College students are fresh minds that have the power to alter the economy for the better or worse. It depends on how well they are trained and educated in their respective fields of specializations. It also depends on the quality of opportunities they get outside of their college campus, especially career opportunities.
It should be noted that while the concept of ‘Career’ is further divided into three major categories namely: 1) Internships 2) Industry Visits 3) Profession; it is the last one i.e. ‘Profession’, which defines a candidate’s career path. It shapes the trajectory of work-life and determines the success rate of the candidate.
This makes it all the more imperative that a fresh graduate lands the right job that not only suits their career choice but is also instrumental in providing the right platform for career growth and prosperity. After all, the chief purpose of management education is to bring out the latent expertise in every candidate for the benefit of the economy.
To ensure that no deserving graduate has to face the adversity of unemployment, it is important for management schools to educate students regarding the rudimentary credentials that companies are looking for. These include soft skills, hard skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, final year grades, subject knowledge and the level of industry exposure. The eminent fraternity at Globsyn Business School (GBS) understands the importance of this and tries relentlessly to identify and harness the latent qualities in every graduate.
Following are some in-depth explanations of the aforementioned criteria:
Professionalism
Every employer expects a certain degree of professionalism from graduates. By professionalism, they mean the ability to cultivate a professional attitude that aligns with the interests of the company. This ranges from being punctual, achieving targets under constraints, managing schedules, maintaining turnaround times, cultivating proper work ethics, upholding integrity, being co-operative and with colleagues, managers, teams, etc. This credential is highly valued by every corporate because it guarantees a good hire and shows how a candidate is willing to abide by and uphold the corporate culture.
How Do Employers Test Professionalism?
Employers don’t leave a stone unturned when it comes to examining professionalism. They do it in the very first step when hiring candidates i.e., the initial interview rounds. From the moment a candidate enters the interview room, they get scanned every second for this criterion. The way a candidate talks, their body language, their attitude, the way they respond to interview questions, their politeness, etc. everything gets tested. Even honesty and integrity get examined by the interviewers in their own devised ways. So, a graduate should keep this in mind when applying for their dream companies.
Team Spirit
Modern employers view teamwork not as an option, but as an integral necessity for organizational success. The market always has a high demand for candidates adept in building teams and working with them to meet the desired goals. With increasing awareness about the effectiveness of teamwork, corporate leaders are being propelled to adopt this synergistic model and hire talents who culture the same. Candidates having this ability or those enthusiastic about working in teams have been observed to deliver better results in corporate affairs than those who don’t share the same mentality. Thus, team spirit is currently considered to be one of the most desired skillsets in the market.
How Do Employers Test Team Spirit?
This test is mainly conducted in campus recruitments. Usually, there are interview rounds where a group of students is assigned a specific task that requires synergistic effort. The interviewers observe how well each candidate is collaborating with others and being persistent in bringing out the best possible result. The contributions are measured with the teamwork parameter and the employer tries to pinpoint those who have displayed maximum team spirit. Therefore, it is always recommended to be educated and trained in teamwork before appearing for the interview as a fresher.
Communication Skills
Effective communication is the key to organizational success. The flow of information is regulated by healthy communication within a company. Thus, employers expect fresh graduates to be good at communication on an entry-level at least. Be it oral or written communication, candidates should be able to convey the relevant corporate information to the right authority at the right time and in the right attitude. Communication counts as one of the most significant interpersonal skills that are instrumental in circulating information throughout a company. Colleges should ensure that the students get the right training in effective corporate communication.
How Do Employers Test Communication Skills?
When conducting interviews, employers make substantial efforts in determining whether the desired communication skill is present in the candidate or not. Each candidate is subject to both oral and written tests, where the fluency, vocabulary, sentence framing and articulation is measured against the set parameters. Broken communication like stammering, thinking too much before framing a sentence, using inappropriate words in the wrong context, etc. are all seen as lack of training in communication. Thus, students appearing for interviews should evaluate their current stage of grammatical efficiency and accordingly work on them.
Leadership Qualities
In this age of dynamic changes, where both the economy and the corporations in it are undergoing rapid alterations, leadership has become the key to identifying trends from beforehand and implementing them before the emergence of competitions. Leaders set trends that are aimed at bringing economic benefits as well as driving inspirations in people and corporations alike. When hiring fresh graduates, companies look for individuals that have leadership traits and are willing to make an impact on the economy. This mind-set is very much desired by corporations as it is considered to be the driving factor for organizational level success. A leader has to make sure that the company goals are perfectly aligned with the inner purpose that drives each employee. Not only that, a leader is responsible for showing the right path, however challenging it seems, that eventually leads to organizational success.
How Do Employers Test Leadership Qualities?
First, the interviewers notice how motivated the candidate is for committing themselves to the company. Then they enquire about their readiness and enthusiasm about accepting organization-level challenges. This is done because of the notion that if a leader is not inspired themselves, they can never inspire others to achieve their desired results. Here, they also test how a candidate can function with a team because a leader, after all, has to inspire people and drive them from within. The interviewers will put forward questions regarding several challenges that are concerned with people’s motivation and see how articulately the candidate is coming up with solutions. The leadership methods are also observed by the interviewers as they attempt at determining which style of leadership does the candidate cultivates when providing solutions.
Logical Reasoning & Critical Thinking
When strategizing company-level solutions, managers use the ability of critical thinking to determine patterns in the challenges and chalk out solutions from the vast network of complexity. Coming up with the right solution requires a complementary synergy of logical reasoning and critical thinking. With the rise in complex corporate strategies, competition as well as data science and its applications in economy and management, it has become all the more important to hire people decently equipped with the ability of logical reasoning and critical thinking. Employers are nowadays seeking individuals who can contribute to the domain of strategic management and collaborate with executive-level employees in crafting frameworks that can provide both agility and stability in the modern economic environment.
How Do Employers Test The Ability of Logical Reasoning & Critical Thinking?
Employers usually go for the usual method of testing candidates with mathematical problems, subject related knowledge, number series, case studies, tally making and other situational problems that require systematic logical reasoning and critical thinking. Candidates appearing for the interviews should practice studying real-world case studies that involve corporations overcoming managerial issues and setting frameworks for the next generations of business leaders. They need to think about the way a CEO thinks, or a member of the board approaches a specific problem concerning the organization. This will not only build the desired business acumen but also instil in them the rudimentary managerial quality required by modern corporations.
How GBS Prepares Young Minds
With an edifice built on Innovation, Research and Technology, coupled with its philosophy of learning ‘Beyond Education’, Globsyn Business School (GBS) is well on its path to create a globally networked, corporate savvy, research driven management education system, which moves beyond traditional forms of management knowledge dissemination to a research based delivery framework to create ‘Industry Relevant Managers’ – an agile group of professionals equipped to operate in today’s technology driven business environment.
Source:
https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/8-characteristics-great-managers-look-for-in-college-grads/
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/5-skills-employers-want-in-new-grads-and-arent-finding
https://wmich.edu/career/students/transferableskills