The five skills kids need today to succeed

While acknowledging that it’s hard to quantify across industries, experts estimate that entry-level candidates today are required to be 80 per cent more qualified than they were 10 years ago.

Photoshop, PowerPoint, even basic programming to build a website or build an app are now widely considered essential literacy skills, says Paul D. Smith, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers.

Indeed, they’re now seen as so commonplace that toys are being designed to teach children to code before they’re even out of diapers.

Fisher-Price’s Code-a-Pillar, introduced at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, has eight modules that snap together into a caterpillar-shaped toy. Each segment corresponds to a particular action (turn left, turn right, make a noise, etc), and directs how the caterpillar moves depending on how your tot connects them.

The analytical skills learned at an early age can give children problem-solving skills that will serve them in any career.

But the most important skills aren’t all related to technology. These universal skills are what kids will need to succeed in the workplace:

1. Technical Tools: When your humble scribe here was in high school, typing (on a typewriter) was still something you’d get credit for. While keyboard proficiently is still necessary — for now, at least — adding it to your list of skills is akin to saying you know how to use a pencil.

Shooting and editing videos used to be a skill only a few could master but now it can be done on a phone or laptop. This, along with PowerPoint, website building and Photoshop abilities, is vital for the workforce, which is increasingly moving towards a gig economy, says Smith. It’s a different structure, it’s like everyone is an entrepreneur, he says.

2. Communications Skills: Arts and social science degrees, easily dismissed as useless in a modern workplace, still have their merits. Having the technical savvy to build a website is great, but being able to clearly articulate your ideas to colleagues, management and clients remains vital.

Smith gives an example of a junior employee who was asked to relay important information to an executive at the oil and gas company he worked for in Calgary. Instead of sending an email or calling, he sent it by text message — representing a failure to understand the corporate culture.

3. Critical thinking: The International Baccalaureate program is a non-profit educational foundation that offers four programs of international education in authorized schools. Their students are “encouraged to think independently, learn a second language, become more culturally aware and be engaged with people in an globalized, rapidly changing world. “

When asked to rate priorities by Smith’s organization, employers have started putting co-curricular involvement ahead of academic achievement. Academics still matter, he says, but they’re looking for students who have more to show for than just school work.

A 3.1 grade point average with other experiences should make you a more attractive candidate than someone with a 3.9 but nothing else to show for their time at school, he says.

4. Resilience: This is the capacity to manage oneself in the workforce and deal with difficulty, and it’s something many young employees lack, says Smith, although carefully noting that it’s a broad generalization.

“What I hear employers complaining about is the fundamental employment competencies that graduates are lacking as they get into the workforce,” Smith says.

He says that employment culture, the notion of what it’s like to get up and go to work on time every day and be prepared for the job, is something that employers are saying is missing from new recruits more than ever before.

5. Being a team player: Students who have part-time jobs and are engaged in extra-curricular activities such as sports are found to be more desirable employees, says Smith.

“There is such a focus on ‘work hard, good grades,’ to the exclusion of other things,” says Smith. “So we’re seeing people who are academically very strong, but are missing the co-curricular skill sets.”

A student who has a part-time job will learn to work cooperatively when the stakes are low. “If you do not communicate well with the boss at a part-time retail job, it’s not a six-figure mistake.”