Do you feel that we as graduates fit your qualifications upon completion of college? Is there areas you see that needs to improve.?

This is a really insightful question! I lead campus programs for the organization I'm in and overall the business school programs at major universities are doing a great job graduating exceptional talent into the workforce! If there was one thing I wish college graduates would know more is how to transition from a collegiate to a corporate/professional environment. There is often a big learning curve in how to operate in and navigate a large corporate matrix using soft skills such as influence and simplifying the complex for a solution with an ambiguous problem statement.

Hello Kelly,

Great question indeed! While graduation is accepted level of preparedness for jobs across world and it is the basic qualification to be serving in the corporate as well government jobs including UN. Majority of the government jobs make you to go through initial training that varies from few months to more than a year but in corporate such a long term training concept is almost non existent, however, each organisation has different models/methodology to train a fresher, from few days to weeks of induction period plus 'On the Job' training under supervision before they leave you finally to show your performance solo. So, what is expected out of a graduate is to have basic ability to analyse a situation, come out with possible solutions and then present it in a format which is common in that domain. Generally, oral and presentation skills (Microsoft Power Point) along with some metrics handling capability in excel would be great for a corporate job , however, some special skills are expected in specified category of jobs like editing manuals or publishing a brochure, or making a case presentation in a Law firm etc.

So, if you are looking towards working in a corporate, please analyse your own requirement of training/developing skills including soft skills and then plan & act accordingly before joining a new job. This self analysis can be done best during your intern period wherein you will come to know as to what you are lacking as knowledge or skill that you need to develop.

All the very best!