The Fallacy of Generalising The Most Wanted Skills
(Originally posted on LinkedIn)
Let’s face it, we hear it over and over again that fresh graduates must be ready to master the “top” or “most-wanted” skills in the labour market. Year in year out, you’ll see the list being shown and marketed like a death note to graduates, more than a motivation to flourish or to thrive in the highly competitive job market.
These 5 skills are repeatedly being recycled in many forms:
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Professionalism and strong work ethic
- Oral and written communications skills
- Leadership
The problem I have with this list is that sometimes employers or recruiters are using these as the “easy way” to shortlist some candidates and to exclude the others because in actual fact these skills can only be accurately evaluated over a period of time. It would be rather impossible to judge merely based on a resume or a short interview. Even then, the criteria to evaluate these skills are largely influenced by the culture or “institutional ideology” within the organisation or company. For example, how a business entity defines “critical thinking” would be different from those of other industries.
These specific criteria are normally not spelt out clearly and often advertised as a simplistic keyword of “critical thinking” or “excellent in communication”, making potential candidates to keep trying try luck, shooting in the dark at times. I think if employers are pretty sure of what they need, it would be good to be more specific in the job descriptions as in what do they expect potential employees to have in terms of specific skills. After all, most of the employers would want the hired staff to “function” almost instantly. It would also good for potential candidates to know what they are lacking and be informed explicitly.
Another issue would be expecting candidates to have “all those skills” but unwilling to offer better salary or still go back to the “qualification” reasoning. Yes, there are companies who are willing to spend on talents or excellent graduates, but many are actually playing safe by offering a lower pay. This tendency is perhaps expected since the job market in Malaysia is still pretty much still dominated by semi-skilled or low-skilled jobs. And this situation will continue to worsen due to the pandemic and even graduates with good talents are taking up low-skilled jobs or doing better in gig economy.
There is also a problem with the working environment that contradicts the “most wanted skills” nuance. For instance, seeking employees who are creative but the company is still rigid in following old ways of doing things. This is visible in a lot of survey and interviews we conducted with fresh graduates and employers such as the one we did on communicative ability. There are just many grey areas in the notion of getting candidates with the best skill sets.
“Skills can be useful to an endeavor but hardly set you apart from the teeming throngs who possess the very same competencies. Talents are assets to seek out and cultivate through work worthy of your abilities.” ~Scott Perry, Endeavor: Thrive Through Work Aligned with Your Values, Talents, and Tribe
All in all, the mantra of graduates “lacking essential skills” or “most wanted skills” is turning into more like a cliché. Skills need time to be polished (same with talents) especially within the right environment. Giving fresh graduates an opportunity to showcase their talents and skills is perhaps more vital than asking for a quick-fix type of hiring. Then again, how many organisations or companies are able (or can afford) to do so? But one thing is for sure, we should not fall into the trap of generalising the “most wanted skills”.
