According to the 2016 NACE Job Outlook Survey, verbal communication is the most important candidate skill, and employers grade their average new grad/recruit as a B+ on it

On February 27, 2017 Ellen Finkelstein had an article titled Verbal communication is the MOST important job skill. It showed up at Alltop Speaking under the heading of PowerPoint Tips Blog.

Ellen quoted from a web page posted on February 24, 2016 at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) about their Job Outlook 2016 Survey that was titled Employers: Verbal Communication Most Important Candidate Skill. Their results (from Figure 41) are shown in the following bar chart (click on it to see a larger, clearer view):

“When asked to assess candidate skills/qualities, employers rated verbal communication skills the most important, according to NACE's Job Outlook 2016 report. 

Employers rated verbal communication skills (4.63 on a five-point scale) highest this year, above teamwork (4.62) and the ability to make decisions and solve problems (4.49), the two skills that tied for the top spot last year.”

But then she went wild by speculating and ranting about what might be going on:

“How can this be?

How is it that verbal communications rates over teamwork, decision-making and problem solving, planning/organizing/prioritizing, several types of technical knowledge, and the ability to sell or influence?

Because communication is important for all of the other skills.

And because employers are not seeing good verbal communication skills in their candidates. Believe me, if they saw great verbal communication skills, they would be worrying about something else.

How does this happen?

Colleges do a poor job of training students in oral communications.

Professors give a poor example for students when they teach.

Employers do little to train their own employees in verbal communications.”

But that web page didn’t include another important figure from the full NACE survey report. Every year at least one university posts it on a web site. (This time it was the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University). Data from their Figure 42 are shown in the following bar chart:

Employers graded their average new graduate recruits with a letter of B+ on their verbal communication skills. They were able to hire quite well trained graduates. (Figure 44 of the 2015 Job Outlook report also graded recruits with a B+).

Candidates also will be interested in what attributes employers most commonly sought on resumes. Verbal communication skills tied for fourth place there, as shown below in a bar chart based on data shown in Figure 39 (and also reported at another web page titled Job Outlook 2016: Attributes Employers Want to See on New College Graduates’ Resumes).

The NACE Job Outlook 2017 report is also out, but I haven’t seen it leaked by a university yet. We may have to wait a few more months to see it.

Oracy – a 20th century word for a very old idea

Last week at LinkedIn Pulse I found a very brief article by Kathryn Rikert titled What is oracy and why should every child be taught it? which linked to a September 16, 2016 article at edutopia titled Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk. That word is popular in educational circles (look it up in the ERIC database).

The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary says that noun came from 1965 and it defines oracy as:

“Proficiency in oral expression and comprehension.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as:

“Competence in oral language; the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech.”

In 1965 A. Wilkinson wrote of it:

“The term we suggest for general ability in the oral skills is oracy; one who has those skills is orate, one without them inorate.”  

Seeing that word reminded me of what Moliere said in his 1670 play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme:

“Par ma foi, il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose, sans que j'en susse rien.

(Good heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it).”

A sculpture of Demosthenes came from Wikimedia Commons.

Sports are an awful metaphor for business

John Sadowsky had a blog post on February 10 titled Can sports teach us anything worthwhile about business? and another on February 23 titled Is sport such a poor metaphor for management?  I don’t share John’s claim that sports can teach us anything, or his enthusiasm for the National Football League (NFL).

On February 3, 2017 the web site for the Harvard Business Review had an article by William C.  Taylor titled Why Sports Are a Terrible Metaphor for Business. He said:

“The logic of competition and success is completely different.”

“The dynamics of talent and teamwork are completely different.”

“The creation of economic value is completely different.”

I agree. Bill wrote that a few days before the Super Bowl. Most businesses don’t compete in an artificial oligarchy like the NFL where less than twenty events over part of a year decide a championship. And most don’t have their talent come from indentured servants like college students playing under the NCAA.

Also, as George Carlin hilariously discussed long ago there are huge differences between even Baseball vs Football.

Overinflated language about the ‘Best Picture’ mix-up at the 2017 Oscars TV show

Last night there was temporary confusion about who won the Oscar for Best Picture. That’s what sometimes happens on live television. It got sorted out though. Today’s Washington Post article about it was titled The minute-by-minute breakdown of the shocking ‘Moonlight’/’La La Land best picture mix-up.

But over at Pundit Wire Charles Crawford instead used the overinflated title Oscars Disaster – What Exactly Went Wrong? I certainly wouldn’t call that a disaster, which Merriam-Webster defines as:

“A sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss or destruction.”

A disaster is an event like when the New York Daily News reported on January 1, 2013 that Survivors recall terror after bus crash in Oregon’s Blue Mountain range kills 9.

The image of the Dennis the Menace TV show came from Wikimedia Commons.

Do you know what has been going on around you?

On February 24, 2017 there was an article written by Eiren Combs titled How to Deal with Your Fear of Public Speaking posted at the FlockU web site. She described five decent ways:

1] Wear a turtleneck (so your blushing is less visible).

2] Do breathing exercises.

3] Hold something sturdy (like the lectern, so you don’t shake as much).

4] Power pose.

5] Smile.

But the third paragraph in her introduction said:

“According to Statistics Brain, about 74 percent of the U.S. population has a fear of public speaking. This fear tops the U.S phobia charts, even beating out the number two fear: death.”

I found that hilarious considering she is listed as a class of ’20 student at Chapman University, where there have been three national surveys done on American fears. The 2015 survey ranked public speaking as 26 out of 89 fears, while the 2016 survey ranked it 33 out of 79 fears. On December 20, 2016 I blogged about them in a post titled Bursting the overblown claim that 95% of Americans fear public speaking at some level. The average fear levels from all three surveys were lower than the bogus 74% reported by Statistic Brain:

Not Afraid - 36.4%
Slightly Afraid - 34.6%
Afraid - 16.3%
Very Afraid - 9.8%

Very Afraid + Afraid - 26.1%
Very Afraid + Afraid + Slightly Afraid - 60.7%

The image of Little Miss Muffet came from the Library of Congress.

Food Labels: ENJOY BY, USE BY, or SELL BY?

Have you ever noticed that refrigerated bags of salad mix are marked with an ENJOY BY date but cartons of milk instead are marked with a USE BY date.

Does that mean that if I leave that bag in the refrigerator a few days too long I can use it, but I won’t enjoy it? (By then the iceberg lettuce will be an unattractive brown).

What about a bag of corn kernel snacks that says BEST IF USED BY? And what about the SELL BY date also seen on other packages?

On February 15th there was a press release from the Grocery Manufacturers Association titled Grocery Industry Launches New Initiative to Reduce Consumer Confusion on Product Date Labels. It described how:

“The new voluntary initiative streamlines the myriad date labels on consumer products packaging down to just two standard phrases. “BEST If Used By” describes product quality, where the product may not taste or perform as expected but is safe to use or consume. “USE By” applies to the few products that are highly perishable and/or have a food safety concern over time; these products should be consumed by the date listed on the package – and disposed of after that date.”

The web page on Food Product Dating from the United States Department of Agriculture says that:

“Except for infant formula, dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law.”

On the 1998 comedy DVD by Jerry Seinfeld titled I’m Telling You for the Last Time there is a routine on Supermarkets that includes a section about the expiration date for milk. You can watch a version with subtitles in Portuguese on YouTube:

“How do they know that is the definite exact day? You know, they don’t say like it’s in the vicinity, give or take, roughly. They brand it right into the side of the carton and they HISS (makes a sizzling noise). That’s your goddamn day, right there! Oh, don’t screw with us. We know what day is the final day. And then it is so over. Did you ever have milk the day after the day. Scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it?”  

Beware of bottom-feeding web sites

A few days back my daily Google Alert on “public speaking” turned up an article on a web page dated October 6, 2016 titled The Cons of Toastmasters at a strictly commercial web site titled Public Speaking Training. The author was not listed, and the Contact Us page for the web site refers you elsewhere. The fifth paragraph began with a sentence containing a grammar error:

“That’s how I feel as I sit down to right this article.”

Who really wrote this stuff, where had it come from, and when? It actually was scraped from a web site called Ezine Articles, was written by Marcus Antuan Smith, and appeared at a web page titled The Cons of Toastmasters submitted back on August 18, 2008. Terms on that web site call for including a link showing the author’s name, which was ignored by Public Speaking Training.

I looked at the last seven articles posted at Public Speaking Training, and found they also really came uncredited from Ezine Articles. All Public Speaking Training did was to add a stock photo or two.

The February 23, 2017 article on Five Simple Ways to Become a Better Public Speaker is recent. It was submitted by Jessica Lauren Vine on December 29, 2016 – so it was fairly new.

The February 21, 2017 article on Audience Analysis for Informative and Persuasive Speaking was submitted by John M. Lawrence on January 28, 2011.

The February 20, 2017 article on A Dozen Ways to Improve Your Speaking was submitted by Rex Rogers on August 2, 2010.

The February 19, 2017 article on Importance of Ethics in Public Speaking was submitted by Jordan Michael on April 16, 2015.

Another February 19, 2017 article on The Art of Listening and the Effect on Communication was submitted by Karen Golob on July 15, 2007, almost a decade ago.

The February 18, 2017 article on Public Speaking – 5 Tips for Writing an Engaging Speech was submitted by Crystal Coleman on February 18, 2009.

The February 17, 2017 article on The History of Arachniphobia – Fear of Spider Phobia was submitted by Andrew Power back on December 19, 2009. If you want to see a better discussion on arachniphobia, just watch the TED talk by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. Spiders are discussed 8-1/2 minutes from the beginning.

The image of a man scraping came from the Library of Congress.