The Employment Game Has Changed. Who's Teaching College Students The Rules?

Most college grads and their parents agree it still pays to earn a college degree. However, a just released study from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce reports the pay-off comes when you graduate with specific degrees. The lowest unemployment rate among graduates includes nursing, elementary education, physical fitness, parks and recreation, chemistry and finance. And the highest is among political science, film video and photography arts, anthropology, architecture and information systems majors. The co-author of the study, Anthony Carnevale said in an interview, “Students probably aren't choosing the right degrees because they haven't been given the right guidance.”

Is there really such a thing as a right degree? I don’t believe there is and instead coach students to pursue knowledge and skills, and learn how those link to career opportunities. I coached an anthropology graduate who landed his first professional job in an advertising agency based on the skills he acquired in his major.  

Although he does say students need to explore and find their way, Carnevale points a finger at both high school guidance counselors and college career services. He says, that in this country there is no counseling apparatus to help students and that college career service centers are not meeting the needs of students because they are understaffed (this has been widely reported) and because they do not have the information set on career prospects and pathways.I’ve had a number of parents say, “They (college career services) just don’t know what to do with a history major.”

Carnevale gets no argument from me on the need for college career service centers to up their game.  It is time, as he says,”… the American education system, given its cost, given the fact that most of us now require it to get a decent job, to align it much more carefully with job prospects.”

And I have no disagreement with the survey methodology or data. (I know my clients are laughing at that statement.) However, I think there are important marketplace realities missing from Carnevale’s conclusions.

• The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act that requires universities to disclose the earnings of alumni and the nature of their employment to prospective students addresses only the issue studied which is by no means the only issue.
• Too many of the skills needed in the workplace today are not being taught by colleges.
• Employers are not hiring degrees (a pet peeve of mine) but rather new professionals entering the workforce who are not being taught how to communicate their major/degree in terms of the skills they’ve learned and they value they offer.

The most successful job candidates understand that many employers today don’t care about your degree or resumé but only what you can do and what you can continuously reinvent yourself to do as a life-long learner.