Building the Ideal Skill Set for 21st Century Employment

by Justin Marquis Ph.D.

The most famous line from the 1996 Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire – “Show me the money!” – becomes a mantra begun by Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and eventually shouted over and over by Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise. The line has become a cultural marker, and would, no doubt have developed into an Internet meme if the movie had been released ten years later. It still, hopefully silently, runs through the minds of every college graduate when interviewing for their first job, “Show me the money!”

Not so fast. Show you the money? First thing’s first. You’d better be able to show prospective employers that you have what it takes to earn that money. We live in a fast-paced, hyper-connected, information and knowledge-based, global economy, where things change minute-to-minute and the skills you need to have change just as fast. More importantly, you need to be able to self-teach new skills and tools on the fly, and maybe even develop your own innovative ways to use new technology as it arrives on the scene. In short, in order to get hired, keep your job, advance in your career, and be shown the money, you are going to need a very specific set of soft skills that you may not be obtaining in your higher education classes. No worries. This post will outline the most essential 21st Century skills you need to have and suggest some ways that you can acquire them.

The Need for 21st Century Skills
The world has changed dramatically, decisively, and permanently and the things that employers are looking for in their ideal employees have changed with it. These changes are necessitated by fundamental societal shifts in the way the world works in the Information Age. The University of Melbourne proposes the following breakdown for considering what the essential competencies are for a student in the Information Age:

• Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning
• Ways of working. Communication and collaboration
• Tools for working. Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy
• Skills for living in the world. Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility
  (AT21CS)

All things considered, these changes represent a dramatic shift in the traditional need for specific skills and experiences in new employees. Businesses have learned that they need to be flexible, adaptable, embrace diverse perspectives, and need to have people who are willing and able to incorporate the latest technologies on the fly. All of these factors create a disconnect between university education, which largely does not emphasize these skills and abilities, and the needs of students entering the workplace. Whether you are pursuing a career in retail management, real estate, hospitality management, or fashion this post will help you understand the most fundamental 21st Century skills necessary to be successful in life and your career, and guide you in acquiring them.

21st Century Skills Inventory & How to Get Them
So what exactly are the essential skills for success in the 21st Century? I have compiled the following list from a wide variety of sources such as the ATC21S list of skills, Charles Reigeluth’s book Reinventing Schools, and my own experience as an adult educator and 21st Century cyber worker. Here is a checklist of the key competencies and definitions of each.

__ Systemic Thinking: The Information Age is characterized by increasingly complex interrelationships between the various systems (economic, political, social, technical, educational, etc.) that form the structure of our society. In such a complicated and connected world, it is essential to understand how an action taken within or upon one system will affect the others. Thinking through all of the factors that will affect any decision helps to ensure that the best course of action is taken.

How to get it: Unfortunately, outside of specialized departments in higher education, likeIndiana University’s Instructional Systems Technology Department, there are very few places to gain an explicit knowledge of this field. This page from Pegasus Communications provides a broad overview of the concept, but for a more detailed understanding you are going to have to do some independent reading.  For starters, Bela Banathy is the father of the field, so reading any of his books would be an outstanding place to begin. Alvin Toffler’s Future Shockor The Third Wave will also give you enough insight into systems dynamics to get you started understanding this important but underrepresented field.