Thursday, September 19, 2013

Employment IQ

            Do you know your child’s Employment IQ?  While channel surfing on the radio, I caught the end of a program about how part of our unemployment problems are due to the antiquated process of how we look for a job and the lack of job readiness.  Since I was only able to hear the last minutes of the program, I was unable to write down the name of the person being interviewed.  When I attempted to look up the broadcast and doing a Google search I was unable to find it. 

The concept of an employment IQ is something a majority of people have not heard of, but in this global economy is just as important to as academic knowledge.  This made me think about young adults who graduate from high school with a low employment IQ?

            While I do not know what elements the guest on the radio believed makes up an employment IQ, I believe, the elements of Employment IQ should consists of: 1) the ability to understand how to connect interest, skills and education to specific jobs; 2) general understanding of the sub jobs within a job category; 3) understanding employer expectations; 4) the ability to conduct a job search using multiple approaches (walk-in, online, social media, etc); 5) the ability to develop a resume for specific jobs; 6) understanding the elements of interviewing (pre-interview research, interview questions, post-interview follow up) and 7) appropriate dress.

            While these are the basic elements of an Employment IQ, advanced elements such as: 1) utilization of technology in the workplace; 2) the ability to communicate effectively; 3) the ability to work in groups; and 4) the ability to multitask projects.

            If circumstances were reversed and young adults were judged by their Employment IQ instead of their academic achievement, parents would be asking for more instruction in job readiness.  If getting a job after graduation from high school was more important than going to college, job readiness would be fully integrated into the curriculum.


            We know this is not the world we live in, but shouldn’t we still want young adults to have both a high academic and employment IQ?

Thursday, September 12, 2013

What School Cannot Teach & The Importance of Parent Involvement

                On a daily basis I always come upon a parent or care giver with a young child talking on their mobile phone.  Usually, I don’t pay attention to the conversations of others on their phones, however, this one instance, the conversation made me cringe.

                The loud expletive laced, bad grammar filled rant that spewed out of the woman’s mouth caused several people to stop, stare and shake their heads.  However, what saddened me was the little boy who had to be no more than five years old, holding the hand of the woman, walking (more like being pulled) with the woman while staring and listening to the conversation.  A few blocks later, I passed by a group of highs school girls who were also involved in a loud expletive rant about another female peer group. 

As I reflected over the events that occurred on my walk, I thought about how there are some things schools can teach.  Schools cannot teach character.  Schools cannot teach appropriate behavior or etiquette.  Schools can only model and instruct character, appropriate behavior and etiquette.  Unless there is support ,modeling and encouragement from the home, young adults will continue to graduate with glaring flaws in character, inappropriate behavior and etiquette. 

Parent involvement is crucial to the overall education of the young adult.  The partnership between parent engagement and education is supposed create “well rounded,” productive citizens.  Young adults upon graduation should not only understand how to apply academically what they have learned to post their high school life.  They should also be individuals who understand the role character, how to interact appropriately in numerous settings and social etiquette will play in their future opportunities.  Only with involvement from parents can young adults become well-rounded, productive citizens.


The flaw in this stream of thought is the assumption that parents understand, teach and model character, appropriate behavior and etiquette.  Knowing all parents do not hold the same values, the question becomes how to work around the differences in values to develop well rounded, productive citizens?