Smart Skills for Tough Times

On the QT Newsletter, Smart Skills for Tough Times
February 10, 2009
Attachment: Smart Skills Activity Guide

Did You Know? The Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas examined employment trends for the last decade and found that the fastest growing job categories are those that require people skills and emotional intelligence. In addition, Job Web Outlook 2009, reports that employers look to job candidates’ soft skill repertoire when making hiring decisions and are frequently disappointed at their lack of communication and interpersonal skills. It doesn’t matter what career path students choose – they will need great people-skills to add momentum and dimensions to their success, yet many of our students lack these critical skills and are not sure how to build them. The activity outlined below will help increase awareness about the importance of soft skills and get your students discussing their ideas on how to acquire them. In today’s tough economy, good technical skills combined with extraordinary soft skills are smart skills that give students a first class ticket into the workplace.

Try this:
Ask students to define soft skills. Make a list of their responses.
Distribute the Smart Skills for Tough Times attachment.
View this 4-minute video clip on soft skills. STOP and have students respond to the questions on their Smart Skills for Tough Times activity guide at designated times.

• Start the video and stop it at 2:22 to respond to #1.
1:Name several of your technical skills and a couple of your interpersonal skills.
• Continue video and stop it at 3:00 to respond to question #2.
2: Based on 100%, what percentage do you think technical skills and interpersonal and communication skills contribute to career success?
• After the video clip is over, have students answer these questions:
3: According to the Stanford Research Institute study: Technical skills contributed ___% to career success. Soft skills and interpersonal skills, contributed ___% to career success.
4: What are you doing to build your technical skills? What evidence can you provide an employer to document these skills?
5: What are you doing to build you soft skills? What evidence will you have to provide an employer to document these skills?

Finally, ask students to explain their response to question 4 or 5 to the person sitting closest to them. If you want students to do some additional research on soft skills and take a soft skills assessment, assign them the online student lesson, Soft Skills Employers Seek, on the www.wblconnections.com site.

Add an Experience: Following the in-class activity on soft skills, offer students an extra credit assignment for doing three short follow-up interviews. Give them this “Meet Three” activity guide to complete. This exercise encourages them to extend their social contacts with diverse groups of people, to gather information and resources about the workplace. Suggest that students ask their interviewees about soft skills and what role they play in the workplace. Discuss their interview experiences and the responses they received when they report on what they learned.