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Others have mentioned the vagueness and low value of the questions, but I'm particularly struck by the professionalism/work ethic one. Professionalism is tough

Others have mentioned the vagueness and low value of the questions, but I'm particularly struck by the professionalism/work ethic one. Professionalism is tough, because we define it (roughly) as seeking the common expectations for the role, but one of those expectations is "professionalism". And "work ethic"...Im a gen Xer and I feel like millennials are getting dumped on more than the normal generational strife, to a very unfair level. (Example: I see a lot more snowflakes and need for "participation trophies" among those complaining about such things than among the millenials themselves) Which leads me to wonder, particularly with work ethic, is it the students or the employer that have the unrealistic expectation?

MBCook 9y ago
I have a feeling that many of these numbers would have looked similar 10, 20, 30 years ago. Is the news here that these numbers are much lower than they used to be? Or just that we know them.
mjevans 9y ago
I have a feeling that both have unrealistic expectations. Graduates: I won't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own. Employeers: High expectations of engagement and 'loyalty', but low pay, low benefits, and lacking support in the environment at work. Somehow able to remain productive when in a highly distracting environment with no expectation of actual tranquility for focus. Is masochist the kind of professional they're describing? Ultimately this is one of those issues where a clear set of expectations and some metric of measuring them should be set; then an independent review party should measure if just the metric was being met, or if things were normal but the metric was still being met.
- dasmoth 9y ago
  Graduates: I won't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own. While I think there’s some truth in this (and, ahem, not-so-modern grads...), it seems like measuring the wrong thing. If someone posts 50 times a day to whatever the current friendfaceinstabook might be and delivers useful code (or whatever) on a regular basis, isn’t that fine? Focus on the latter, don’t stress about the former.
jpeloquin 9y ago
Students may be interpreting professionalism / work ethic as consistency in studying and turning in assignments on time in the context of coursework. But the scale of problems that they need to solve in the workplace have a much greater scope in terms of time, complexity, and number of people involved. Employees need to integrate with the organization, not just do the equivalent of turning in assignments. Often the initial plan of work isn't complete or the right thing to do. Some fresh graduates have a tendency to latch on to some passing statement from a team meeting, work hard on that without doing any follow-up, and end up surprised when no one has a use for what they did. A professional keeps the big picture in mind and follows up with people so that course corrections are made and genuinely useful work gets done. Colleges try to teach teamwork, but few team projects in coursework are sufficiently complex that they genuinely require teamwork. Since everyone in a course project is taking the same course, no one has irreplaceable expertise. The consequence is that students never have to learn how to work as an organization instead of individuals. The exceptions are club activities like (inter)national engineering design team competitions in which, as in business, genuine failure is possible and success depends on everyone's contributions.

MBCook 9y ago

I have a feeling that many of these numbers would have looked similar 10, 20, 30 years ago. Is the news here that these numbers are much lower than they used to be? Or just that we know them.

mjevans 9y ago

I have a feeling that both have unrealistic expectations. Graduates: I won't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own. Employeers: High expectations of engagement and 'loyalty', but low pay, low benefits, and lacking support in the environment at work. Somehow able to remain productive when in a highly distracting environment with no expectation of actual tranquility for focus. Is masochist the kind of professional they're describing? Ultimately this is one of those issues where a clear set of expectations and some metric of measuring them should be set; then an independent review party should measure if just the metric was being met, or if things were normal but the metric was still being met.

dasmoth 9y ago
Graduates: I won't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own. While I think there’s some truth in this (and, ahem, not-so-modern grads...), it seems like measuring the wrong thing. If someone posts 50 times a day to whatever the current friendfaceinstabook might be and delivers useful code (or whatever) on a regular basis, isn’t that fine? Focus on the latter, don’t stress about the former.

jpeloquin 9y ago

Students may be interpreting professionalism / work ethic as consistency in studying and turning in assignments on time in the context of coursework. But the scale of problems that they need to solve in the workplace have a much greater scope in terms of time, complexity, and number of people involved. Employees need to integrate with the organization, not just do the equivalent of turning in assignments. Often the initial plan of work isn't complete or the right thing to do. Some fresh graduates have a tendency to latch on to some passing statement from a team meeting, work hard on that without doing any follow-up, and end up surprised when no one has a use for what they did. A professional keeps the big picture in mind and follows up with people so that course corrections are made and genuinely useful work gets done. Colleges try to teach teamwork, but few team projects in coursework are sufficiently complex that they genuinely require teamwork. Since everyone in a course project is taking the same course, no one has irreplaceable expertise. The consequence is that students never have to learn how to work as an organization instead of individuals. The exceptions are club activities like (inter)national engineering design team competitions in which, as in business, genuine failure is possible and success depends on everyone's contributions.