Entering The Workplace: A Case Study

Employers have an expectation that college graduates can and will enter the workforce as employees with useful and relevant skills (Knight & Yorke, 2003; Robinson & Garton, 2008; Sargent et al., 2003). Academic programs at colleges and universities, as well as faculty, should be aware of and take into consideration the needs and expectations of employers (Andelt et al., 1997). Careers in the agricultural industry have grown by 13% since 2005 (Goecker, Gilmore, Smith, & Smith, 2005; Goecker, Smith, Fernandez, Ali, & Theller, 2015a). Additionally, it is predicted that professions specifically in the fields of education, communication, and governmental services to have the least amount of existing and open jobs in agriculture and natural resources …show more content…
Rather, college graduates are entering the workforce with less than adequate skills sets which has led to a gap in what employers expect and what employees have to offer (Andelt et al., 1997; Symonds et al., 2011). Soft skills including the areas of leadership, self-management, decision-making, and professionalism skills rank high in desirability for employers (Crawford, Lang, Dalton, & Fielitz, 2011). Furthermore, these soft skills should be a key component of undergraduate and graduate curriculum. Despite the importance of soft skills, these skills can be difficult to teach in the classroom in order to prepare students for careers. Traits and characteristics that are vital to careers, such as responsibility, are often challenging to teach in a classroom, but components may possibly be added to the course in order to stimulate these skills (Akers & Irlbeck, 2009). It has been found that college graduates are often being prepared to enter the workforce with basic skills that employees desire and are valued but “an emphasis on basic communications skills is needed” (Akers & Irlbeck, 2009, p. 70). “Almost one-third of employers value listening effectively as the most important characteristic of communication skills,” (Crawford, Lang, Dalton & Fielitz, 2011, p. …show more content…
The department has well-respected characteristics such as faculty, graduate program, and research (Birkenholz &Simonsen, 2011). Additionally, Birkenholz and Simonsen noted that established and respected departments similar to agricultural education programs are distinguished within the university, the state, and the profession, in addition to making efforts to emulate and/ or differentiating themselves. The American Association for Agricultural Education determined six priority research areas for 2011-2015 with the fifth agenda priority including “Efficient and Effective Agricultural Education Programs” (Doerfert, 2011, pp. 8-11). This priority is telling of what departments similar to agricultural education programs should resemble in their efforts towards research and