Verbal communication skill is one of the top five abilities desired by employers from new college graduates

In late summer and early fall of every year the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveys employers about new college graduates. Their 2014 Job Outlook Survey will be published this month. But a press release on October 2nd titled
The Candidate Skills/Qualities Employers Want presented an important result.

One of their questions asked employers to rate the importance of candidate abilities and skills on a scale from 1 to 5 where:

5 is extremely important
4 is very important
3 is somewhat important
2 is not very important
1 is not at all important

Results for the top ten abilities or skills are shown above in a bar chart. (Click on it to see a larger, clearer version). The top five were ability to work in a team structure (4.55), ability to make decisions and solve problems (4.50), a tie for third (4.48) between ability to plan, organize, and prioritize work, and ability to verbally communicate with persons inside and outside the organization, and ability to obtain and process information (4.37).

Ability to create or edit written reports (3.62) was ninth in the top ten  and was rated 0.86 lower than ability to verbally communicate.

Another bar chart shows the results from the last survey, which I blogged about back in February in a post titled Verbal communication skill is the top ability desired by employers from new college graduate candidates in the NACE 2013 Job Outlook Survey. The same top five appeared there, but in a different order, and they were followed by the ability to analyze quantitative data.