subject: Identifying Today's Relevant Business Skills [print this page] If you are a recent college graduate just getting out of the frat house and getting ready for your first job in the business world, the job your parents spent four years paying for so you could go to college, you had better be ready to understand that the college life is a lot different than the world you will learn once you experience life in the business environment. All of the communication skills you used in college are gone forever. Texting and using facebook might be fun to use as a communication device in college, but if you try to test and use those things in a professional business environment, you just wasted four years of tuition. That won't work any more, so you had better get used to being a professional at all times with your new job.
Nothing is as it used to be in today's business world and the proper use of the phone is also key to running a successful business. It is amazing how few people have developed professional phone skills, especially in today's day of cell phones and impersonal chat that requires no etiquette. Most new hires out of college have no phone skills except for the ones they used while babbling away at the student union, so it is vital that you drum into their heads the most important way to deal with clients.
Text jargon and Internet phrases are not tolerated in the business world, so it is imperative that you learn to separate your private world from your professional world. People in their 40s, usually the ones who run the company, so not necessarily understand Internet and text lingo and it is up to you to understand that.
Today's young candidates may have little in the way of business skills, because it is not unheard of that they have never had a real job. Many parents do not want their high school students to work late hours at a fast food establishment. They would rather that they study and prepare for college. College and post grad students hardly have enough time for their studies, much less time to have a part time job. This could be their first job. When assessing new hire needs, it will be necessary to look over the applicants prior work history, if there is one, and test for evident talents. You must have access to the teaching of these courses, either in house or at an external standalone facility. There are many sites that can do this for you.
It is also vital that employers make sure that they know that, if they hire a grad right out of college, it is important to make sure they understand the landscape of the business world so they know what the new hire is getting into. As long as everyone is on the same page, the transition from college to the real world can be a smooth and fine transition.
