The topic for this month’s newsletter articles is the reestablishment of the connection between businesses and educational institutions. Businesses are loudly complaining today that university graduates aren’t qualified for employment. The primary way that organizations can solve this issue is to forge new relationships with schools and colleges.
On the other hand, schools are struggling to provide the needed support for students, as they’ve lost track of how to guide them towards future success. Businesses are in dire need of this symbiotic relationship and so, in fact, are the schools. What can be done?
Enter Successful Businesspeople
To begin with, businesspeople can begin to physically reach out to high schools, colleges and universities. Traditionally, educational institutions have had “career days” in which people from various fields have come in and spoken to the students, briefing them about their fields and providing information for anyone interested in that field. Taking advantage of this, businesspeople can offer to come in and address students.
In addition to discussing their fields and careers, these people can provide their views on why they were successful in their particular fields. These views can provide encouragement to students looking to follow the same or similar paths—they can realize, “Maybe this is a career path I could follow.”
Along with this encouragement, businesspeople and those in different fields can provide their views on their own specific job marketplaces. What kinds of positions are available? Which companies are hiring, and what roles are they hiring for? What paths can graduates take to get there?
The fact is students will listen more closely to someone who is actually in a particular field than teachers or even their parents. It is valuable mentoring. It could even happen that students become attracted to particular companies and organizations—perhaps even fields—based on these talks.
Schools Utilizing Information
At the same time, can the schools and colleges make use of the information being provided by businesspeople and individuals in particular fields? They absolutely can, in at least two powerful ways.
As discussed above, schools are somewhat at a loss in providing guidance to students. This even comes down to the curriculum that they’re providing. If graduating students aren’t succeeding in the working world, it is evident that educational institutions aren’t providing them with the right pathways and curriculum before they graduate.
So, schools and educational institutions can utilize the information provided by visiting businesspeople and others to create study guides for students. They can also use it to procure or even create a proper curriculum. In the end, this utilization will mean that students are once again on the road to success in the working environment.
From “Hoping for the Best” to Confidence
Currently, both faculty and students in schools and colleges are drifting along “hoping for the best” in producing graduates who will actually succeed in the working world—and as seen by current statistics and complaints by companies, that “best” is not happening.
Businesspeople must reach out and connect or reconnect with schools, colleges, and universities to provide real-world insight and once again attract qualified applicants.
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