Katherine Stievater, Founder & CEO
For parents of students, or those providing them with career, college and school counseling, it probably comes as no surprise that many of today’s teens are not well prepared to engage in professional activities. Students are ill-equipped to find a job or an internship, interview for positions, and behave on the job. The idea of “networking” often makes abstract sense, but few students know what that really means or how to make the contacts necessary to get a meeting that might lead to another conversation that might help uncover an employment opportunity.
We know from the families we work with that few students have jobs in high school. And high schools are generally not teaching students basic professional skills. Thus, students emerge from senior year with important deficits in areas that are critical to their future success. To get a better understanding of the areas in which students might benefit the most from adding more skill, Gap Year Solutions conducted research with parents, school counselors, and college counselors.
Parents and counselors were asked to select their top four skill areas they deemed most important for young adults to learn. Ranked by counselors’ responses, here’s what they thought:
Source: Gap Year Solutions Professional Skills Survey, June 2024. Question: “Which of the following skills do you feel would be most important for young adults to learn? Choose your TOP 4 choices.”
Counselors and parents were consistent in their top priorities. As a group, each had the following skill areas in their top four:
- Effective business/ professional communications and soft skills needed
- Time management and organization
- Professional etiquette and presentation
- Professional interview preparation and practice
Interestingly, while over 80% of counselors had “Effective business/ professional communications” in their top 4, less than two-thirds of parents did so, making it their #3 priority. Parents (perhaps because they are the ones seeing their teens struggle to get out the door to school in the morning??) had “Time management and organization” at #1 with nearly 80% having it in their top 4. Counselors still did have this one #2.
As we are constantly striving to improve the way we work with students at Gap Year Solutions, we have begun to focus on how to help gappers (and other students) with professional skill development. Stay tuned for more information coming soon about a new course we will be offering to help students upgrade these skills. We want them to be better prepared for college, but also the experiences they will have during a Gap Year, and during and after school that demand a whole different way of preparing, thinking, behaving and performing!
