Frank Connolly says critical thinking is a skill most young professionals are fairly confident they’ve mastered, but this confidence may be misplaced.
The job market is the most competitive it’s been in years.
With so many high-achieving candidates in the queue, how can you differentiate between those who are successful at being students, and those who are truly well-prepared for work?
What happens when some of the most critical job skills are not ones you’re likely to see listed on a resume?
A case in point is critical thinking, a skill the World Economic Forum anticipates will be the second most important to exhibit in the workplace by 2020, second only to complex problem solving.
It’s one that most young professionals are fairly confident they’ve mastered, but this confidence may well be misplaced.
According to MindEdge Learning’s second annual State of Critical Thinking survey, a snapshot of 1,002 young professionals, fully 59 per cent felt “very” confident in their critical thinking skills.
Yet more than half (52 per cent) failed a basic nine-question skills quiz.
The results also showed that, despite confidence in their own skills, only 25 per cent of young professionals say their peers and colleagues are very well trained in critical thinking.
There is a silver lining: Most respondents believe that people can learn to improve their skill sets.
Almost nine out of 10 (87 per cent) say that soft skills, such as creativity and critical thinking, can be learned.
So how can job seekers strengthen their skills in advance of the big interview?
How can companies help their current employees keep their skills sharp through continued learning?
Make no mistake, hard skills such as computer programing and foreign languages, are highly important in today’s economy.
However, for young professionals on the hunt for new jobs, soft skills such as critical thinking, negotiation, and creativity are equally critical.
Half of our survey respondents say that soft skills are just as important as hard skills in the workplace, and another 31 per cent say soft skills are more important.
Three out of five (59 per cent) of young professionals say they are very confident of their own soft skills.
Yet in response to a separate series of questions, respondents were much more likely to include soft skills rather than hard skills among their weakest attributes.
These responses suggest, once again, that young professionals’ confidence in their own skills may be overstated.
That being the case, it behoves young job-seekers to do everything they can to strengthen their soft skills as a way to set themselves apart in the job interview process.
Employers pursue critical thinkers because they are smart workers.
While our survey results suggest that many new workforce entrants may not be strong critical thinkers, employers can definitely help their new hires (as well as veteran employees) improve their critical thinking skills.
The key is training.
In a separate survey of 1,000 managers, internal training or retraining emerged as the most effective way to provide workers with the skills they needed to remain employed.
This was chosen by a strong plurality of 37 per cent of all managers in our survey.
Employers and HR directors can help by offering online courses, or employees can take an active role in their own skill building by seeking out resources and courses themselves.
Slightly more than a quarter (27 per cent) of managers believe that employees are primarily responsible for their own skills training, while just 20 per cent believe that employers should shoulder that burden.
The other 50 per cent believe that skill-building should be a joint endeavour, with both employees and employers sharing the responsibility.
Regardless of where you come down on in this issue it makes sense that managers and HR departments should at least take on the responsibility for identifying and sharing options for continued learning.
A word of caution: Young professionals are not the only group at fault here.
There is nothing in our research to suggest that these workers’ skills are inferior to those of any other segment of the population.
However, as Millennials are a large generation in the workforce, it’s inevitable that they will come under close scrutiny.
They will need to do a better job of strengthening their skill sets.
With the renewed emphasis on the importance of critical thinking and other soft skills, employers should think hard about what it will take to prepare and equip their employees for a technology-centred workforce.
At the same time, it is up to workers themselves to be proactive about honing their skills if they want to stand out in today’s competitive job market.
If you’re in HR and you’re looking to hire, don’t be shy about snapping up any candidate who displays strong critical thinking skills.
There aren’t as many of them out there as you may think.
*Frank Connolly is the Director of Communications and Research at MindEdge Learning, an online education and eLearning provider.
This article first appeared at www.hrdive.com.
