Excerpt from EdSurge — April 2017
A popular narrative in the employment market today is that a “skills gap” exists between the abilities employers seek in candidates and the capabilities that new college graduates gain through postsecondary education. Beyond skills readily demonstrable from college curriculum (primarily cognitive skills and technical skills), employers complain about the lack of soft skills among college graduates: leadership, the ability to work in a team, written communication skills or problem-solving.
But what if I told you that the skills gap was little more than fiction, and a different gap exists. I call it the “awareness gap.” While college graduates may leave universities with transcripts and resumes, employers aren’t able to see many of the skills they’ve developed through coursework and co-curricular activities.
Simply put, the awareness gap is the inability for college graduates to make employers aware of the skills they do have…