Employers are finding that new hires fresh out of college lack some basic skills. Engineering firms complain that recent graduates don’t know how to construct models for projects, while experienced doctors and nurses say some new hires don’t have the ability to figure out the correct medicine dosages, and customer service workers have to be taught how to make eye contact. Those doing the hiring blame the pandemic and remote learning, saying it could have serious financial consequences for companies trying to adjust.
The phenomenon is hurting workplaces across all sorts of industries and touches new hires across all socioeconomic backgrounds, says Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Kesling. Key to the challenges is the lack of hands-on learning graduates would have gotten in the classroom.
Kesling points to an example of a consulting agency that found that a new engineering hire wasn’t able to operate a lathe, a common tool that’s used to shape wood and metal.
“This consultant … spent a number of hours teaching lathe work 101, on how to do something that should have been taught early on in this young person's career,” Kesling explains. “It not only showed that this young person wasn't prepared for the job, but it showed that the highly-skilled folks who are hiring people and having to work with them and train them are spending their time doing this training on the job.”
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Kesling also visited Fort Moore in Georgia, where an army program supports underperforming soldiers (who scored low on the ASVAB). He found that they missed out on learning the fundamentals for a number of skills — such as grammar and arithmetic — as well as how to socialize with their peers.
“These students missed out on so much through the pandemic and having to do classes on Zoom, that they didn't have the interaction with their fellow students,” he says. “They didn't have the interaction with teachers, so they didn't have any accountability. They didn't have that one-on-one ability to get feedback. And they really, really fell into a learning gap during that time.”
Kesling says there’s data that backs up these findings: “[This] doesn't necessarily say that kids these days aren't as good. It just means that there has been tangible and objective learning loss that has occurred, and as a society, that's something we need to face.”
He adds, “How do we provide that training, provide a way to make up for that knowledge gap, so that the generation that was stuck missing out on in-person classroom learning … isn't seen as being lost or being lesser than somebody else?”