Neither College Nor Career Ready

From Forbes.com

A one-two punch in the past few weeks for the under-thirty crowd.

First, an August survey by Intelligent.com found that employers are really not excited about Gen Z. 75% of the companies surveyed found their new Gen Z hires unsatisfactory. A stunning 6 in 10 had fired a recent college grad they had just hired.

What's the problem? Lack of motivation, lack of professionalism, poor organizational skills and poor communications skills top the list. Or as Huy Nguyen, Intelligent's Chief Education and Career Development Advisor put it:

Many recent college graduates may struggle with entering the workforce for the first time as it can be a huge contrast from what they are used to throughout their education journey. They are often unprepared for a less structured environment, workplace cultural dynamics, and the expectation of autonomous work. Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment.

Meanwhile, a piece by Rose Horowitch at The Atlantic has been zipping around the interwebs sounding the alarm— students are arriving at college never having read an entire book. This comes as zero surprise to K-12 teachers, who have been ringing that bell for years.

There could be any number of explanations, but it is hard not to notice that Gen Z is the first to grow up entirely educated under the waves of modern education reform—No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top, and the Big Standardized Test. These are the students who came up through schools with an education that was centered around test scores which were repeatedly used as a measure of student achievement and school effectiveness.

Read the full piece here.