Global Career Compass

This is a topic which has been around for a long time; it has surfaced as a hot issue in terms of the impact of the recession on state economic development.  And this in turn has led to a discussion about the linkage between college majors and entry into the workforce after graduation.   Wake Forest is holding an interesting conference this week on “Rethinking success” and their site has a great list of readings:  http://rethinkingsuccess.wfu.edu/resources

I’ve been meaning to comment on this Chronicle article: http://chronicle.com/article/In-China-as-Job-Possibilities/131127/.  I thought it was difficult enough to work with 500 students at Hopkins-SAIS career services; now we see an awakening of a new career path for Chinese higher ed professionals in the career counseling field! Of course, they are having to deal with finding employment for 6.3 million college grads!

Actually, the campus offices are referred to as “employment-guidance” centers. The case study in this article describes the canter at Nankai University in Tianjin.  While the typical Western career services office employs a variety of coaching tools and a variety of service-delivery models, Nankai relies preponderantly on web-based tools.  In the last 4 months of 2011, the web site posted 30,000 job ads from 2,600 employers!

According to the HR director of a major staffing agency, Fesco, students “have no conception of what a job or a career means.”  This points to the legacy of “job allocation” rooted in the Communist system’s practices.  The idea of freedom of choice based upon assessment of student career aspirations may be a goal in the evolving profession of employment counseling, but, it’s  a long term one.

The Global Talent Retention Initiative [GTRI]  http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/03/21/colleges-international-students-key-to-michigans-economic-growth/#.T3NFXtZ_zVk.email of Southeast Michigan is a wonderful model pointing to the convergence of interests among educators, academic institutions, and industry –all working together towards the economic revitalization of the state. And it illustrates the critical contribution of international students whose career choices and areas of study are highly correlated with job opportunities in the marketplace.

The GTRI is a joint effort of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. The program director states, “So we’re launching an aggressive new effort to help Michigan-based companies fill jobs in the STEM fields with talented engineers from overseas. We think this effort will pay for itself immediately because these employers will have the talent they need to win new contracts and immediately contribute to the Michigan tax base with improved profits and income tax generation.”  Fast-paced economic growth in the health care, computer and engineering sectors, coupled with a shortage of domestic students graduating with degrees in the high-demand science, technology, engineering and math fields, has created a significant percentage of jobs in Michigan that employers are unable to fill, threatening further economic growth and their ability to compete.

 “The fact that there just aren’t enough American-born students earning degrees in the STEM fields means that there is a significant mismatch between degrees granted and available jobs. Programs such as GTRI’s are critically important for connecting businesses with the talent they need to grow and remain globally competitive.” 

The GTRI is a product of the Global Detroit Study about the impact of immigrant talent on the region’s economy. In collaboration with seven partner universities, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Michigan’s economic development agencies, and ethnic chambers and organizations in Southeast Michigan, GTRI provides international students and local employers with training and resources on relevant immigration regulations, finding a job and working in the Detroit area, and many cross-cultural issues that both employers and international applicants may experience during the hiring process.

I was struck by this NY Times op-ed and its focus on a topic not usually reported on in mainstream media –the difficulty of adjusting to life in our globalized economic marketplace:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/opinion/many-still-live-with-homesickness.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

“ACCORDING to a recent Gallup World Poll, 1.1 billion people, or one-quarter of the earth’s adults, want to move temporarily to another country in the hope of finding more profitable work. An additional 630 million people would like to move abroad permanently.” This number might or might not include the 3.3 million students studying outside their home country.  Those of us working on college campuses have direct contact with students, scholars and researchers from around the world – but no matter what purpose one has for leaving one’s home country, it is not an easy transition and often comes with a lot of deeply felt emotional baggage.

The world is flatter, but, this does exacerbate the impact of the transitions we make as we move around the planet. As the writer says, “Technology also seduces us into thinking that migration is painless.”

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 private sector will increasingly be part of the solution in offering skills to young people all over the world,” said Guy Ellena, the IFC’s Istanbul-based regional director of manufacturing, agribusiness and services for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. “We really believe there is a major role for the private sector to complement public education,” he told University World News.

To understand the changing role – and new funding priority – of the IFC with regard to private sector support in the education sector, go to http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120224110837965

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This recent post to University World News caught my attention:  At the University of Rhode Island, their International Engineering Program [IEP] is  designed to fully integrate  international experience with their course of study.  “The IEP’s model, unchanged since its inception 25 years ago, is that of a five-year dual bachelor programme in which students complete a language major alongside the usual engineering curriculum requirements. In order to reinforce nascent language skills, students embark on synchronous study of and work in both disciplines in a country of their choice during the fourth year. The first six months of study at the partner university are followed by a paid internship at an affiliated company for the remainder of the year.”