. They could not adapt. Many of them believed an injustice had been done. They had done what they were supposed to do and something or someone had betrayed them.

Years later, in the midst of the 2007 economic crisis I was workin in the admissions office of a college. Our office was suddenly inundated with former bankers and financial experts that could not find a job that paid like the one they had before. Many could not find any job. One woman in particular in her mid-fifties told me, “I was foolish, I didn’t think it could end so I never made preparations or had a backup plan.” She had brought her son along so he could learn from her "mistakes". She had worked her way up the ranks at a local bank not needing a degree because she was great at her job. She didn't pick up any certification or participate in other educational opportunities. She had not diversified her employment options. She said, “I am literally unqualified to do anything else. I feel like such a failure.” Some of her colleagues went into teaching or leveraged certifications and degrees in other areas they collected along the way. Some shut-down or gave up. While she was likely going to have a long road back to her six figure salary, she was still one of the lucky ones. She knew she needed to quickly learn new skills and returned to school immediately to add some certifications and education to her extensive experience. While she may have been mistakenly comfortable, she was clearly adaptable. Many people are not. We see it in coal, we see it in technology, and we see it in education.

The jobs, careers, and opportunities of tomorrow do not exist today. Industries rise and fall. Often, there is no hint at what industry will dominate our future. Yet, most of the college and career readiness efforts focus on preparing students for the jobs that are available now. Of course, this makes absolute since as students will have opportunities in the near future which is important. However, it is in the more distant future when students will most need to gain sufficient employment. When they have children, a car note, and a house note. However, I have yet to see many programs focusing on the one skill that every person in the workforce will have to have now and into the future, adaptability. The worker of tomorrow will need to be someone who can learn and adapt quickly. While it is amazing that we teach our students coding or about STEM, in the workforce of tomorrow the things we are teaching will look completely different or possibly be obsolete. Are they prepared to quickly acquire new skills needed to be successful? 

Our discussions about high-demand careers can sometimes mislead students about the certainty they will forever have a job. To many of our students our explanations about salary and jobs sounds like a promise, a guarantee. They are therefore unprepared for the likelihood that getting a high-demand job today may not secure the high-demand job of tomorrow if they cannot adapt and identify emerging opportunities. Students need to understand that the workforce is ever changing and that they will have to change as well. If they are not prepared, those changes can feel like failures or even a betrayal. Most of us know someone whose job has become redundant at one time or another. It isn’t hard to guess some of the jobs that will become redundant in the future and there are plenty more we can’t possibly see coming. For those we know are ending, it only requires a bit of research to see many of the workers in these industries are not preparing for life after their position ends. Many do not know how. The workforce of the future will have to endure change upon change.

The workforce of tomorrow will have to be able to quickly adapt and learn in emerging industries with new technologies. We must prepare students to live in that world. It may mean changing how we develop our CCMR programs. Something as simple as providing students the opportunity to work with others in a different program of study on a multidisciplinary project could plant the seed of understanding how to adapt to another industry. Identifying programs that can incorporate to diversify a student’s skills such as using project-based learning to require students understand how to produce and create using technology and do more than push a button or swipe right. To often having technology or even using technology is mistaken for understanding technology. There is also the opportunity to incorporate certifications that are diverse into multiple programs such as the Certified Associate of Project Management, a well-regarded certification that could open doors in multiple industries. Much of today’s work is project based. This certification could fit into nearly any pathway. Districts can also reach out to their network to find people who earned degrees in those specific pathways, but ended up working in others. This will help students understand that very few career paths are straight and they will likely need to be flexible to find success.

Adaptability isn’t just a powerful employability skill, it is a necessary life skill. Every year, thousands of students leave home to go off to college. As much as 52% return home before completing their degree. These aren’t just the students who barely made it out of high school. They are often top performers who struggled to adapt, they are students from all walks of life, and all socioeconomic levels. I don’t have the statistics, but I am sure many of these students can be found on couches throughout the country playing video games and swiping the day away. Hiding from life not despite being amazing kids. They likely had a single oversimplified definition of success that did not leave room for flexibility. If your single definition of success is going away to college or finishing at a specific college and you end up back at home, you are not likely to be primed to keep moving. You are more likely to see yourself as a failure. Few people young or old can distinguish the difference from failing and being a failure. A person that defines themselves as a failure isn’t going to be easy to move in a new direction. I often field calls from concerned parents who have a young adult trapped in this few of themselves.

We see something similar when students exit college and the job they thought they were preparing for is unavailable to them. They believe they are preparing for specific positions or jobs, not for opportunities in general. I will be writing about how taking the jobs no one wants can help you build an amazing career in the upcoming weeks. How are you preparing your students or your children to be able to adapt and navigate change? How has being adaptable helped you find success?