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Putting our focus
on soft skills
STEPHEN ISHERWOOD
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, INSTITUTE OF
STUDENT EMPLOYERS (ISE)
he song of jubilee rang out
loud and clear on results
day this August when,
despite A level reforms,
students achieved the highest
proportion of top grades in six years.
Education secretary Damian Hinds
congratulated pupils. Apparently, the
next generation of workers is well on
its way to gaining the skills Britain needs.
With all A level assessment now
taking place at the end of the two-year
course, and being largely exam-based,
students will, in theory, develop a
deeper understanding of a subject,
preparing them better for further study
or work. Universities have been at the
root of the A level reforms, having
reported that many students lack skills
a n d knowl edge requ i red for
undergraduate learning. Businesses
have voiced similar concerns.
The key soft skills young people
need to make a successful transition
into the workplace are broadly
recognised as: teamwork, interpersonal
skills, problem solving, self awareness,
business communication, commercial
awareness, negotiation, dealing with
conflict and managing up. However,
according to findings from this year’s
Institute of Student Employers (ISE)
Development Survey, less than half of
employers think graduates have these
skills at the point of hiring; skills training
climbed a place in the list of top 10
challenges faced by employers.
T
26 // EMPLOYABILITY
It’s a myth that employers expect to
recruit fully versed, work-ready young
people. They acknowledge that gaps
in soft skills are widespread and actively
work to close them. Last year,
three-quarters of firms took specific
actions to help close skills gaps, with
changes to recruitment and on-the-job
training the two most common. The
average two-year graduate programme
contains 11 days of soft skills training.
Closing skills gaps
Our survey shows the gap between the
skills employers say graduates have
when they start work and those in which
they invest to develop. In many cases,
specific gaps are expected. For
example, 70% of employers expect
early careers recruits to struggle in
dealing with conflict and 66% expect
that they will not have commercial
awareness. The most common surprises
are a lack of business communication
skills and of self-awareness.
The widest gaps are found in the
complex areas of working with others:
managing up, dealing with conflict and
working across team structures.
Dan Doher t y, graduate and
apprentice attraction and recruitment
manager at Capgemini UK, reiterates
the importance of teamwork:
“When we recruit for graduate roles,
we look for those who know how to
collaborate – whether working with
clients or colleagues, remotely, virtually
Employers view secondary
school as the best place
to instil self-awareness,
problem solving,
interpersonal skills and
teamwork in young people.
or face-to-face. They also need to be
adaptable since constant change is the
new normal,” he says.
“On top of that, graduates need to
show us that when they come across
a problem, they don’t freeze. Even if
they don’t find the solution right away,
we want to see how they’d go about
solving it. To really stand out, they need
to demonstrate curious thinking.
Generating ideas and solutions to help
clients is what we do, so we look for
graduates who will keep innovating, in
even the smallest (or dullest) of things.”
The challenge of closing skills gaps
can be applied to apprentices as well
as to graduates. Both demographics
lack similar skills, though the gaps are
“It’s a myth that
employers expect to
recruit fully versed,
work-ready
young people”