Value Creation: What Employers Want and Every College Student Needs To Know
cowritten by Daniel Gross
What is a college degree worth today? According to the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE), in 2006, the three most lucrative college degrees were chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering, all of which reported average starting salaries upwards of $50,000. But what if courses in thermodynamics and kinetics are not your cup of tea and you pine for the teachings of Kant, Rousseau and Aristotle? Then, as a liberal arts major, you can expect an average starting salary of roughly $30,000, a far cry from your engineering peers.
While the cost of college has risen over 50% since 1990 including a 7.1% increase at four-year public schools in 2005-06, never has the link between a college degree and a lucrative first job been more tenuous. In a survey of human resources executives conducted by career placement firm Hayden-Wilder, almost 9 out of every 10 executives reported that entry-level candidates are inadequately prepared for the job search process. Furthermore, a 2005 Newsweek poll indicated that nearly 60% of college grads plan to return home to live with their family following graduation.
So how does a liberal arts major attending college today avoid the all too common pitfall of paying well over $100,000 to receive an education only to be left living in their parents’ basement before the ink on their diploma is dry? The answer is simple: students must learn value creation.
Value creation is the art of maximizing your achievements and skills in past experiences so that prospective employers covet them. Prospective employers are looking to project your past accomplishments on to their current requirements in order to make a favorable hiring decision. What this translates to for college students is that your major and GPA are not nearly as important as the value you create as you go thorough college.
But how exactly does a college student accomplish this so that their most important decision senior year will be which job offer to take rather than how to ask their parents for a raise in allowance? Here are four things students can do while in college that will put them head and shoulders above their peers in the job search process:
1. Think small. College can be overwhelming, and the same is true in your choice of extracurricular activities. While you may be the captain of your high school debate team, top colleges admit scores of debate team captains each year. So how can you create the kind of value in your extra-curricular activities that employers will find attractive? By thinking small!
Pick a small activity or club that piques your interests or holds relevance to a potential career option and join early. Why? Because in a small club you will have a greater opportunity to demonstrate the kind of results employers can translate into success on their own jobs, as your contribution becomes magnified and the leadership responsibility you can hold early on is significantly greater than in a large organization. At this stage of your development, employers will place emphasis on how well you did something and not so much on what you did.
Thinking small not only applies to extracurricular activities, but also to classes. Small classes give you an opportunity to get to know professors better and thereby gain experiences that create value and translate into greater employability upon graduation.
The best way to determine which professors to get to know is to check out their CVs to find out more about their research interests, books and papers they have written and their previous industry experience. When you find a professor whose interests marry up to yours, attempt to develop a relationship with them by taking one of their small classes, attending their office hours and signing up for independent study with them. Getting to know one or two professors well creates immense value for you, as professors can serve as great networking contacts and give you fantastic opportunities to undertake research and analytical experiences that are valued by today’s employers.
2. Communicate Communicate Communicate! According to the NACE Job Outlook 2006 report, the ability to speak and write clearly is the number one skill employers are looking for in entry level applicants; yet, it is the number one skill-set that is most prominently absent.
So perfecting your communication skills is of the utmost importance because value created is value obscured if it cannot be communicated. A great way to hone your writing skills is to take elective writing courses. Another great way to boast of writing skills on your resume is to get published. You may be wondering, “How in the world can I get published while in college unless I am the next coming of Hemingway?”
Actually, it is much easier than you may think. It is absolutely astonishing to see just how many college journals, department publications and countless other organizations regularly publish, articles, memos, newsletters, and reports that actively seek student submissions.
Public speaking classes, which almost all colleges offer, are a great way to polish verbal communication skills. Additionally, you should seek out any opportunities afforded to present at symposiums and research seminars. Almost all academic departments offer these opportunities to interested students, and being able to highlight these on your resume is a great way to underscore your communication skills and value creation abilities.
3. Get connected. Conventional wisdom holds that the only way to network our way to a job is through a well-established set of networking relationships. While strong networking ties work, the reality is that weak ties have been shown to work even better. Research by sociologist Mark Granovetter found that almost 60% of people who find jobs through networking actually do so through weak ties. Weak ties have the added advantage of being easier to establish and maintain as compared to strong ones. In addition, whom one connects with is as important as the nature of the tie that binds. Try to connect with people who know many others who are connected to the kinds of opportunities you want (these people are called “connectors”). What this means for you is that it is better to have weak ties with one or two very well connected people (think small!), than to plow inordinate amounts of time trying to cultivate strong ties with ten people.
Once you know how to network, the question becomes who to network with. Oftentimes the best networks (and the ones students most readily neglect) are parents—your parents, your roommate’s parents and parents of friends. Parents (and other adults including professors) have more experience and are often very willing to help out a college student in need.
4. Go get that internship! Remember to think small when you eventually decide what internship to take because it is not where you have worked, but it is the value you create while working there that is most important to prospective employers. So while a job at a big law firm might sound glamorous it is much better to revamp the inventory management process at a local hot dog stand than to spend your days fetching coffee for an attorney. The important thing is not what you do, but the value you create while doing it!
Whether you are a chemical engineering or liberal arts major, students who learn how to maximize the value they create during college will be the most sought after by prospective employers. And while a job is great, creating value during college will also get you out of your parents’ basement after college—and the value of that is priceless.
Mr. Gross received his bachelor’s degree in political science from Northwestern University in June 2006, and currently works at a strategy consulting firm in Chicago, IL. He can be reached at daniel.w.gross@gmail.com.