Global Career Compass
Leveraging Education Abroad for Student Career Development & Employability
Musings & Comments About Value of International Education and Coping With Uncertainty
Over the years, I’ve regularly commented about what others have written online in essays or blog posts… here are a few selected statements which reflect my point of view:
“…there are very few campuses in the country [the U.S.] whose study abroad or career service offices are equipped to provide the kind of [integrated] advising and oversight of learning outcomes at each stage of student decision-making and participation in study abroad.” (My research for the 2014 monograph on Campus Best Practices Supporting Study Abroad & Student Career Development confirmed this judgement)
“…while true that employers value a great many of the skills which students gain through study abroad, the best way to assist them [students] build upon their experience in the marketplace is to provide purposeful and intentionally designed preparatory programs for students before they leave campus, while they’re abroad, and after they return to campus…”
“…the benefits of international experience are sustainable only if institutions assist students to purposefully integrate their experience into both their academic studies and their career development plan.”
“I believe that current global workforce trends have created a transformational environment in which employers view the value-added of international experience with a less rose-colored lens. Study abroad advisors and career service professionals need to harmonize their practices to provide students with more concrete goals to help them determine which study abroad program provides the greatest value.”
“Regardless of major or field of interest, it is in every students’ -and family’s – self-interest to understand the consequences of their choices with respect to courses, internships, work-study or international experience during their college years.”
“There is ample research which supports the importance of international education experiences -from the perspective of employers – in terms of achieving significant skill building and career development outcomes for students.”
“Our society rewards the over-determined career plan much more so than in past years…in an uncertain economic climate, when almost all students incur high debt to graduate college, it makes sense for students to fully prepare for the uncertainties they will likely face in a global marketplace.”
Got competencies? Better than getting good grades?
My collection of articles, reports and surveys about the alignment of the global higher education system and the workplace never remains static. The attention on figuring out how to reduce youth un and under-employment remains a constant source of analysis and a sustaining topic at conferences on all continents. And why not? This lengthy report in the World Financial Review is a comprehensive compendium of the data and bleak situation facing youth (focused on Europe): http://www.worldfinancialreview.com/?p=598#.VrFkoVCAMeuE.email.
“In 2013, eight million young Europeans – the so-called ‘NEETS’- are not employed, pursuing an educaeir tion or involved in training. This translates into one young person out of seven.” Globally, the International Labor Organization has estimated that 75 million youths are unemployed.
We’ve seen a rejuvenated movement toward innovative attempts to close the gap between what students study in college or university and the demands of the workplace. A renewed interest in revitalizing vocational education, more money in the U.S. to support training & industry partnerships at our community colleges [which, by the way, have always been at the forefront of developing skills and competencies to match jobs and growing occupational titles in their states and local communities], new MOOCs, and one-off partnerships with industry-leaders willing to fund specific curricular programs and internships tied to specific openings in their business. All good. But quite insufficient to meet the huge number of unemployed in both developed and developing nations.
Where to focus the attention of educators and government policy-makers? On the supply-side or on the demand-side? Is the entire Western model of a residential university in need of an overhaul? Is there a need to become more engaged in the training of K-12 teachers to better educate children BEFORE they enter the university system? Should all students blend both classroom time with off-campus practicum training (remember that Northeastern has been successfully doing this in their domestic and international co-op curriculum for a long time)? The SIT Graduate Institute has -for 50 years- successfully integrated practical internships with classroom work and the result is a highly employable group of students in the field of international development.
The focus on this so-called “skills agenda” has been analyzed in reports like UNESCO’s “Education for All Monitoring Report;” the Asian Development Bank’s report, “Improving Transitions from School to University to Workplace;” and the Mckinsey & Company’s report, “Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works.
Which way forward? I think it is clear that changes in the global economic system have forced the education industry to radically re-think its mission, purpose and overall structure. As Andreas Schleicher -advisor on education to the OECD Secretary General – is quoted as saying: “…without the right skills, people languish on the margins of society, technological progress doesn’t translate into economic growth, and countries can’t compete in today’s economies.”
Career “Readiness” & Workforce Development
It would be excellent if there was an online library showing successful partnerships in every state to better train & provide access to good jobs for low-income & minority communities.
I’m very interested in efforts to link career training with community-based organizations, industry and community colleges. I believe the Obama administration is making an important contribution in its focus on community colleges for this reason. These two stories describe creative approaches to closing the skills gap for low income and minority communities in PA and MN:
In PA, the Highmark company is providing $2 million in funding to 25 organizations across the state for career development and job training through the Highmark Local Workforce Initiative. The initiative was created to recognize organizations that demonstrate the proven ability to make an impact in diverse rural and urban neighborhoods where there may be minority populations, individuals with a disability, veterans or displaced workers seeking career opportunities and advancements.
In MN, VISTA has built a partnership with the Women’s Fund and Presenting Yourself for first-generation college women to enable Central Lakes College to equip…
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Role of Private Sector in Linking Education & Employability
Maybe this is a case of the glass half empty – if numbers are correct, 70% of employers DO find skilled talent! But the trend has been clear for many years: most employers are not budgeting resources to “upgrade” skills of hired talent. The catch 22 is that graduates need to strategically gain these skills outside the classroom.
Reporting on IFC conference on private education, “Making Global Connections,” University World News http://test.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2012031514592545 offers glimpse of growing efforts to bridge employer needs for talent with innovative private sector education initiatives.
The article states: Some “30% of employers globally say they do not find enough people for the jobs that they have,” Gassan Al-Kibsi, managing partner at McKinsey and Company in Saudi Arabia, told the IFC’s conference on private education held in Dubai from 6-8 March. Top-up courses for graduates, devised with industry in mind, can bridge the gap between academic courses and working life. Such courses are organised to supplement university degrees and are often provided by private or non-profit institutions. “Government institutions are often unable to understand employers’ needs,” Al-Kibsi said.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has built an investment portfolio of US$400 million involving 69 projects in 33 countries, many of them in higher education. “Like it or not, the…
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Youth Perceptions of Corruption: Help Overcome the Data Deficit!
Without accountability and transparency, youths will remain unconvinced there is a place for them in the workforce to positively contribute to their country’s economic development.
A sign in Zimbabwe indicating that all may not consider illegal pirating as corrupt.
By: Brooks Marmon, Accountability Architect
In many countries across the world, demographics are dominated by an ever rising youth population. In Nepal, for example, roughly 50% of the population is under the age of 24. In Liberia, where the Lab also works, the same percentage is under 15 years old. Governments and researchers have long been concerned by the political and security implications of this ‘youth bulge’. Yet there is little hard data on youth perceptions of the ills in society- like corruption- that might lead to disengagement or violence among this demographic. An important ongoing survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) seeks to fill this gap by assessing corruption perceptions among millennials around the world.
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Youth Unemployment – A Global Crisis
Unequal access to university support services creates unequal outcomes for graduates
Reading this blog post on World Bank site, http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/we-need-youth-jobs-revolution, I was struck that the problem, the actors involved, and the solutions – all were as applicable to the youth unemployment problem in the United States as in the developing world (the ostensible aim of the dialogue held at the Bank during their meetings in DC earlier this month).
“The Bank-sponsored session demonstrated a consensus around the need to promote market-based solutions so young people gain the life and employability skills that match the demands of the local economy. Panelists also underscored the need to teach young people the skills to create and build their own businesses. However, according to Jill Huntley, global managing director for corporate citizenship at Accenture, emerging entrepreneurs need more than access to capital. “We need to create an ‘ecosystem’ of support for them to succeed,” she said. “
I like the notion of creating an…
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Some College Can Be Worse Than None
This story in the Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-bit-of-college-can-be-worse-than-none-at-all-1413158511, was troubling to read; and the headline did not at first appear to make sense. But, the stats point to a very troubling issue in our higher education system – one which I usually thought of only as a problem in our high schools. And this is the growing number of students who do not complete college..
“Nearly one-third of students who started college in 2012 did not return to a U.S. school the following year…” and even more telling, “roughly two-thirds of students who return to school,” according to a 2013 Career Builder survey of 2,600 hiring managers.
These same students do accumulate debt for those courses they take, however, the unfortunate burden they also carry is that merely attending some classes does not have any more impact on their earnings than if they had only completed high school. And the changing nature of the workforce is that most employers (50% in a 2013 CareerBuilder survey of 2,600 hiring managers) prefer to hire college graduates – even when the jobs they recruit for could be performed by someone with only a high school degree.
Seems to me this story supports the growing sentiment that going to college may prove too burdensome for those students for whom a two-year degree or some form of technical certification makes more sense in relation to their career -and financial- aspirations. Bottom line for high school guidance counselors: tell your seniors that if they really want to reap the personal and professional rewards of going to college, go and COMPLETE the degree!
Colleges Get Career-Minded: Some View Issue of Employability as “Mission-Critical”
Considering that about 70 million youths in the world – according to the International Labor Organization- are unemployed, then there could hardly any doubt about how mission-critical it is for tertiary institutions to focus on the employability of their graduates.
This story in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention: http://intranews.sns.it/intranews/20120523/MI43141.PDF . The thrust is that the transformative [my word] economic downturn has forced colleges -especially those with a liberal arts curriculum at the core of their mission- to consider and/or devise coursework and programs tied to practical workplace-related experience. Or said in another way, “blending liberal and applied learning.” Are we supposed to be shocked with the very idea that institutions should be concerned with the readiness of their graduates to enter the workforce? According to this article, “some schools [how many is that?]” are moving forward to make career development a “mission critical” aspect of the college experience.
I’d like to know where those institutions are where the future careers of their students are not considered, on any level, “mission critical.” I agree with those who are wary of pushing too close to the line which separates…
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Matching Student Expectations to Global Workforce
Perhaps “re-aligning” expectations is a better way to frame this idea…
See my new blog posted to the global dialogue page for the European Association of International Education at: http://www.eaie.org/blog/students-global-workforce
As higher education has become a globalized industry, it should be easier to embrace more creative partnerships with businesses that must compete in a global economy. Finding the right points of intersection for students requires institutions to do a better job of assisting students to interpret and articulate the value of their international experiences to employers….
New Guide to Assist Students Understand Career Impact of Studying Abroad
Looking to design a more intentional and integrated approach to advising students about the impact of their ed abroad experience? This plan could be what you’re looking for…
Taken from a NAFSA webinar, Helping Students Translate ‘Study Abroad’ for the Job Search, in Spring 2013, which had close to 1,000 participants; go to http://www.nafsa.org/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=42998 for a free download.
There were three of us who teamed up to create this Guide and conduct the webinar: I worked with Vera Chapman at Colgate (in career services) and Curtiss Stevens (in study abroad) at the University of Texas at Austin. We crafted an integrated approach which may serve as a useful template for campus practitioners.
This is a model plan to help students consider the career implications of their decision to study abroad. If you use a different one on your campus, please share it with me at martyjtillman@gmail.com
Global Career Compass 