What Computer Skills Do Employers Expect From Rece Essays

What Computer Skills Do Employers Expect From Rece Essays What Computer Skills Do Employers Expect From Recent College Graduates? What Computer Skills Do Employers Expect From Recent College Graduates? Philip Davis, Instructional Technology Librarian Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. Table of Contents Cornell University 2 Cornell Library Conducts Study 2 Research Methodology 3 A Review of the Results 3 Rankings, Groupings, and Correlations 4 Ranking Computer Skills: 4 Grouping Computer Skills: 4 Other Computer Skills 4 Comments From Employers 5 Variability of Employment 5 Communication Skills 5 Adaptability 6 What Do These Results Mean? 6 Why is this research important for librarians? 7 What Computer Skills Do Employers Expect From Recent College Graduates? Philip Davis, Instructional Technology Librarian Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. The university is responsible for graduating students with the skills necessary to thrive and lead in a rapidly changing technological environment. Meanwhile corporate leaders are putting more emphasis on recruiting individuals with an understanding of computers and information systems. A nationwide survey by the Olsten Corp of 1,481 management systems executives found that computer literacy requirements for all job levels increased dramatically over a three-year period in the early nineties. However, another survey by HR Focus of 20 human resource executives found a lack of computer-literacy skills in recent college graduates. Cornell Library Conducts Study Cornell University's Albert R. Mann Library has a formal instruction program that reaches nearly 1,000 participants in over 60 hands-on computer workshops per semester. Workshop topics cover bibliographic research techniques, Internet searching principles, database searching skills, word Processing, Spreadsheets, and information management. Classes are supplemented by several online tutorials. Descriptions of these classes and tutorials are located at mannlib.cornell.edu/workshops/. The purpose of our research was to identify the computer skills employers felt were necessary when recruiting recent Cornell graduates. The results of this study were part of a larger evaluation of computing across the curriculum in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. This study was also used as a tool to evaluate our library's instruction program, and provided us with a comparison to a 1990 survey of employers, faculty advisors and graduates in the school of Agricultural Economics. Research Methodology Corporations who regularly visit the Cornell campus to recruit graduating students were our focus population. Our questionnaire was designed to gather information on five categories of computer literacy skill: 1)Creating Documents and Multimedia, 2) Working with Computer Programs, 3) Managing Databases, 4) Manipulating Numeric Data, 5) Computer Networks, a five-point scale was used to indicate competency levels. Of the 300 questionnaires mailed, 150 returned with usable responses. A Review of the Results Generally employers have a high expectation of computer literacy in recent college graduates (Figure 1). A total of 125 (83.3%) indicated that computer competency skills are either important or very important in the hiring decision. Within the Documents and Multimedia section, Word Processing (Figure 2) ranked the highest, with 144 (96%0 of employers expecting at least basic word processing skills. The majority of recruiters (97 or 67%) responded not relevant or none to Desktop Publishing Skills (Figure 3), whereas the re was a clustering of 41 respondents (112 or 75%) wanted at least basic Graphics or Presentation Software Skills (Figure 4). Lastly, the majority of employers did not consider Creating Internet Documents (Figure 5) very important, as 105 (70%) considered this skill not relevant, or would be willing to train. From the Working With Computer Programs section, employers showed a discrepancy in expecting the ability to install or upgrade software (Figure 6). Whereas, 61 (41%) respondents were seeking basic skills, 46 (31%) respondents indicated that this particular skill was not relevant. Ninety-four (64%) employers were looking for at least basic skills to create or modify programs or macros for individual use (Figure 7). The majority of respondents (67%) indicated that the ability to create commercial software (Figure 8) was not relevant to the job; however, for those who responded favorably, 21 (14%) were expecting either intermediate or advanced skills. Skills from the Managing Databases section scored slightly lower, with basic database entry and editing skills (Figure 9) coming out highest in this group-122 (83%) respondents expected at least basic skills. Generally Numeric Data skills (and specifically spreadsheet skills ) scored very highly as a group. Even the ability to perform detailed analysis (Figure 10) was expected by 86% of respondents. Lastly, employers responded very favorably to Computer Network skills (Figure 11). An overwhelming majority (93%) expected e-mail experience, and 63.3% expected competency with