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It doesn’t often occur to hiring managers to turn to humanities departments as a source of qualified young professionals. Yes, you read that correctly: humanities departments, where studies focus on analysis and literacy—solving problems through critical thinking, understanding culture and motivations and, of course, learning to communicate.
If it doesn’t hit you right away how closely the study of the humanities and the needs of business leadership are aligned, consider for a moment the professional workplace. Despite its rational, left-brained public persona, the professional workplace is a hotbed of emotional agendas. Competition. Insecurity. Pride. Pressure. Repression. Achievement. That’s what people at work bring to the job every day. Human Resource professionals, when generous in their assessment, call it “passion.” Pop psychologists call it “baggage.” Readers of literature know it as “motivation.” Whatever you call it, these are the drivers of human behavior on the job.
When business leadership despairs about a lack of critical thinking and people who flail in the face of difficult situations, this is what they’re on about: Employees who never see what’s coming, managers who don’t recognize pride or insecurity when it’s right in front of them, and employees who can’t read between the lines, or won’t, or who think there’s nothing to be found there. But the simple fact is leadership and business acumen require being knowledgeable about such difficult terrain and able to navigate it.
So back to the humanities departments. These are disciplines that align with business careers in ways many people overlook. Yet those who came from the humanities into business leadership attribute their success to three things: the ability to think critically, handle ambiguity and write.
Humanities students, those who really get what history and language and literature puts in front of them, will study one thing that no MBA student will ever find in class: motivation. Why do people do what they do? How can you tell by watching and listening what human behavior might mean? How can you anticipate reactions, gauge others, move people to action? How do others respond to strife, conflict, change, power, fear?
They don’t teach that in the College of Business. They teach that in the College of Arts and Letters.
When was the last time you told your liberal arts students that knowing how to develop a cogent essay is the best preparation in the world for business writing of all kinds?
Okay, maybe there’s a bit of hyperbole in there, but not much.
The fact is anyone who can write a decent essay is remarkably well-prepared to write many business documents—proposals, project plans, budget notes, status reports, process documentation, training materials, requests for proposal, business requirements, and much more.
Why is this true?
Business documents are almost always aimed at one of two goals: they’re either informing their audience about something (training materials or status reports, for example) or persuading them of something (proposals, strategic analyses, or product evaluation results, for example). Even the informative materials often become persuasive, as when a status report has to persuade the reader that being behind schedule or over budget is acceptable after all.
Therefore, here are a few things essays and business writing have in common:
The persuasive argument is the centerpiece of the work
Voice, diction, and structure matter
Fresh ideas beat tired ideas every time
Accountability for the information (e.g., citations) should be featured
Punctuation is not irrelevant (even though some business writers think it is)
While some persuasive arguments in business documents can be “lite” as in, say, web copy or marketing proposals where the net message is “buy mine,” it’s more often the case that the elements of persuasion put before business readers are (when they’re done effectively) rigorous and complex. In documents and in presentations, writers and presenters are asking business audiences to adopt a new ways of doing things, accept change, internalize the particulars of a new plan, agree to head in a new direction, spend money here, cut funds there. The list goes on and on.
It’s no wonder we hear so often how desperate operational managers are for people who can actually write. Every job posting written in the last 30 years says that “excellent verbal and written communication skills are required,” but the truth is they’re rarely found. If recruiters and hiring managers really made that a hard-and-fast requirement, they’d never hire anyone.
Unfortunately for them, they’re looking in the wrong place for these abilities. But we know where they are. Liberal arts students learn those “excellent verbal and written communication skills.” Now all we have to do is just make the connection for the students: Here’s how you can put those abilities to work!
Governor Scott isn’t the only one who thinks so. Back in June, Bill Gates said roughly the same thing. In times of budget cuts, funding a liberal arts education doesn’t make sense.
On the other side of the argument, there are any number of articulate, impassioned liberal arts proponents describing the value of the education to society, business, and citizenship. My own personal favorite is a TED talk in February of 2009 given by Dr. Elizabeth Coleman, President of Bennington College.
But I’m worried the Governor Scott perspective is gaining traction because on the surface his argument has a simplistic, practical appeal. Job descriptions consistently ask for business or technical degrees. No one, but no one, sees liberal arts grads as job-ready—even though they are.
What is to be done about that?
It’s one thing to point out, as Dr. Coleman does in her extraordinary speech, that the liberal arts produce the “broadest intellectual and deepest ethical potential,” but quite another to help the average guy envision how that potential translates into day-to-day business value. Until we do that, until we let the liberal arts show off their practical use, they won’t shake their growing reputation as interesting but too luxurious for this day and age. It’s why we rarely see business job descriptions that say “BA in history required” (except perhaps for a job as a museum curator), because the perception is that studying history is irrelevant in “the real world.”
But imagine for a moment a job description for, say, a Business Analyst or a Process Analyst that specifically lists among its requirements “B.A. in English, history, or philosophy preferred.” Just imagine it! And imagine this specification makes the list of required credentials because everyone who is anyone in the hiring business simply knows that humanities majors develop exceptional analytical skills.
Imagine for a moment a job description for, say, a Market Research Specialist that specifically lists among its requirements “B.A. or B.S. in the humanities or social sciences required” because the staffing person preparing this job description simply knows where to look for experienced researchers who are especially good at separating solid information from distortion and irrelevant detail.
Imagine it weren’t an uphill battle to explain the practical value of the liberal arts to every recruiter, every hiring manager, every parent, and every governor of Florida because it was already simply common knowledge that liberal arts grads are exceptionally well-prepared for jobs in business and, eventually, leadership—a revival, perhaps, of a popular opinion from times past.
One way to re-create a world where the liberal arts comprise a sought-after education is by instilling in students the idea that they’re becoming job- and leadership-ready. It shouldn’t actually be hard to align liberal arts abilities with what businesses are seeking because business cares about only two things: increasing revenue and reducing expense. It should be no secret (though apparently it is) that revenue improvements and expense reduction are directly linked to work performance in these areas: analytical skills, competent writing and speaking, leadership abilities, research skills, managing qualitative information, planning and organizing, and creativity. Look no further than the humanities and social sciences for people who can excel in all those areas.
If you think I’m suggesting compromising the education to achieve this—commercializing it or commoditizing it—I am not. Leave the education exactly as it is, and simply make the connection between the education itself and how it can be put to use.
At the moment, the primary reason liberal arts students land jobs in business is because they are dogged enough to pursue opportunities, despite the stereotype about their prospects. Career Centers, too, earnestly encourage liberal arts students to ignore what they hear and to believe they really are good enough to land paying jobs. But a prevailing and credible voice in students’ lives, the people who actually teach the liberal arts and who know how useful it is, need to speak up more often.
“Yes, you will need to know how to write an essay in ‘the real world,’ and here’s why.”
“Yes, in ‘the real world’ you will need to know how to keep track of detailed information that’s somehow part of an amorphous blob you’ll be shaping into a cogent argument.”
“Yes, creativity and planning and public speaking are highly prized abilities in business, and you’re developing them. Employers want people who can do what you are learning!”
If you do that, I’ll work on the hiring managers.
We hear this over and over: humanities and social sciences majors are developing what in today’s employment parlance are known as “leadership skills.” This phrase describes a collection of characteristics and abilities that employers are desperate to find in both candidates and employees.
But the phrase is a little misleading. That word—“leadership”—suggests being in charge. Whom do we think of as the leadership people at work? Quick assumptions might include the boss, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the management team, supervisors, and boards of directors. That being the case, it seems odd to suggest that liberal arts grads, who aren’t ready to assume any of those jobs right out of college, are prepared for leadership.
So let me to clear this up: Leadership is ubiquitous. Leadership isn’t reserved for the executive or even supervisory ranks. It can be everywhere, and the more people who demonstrate it—no matter what job they’re in—the healthier the work environment and the more successful the business.
Leadership in Action
What does leadership at work look like? A couple of examples:
1 – People who can visualize what needs to be done next (on a project, for example) and can describe it to others.
2 – People who sign up to do what’s needed, who demonstrate initiative. They say, “I’ll do that!”—and then they do.
3 – People who are relatively comfortable with ambiguity, e.g., conflicting priorities, changing interpretations of “the facts,” or inconsistent direction given by managers who simply forgot what they said last week.
4 – People who aren’t surprised by their colleagues’ strange behavior or by individuals’ or groups’ emotional reactions to everyday news and events on the job. They understand something about human motivation.
5 – People who work well with others from different national cultures, not just that they’re pleasant and accepting of all nationalities, but that they understand the differences in communication, conventions, and social interaction and how that all plays out on the job.
These are just a few of many examples of what employers mean when they talk about “leadership skills.”
How the Liberal Arts Prepare Employees
I’m sure it’s obvious to you why liberal arts students are prepared in many of these ways, especially understanding national cultures and communicating well. But let me elaborate about a couple of the other items on the list.
The first one—visualizing and describing work to be done—calls on imagination and communication. When a project team gets together to talk, for example, about how a third party vendor isn’t making good on promises to deliver a tricky bit of software they said they’re “sure” they can create, what’s to be done? Who will talk with whom? What do we think the issues really are? How will we document the conversation and what next steps should we plan for? It takes imagination and an understanding of human behavior to think through all that, abilities developed in a liberal arts education. It also calls on the abilities to write and speak clearly, to carry forward on the ideas and plans generated in the meeting.
The third one, about ambiguity, is something liberal arts students are much better prepared for than their counterparts in vocational majors. Engineers and computer science majors, for example, specialize in determinism. It’s either right or it’s not. Somewhere down there it’s a math problem with one right answer. That’s why they’re good at designing bridges, calculating satellite performance, determining load capacity.
But many situations in business aren’t like that at all. They’re murky, conflicted, ever-changing. Students who have studied culture, history, art, and language aren’t uncomfortable with situations where there can be more than one right answer, more than one #1 priority. The liberal arts aren’t about correctly predicting an outcome—as business likes to and engineering must.
One last explanation about this list of “leadership skills,” the one about taking initiative. If you’re wondering how liberal arts students are better prepared for that than vocationally-prepared students, it’s a reasonable question. Here’s an answer you probably don’t expect: Employees, who don’t have all the answers are more likely to take chances on work assignments than employees who do, or who at least think they’re very well-prepared for business employment.
Think about it: Employees who can knock down complicated Excel spreadsheet analyses of departmental financials with one hand tied behind their backs, thanks to their business education, aren’t likely to volunteer to contact an under-performing vendor and find out what’s taking them so long. Too far from their “expertise”! Yet employees whose education has prepared them broadly as communicators, analysts, researchers, readers, and people who understand something about human behavior are likely to say “yes” to many opportunities—because they’re prepared.
Leaders, Not Bosses
Leaders aren’t bosses, or at least not always. Leaders are everywhere, and the more of them we release to the workforce, the better. We need to make sure liberal arts students understand what leadership in action looks like, and why they’re well-prepared to be the kinds of employees who aren’t afraid to tackle challenging work, who aren’t thrown by ambiguity or human motivation. Because that’s what life on the job is really like.
“We call this our ‘breathing week,’” she said, with relief. Aaaah, yes. Breathe in, breathe out.
Then what? Start planning for fall!
How will you inspire your liberal arts students next fall? How are you planning to deliver the message to first year students that choosing the liberal arts is not only a great idea but also practical?
How about reaching those sophomores, who are starting to get some pressure from Mom and Dad to switch Marketing or Accounting, “where the jobs are”? Or seniors, who are ready to draft a resume and need to translate their education into business-friendly terms?
What exciting plans do you have to help faculty appreciate—even more than usual—the relevance of their subjects to the demands of the business world today?
Allow me to share a few ideas. Invite me to your campus!
If I Hadn’t Majored in English, I’d Never Have Made it In Management is a one-hour keynote address for university leadership and faculty, revealing how the liberal arts prepare students for jobs in business and leadership. Find out more about the three things liberal arts students offer that employers are desperate to find in their workforce today!
Nothing Prepares You for Leadership Like the Liberal Arts is a one-hour keynote speech for any liberal arts student who has wondered whether there’s truth to the rumor that their post-college career prospects are limited to publishing, non-profits, teaching and fast-food service. (They’re not.)
Business Resumes for Liberal Arts Students is a four-hour workshop for humanities and social sciences students that covers: how to build a resume from scratch; how to translate humanities and social sciences knowledge and experience into business terms. Students also learn to write “objectives” and “summaries” that not only represent liberal arts abilities but also get noticed!
Business Writing for Writers, a workshop for students who already know how to write, teaching them to apply their writing ability to business “deliverables”—proposals, requirements documents, budget notes, status reports, organizational communication and more. Sessions arranged to meet your schedule. Maximum: 20 students.
Small group presentations/discussion groups with faculty. Example: Discussion with the English department to talk about how literature informs business leadership. Or meeting with humanities faculty to talk about how being a better writer actually helps businesses save money.
I’m happy to customize programs to meet specific needs. Tell me about your challenges and let’s design a program that works for you.
How to get started:
Call 323-246-9040
Email [email protected]
Visit www.LiberalArtsAdvantage.com
Fifty graduate students at a nearby university, pursuing master’s degrees in something like “Student Affairs,” came to visit Whittier to learn about campus life at a small liberal arts college. As a level-setting introductory question, Linda asked the 50 students how many of them knew what the liberal arts were. Only four raised their hands.
“I majored in the humanities,” one said. “Isn’t that one of them?”
I don’t know about you, but that story scared me, and it obviously grabbed Linda’s attention.
“I think the problem,” Linda concluded, “is that people need a better awareness of what the liberal arts are!”
Indeed.
Whittier College is good training territory for the confused grad students, because it’s “very dedicated to the essence of the liberal arts,” as Linda describes it, teaching students to see things from various perspectives and to deepen their understanding of events, relationships, culture. A Whittier graduate earns a bachelor’s in the liberal arts, not in English, history, sociology or math, but in the liberal arts. Yes, they major in something (including a design-your-own major, offered by just a few schools), but the degree is in the liberal arts.
All the more reason to make sure students “understand the value they bring to organizations,” Linda says. “Our students are highly trainable” for a variety of jobs, but persuading recruiters—whom she describes as “narrowly focused”—how valuable this is is a challenge.
You have to wonder why hard-working students steeped in a vigorous curriculum are such a hard sell. Who wouldn’t want an employee who’s learned to think, argue, write, calculate, create and remember? How many entry-level jobs are there—really—that an exceptionally educated young person couldn’t learn to do pretty quickly?
In the meantime, Linda advises “You must have practical experience” to offer along with the exceptional education. Internships—an obvious choice—and any part-time work experience will help recruiters envision the potential.Towards this end, many departments at Whittier develop internships, ways of applying the academic learning to practical post-collegiate opportunities. They also have a long history of offering “paired classes” as well, classes which cross disciplines (for example, something like cultural studies and economics) to prepare students to bring together and use what they’ve learned in real-world situations.
Fortunately, the liberal arts education often (usually) pays off in the long run. It’s the short run that poses the immediate problem. As Jonathan Veitch, President of Occidental College, said not long ago, “A liberal arts education is a slow boat to a better job.”
The idea of a slow boat on a long voyage may seem like an unaffordable luxury if you find yourself staring down a sizeable student loan balance. But being prepared for the variety of challenges, thanks to the rigorous preparation of a liberal arts education, will position you for income-generating opportunities for decades to come.
And if there are 50 graduate students wandering around the LA area who don’t get it, and who-knows-how-many recruiters who aren’t sure either, that’s all the more reason those of us who DO get it aren’t shy. Liberal arts students are better prepared to work, think, analyze, plan, organize and lead than students pursuing any other kind of education or major.
There. I said it.
If there’s one thing people at work struggle with perhaps more than any other, it’s navigating the emotional terrain on the job. If you haven’t worked in business you may, from a distance, think of the workplace as a left-brained, logical sort of place, where experienced employees perform repeatable tasks and conform to efficient processes, all to produce a neatly designed outcome. Occasional smiles over lunch, occasional minor misunderstandings with the boss, and at the end of the organized dispassionate work day, they leave the office and become human again.
It isn’t like that. Companies are hotbeds of emotional activity. Competition, insecurity, frustration, excitement, anger, enthusiasm, fear—all of it operating in the workplace every day, affecting decisions, progress and revenue. Managers who don’t recognize the emotional realities on the job, who don’t take emotions into account when making decisions, often live to regret it. The more emotionally tone-deaf among them make the same mistakes over and over, often creating miserable work environments and dysfunctional teams.
What does that have to do with being a student of the humanities and social sciences? I think plenty.
Recently, I met with Kenton Hill, who is the author of Smart Isn’t Enough, a book about emotional intelligence at work. In the book, Mr. Hill shares with us stories of six executives, all of whom struggle because they lack emotional awareness, empathy, the ability to inspire others, be better collaborators, etc., often with far-reaching and terrible, sometimes calamitous, consequences. Mr. Hill is a “work performance coach.” In other words, he’s hired by companies to work with specific individuals, often in critical positions in the company, to help them become more effective leaders, usually by addressing some aspect of emotional intelligence that’s clearly lacking.
I met with him because I wanted to know if he’d given any thought to whether studying the liberal arts better prepares us to be more “emotionally intelligent” than studying, say, something more vocationally focused (engineering, business).
His answer? In a word, “yes.” He talked first about social awareness, an emotional intelligence category that includes empathy, organizational awareness and the ability to “read” relationships. “When you’re reading fiction,” he observed, “you’re often putting yourself in that character you’re reading about, comparing yourself to the character, and it helps us see things from others’ viewpoints.” After a moment he added, “And studying about other cultures improves your awareness of your own culture.”
Emotional intelligence is rather a hot buzzword in business circles, especially in management, because of the growing awareness that emotions have a lot to do with success, and by that I mean business success. Yes, it has something to do with personal success, too, of course, but businesses aren’t especially interested in that. They’re after revenue, innovation, progress, beating the competition. How being emotionally intelligent serves all that—that’s what they’re interested in!
One thing Mr. Hill does as he engages with clients is he performs assessments of them through initial interviews and eventually through more complex reviews of their performance at work. Looking through his files, he commented that the person who had scored the all-time highest in emotional intelligence of all his clients was a history major!
That could be a coincidence, of course. But I bet it’s not. What makes us able to recognize emotional realities, to anticipate reactions, to understand team dynamics, and to collaborate are the insights and information that come to us from the arts, philosophy, studying culture, history, and human behavior.
From studying business? Not so much.
Sequence: Education Then Experience? Or Experience Then Education?
If you have a major that recruiters are actively looking for (e.g., business, computer science), feature it prominently. If you don’t (English, sociology, philosophy), list it later. Don’t give recruiters a chance to make hasty assumptions about what you’re able to do for them based on generalizations and misunderstandings (like how well humanities majors are suited for jobs in teaching and nothing else). Let them get a sense of you first, and then tell them what you majored in.
GPA: Yes or No
Maybe. If your GPA is 4.0, and you don’t have much work experience, then, sure, you can include it. If not, leave it off. By the time you’ve been working for a couple of years, it becomes irrelevant anyway. Also, I’ve seen students list their overall GPA and their GPA in their major. One I saw the other day said “Overall GPA 3.8; Accounting GPA 3.85.” The difference is miniscule and not worth mentioning. If you’re going to list a GPA, list one or the other, not both. And if it isn’t outstanding, don’t mention it at all.
Summarize Your Qualifications
Put a summary of your qualifications at the top of your résumé. Be modest and creative. For example: “Experienced researcher, voracious reader, quick learner, astute discerner of quality.” Or “Literate, responsible self-starter; fluent in Chinese; broad and deep knowledge of Asian culture.”
Your summary should just be a short (no more than three or four lines) bullet list of your highlights. What makes you different? How would you quickly tell someone what you have to offer? That belongs in your “summary of qualifications,” nothing else.
“Excellent Communication Skils”—Really?
Don’t say you’re an “excellent communicator.” Demonstrate it. Many people say they have “excellent communication skills,” but most of them don’t. If you really are a good communicator, describe your abilities in some detail. Be specific, as I’m sure your English instructors have insisted. “My communication skills include writing for audience, conducting research, organizing qualitative information, writing efficiently, and optimizing both written deliverables and presentation materials.” Something like that. People who are “excellent” communicators know what goes into being one. People who aren’t don’t. And one more thing: your résumé itself demonstrates a little of your abilities as a communicator. Make sure it reflects all you claim–good organizational abilities, proficiency in copyediting, sizing up your audience, etc.
Career Objective Statement
“Seeking a challenging position in a competitive organization where I can make a difference.” So help me if I never again read this statement at the top of a résumé, it’ll be too soon! Don’t include an “Objective” statement, especially if you’re going to say something as recycled and meaningless as that. An objective statement can work against you, too. If you say “Looking for a position as a business analyst,” even if that’s the job title you’ve applied for, you may exclude yourself from being considered for other opportunities. Just leave it off—unless you have specific constraints, like “Looking for a summer opportunity to work in the retail industry,” which explains that you’re only available for the summer.
Résumé Length
Keep it short. If you’re under 30 and you have less than five years of work experience, your résumé shouldn’t be longer than a page. If by the age of 30 you’ve written a few books and flown around the world delivering motivational speeches or served in the House of Representatives for a couple of years, then maybe it should be longer. But as a general rule, a page should do it.
Online Résumé Parsers
Your résumé is going to be decomposed by online job application systems, so if you’re applying for a job you really want, for which you have at least a few of the specific qualifications, make sure you include the exact vocabulary that’s in the job posting. No, I’m not recommending plagiarism here, just that you echo some of the keywords in the job ad. If the job requirements say you must “analyze financial reports,” say you have experience “analyzing financial reports.” (Unless you don’t. No lying!) Or if it says the successful candidate “will have experience in event planning and management” say you have “experience in event planning.” Online application systems are looking for skills, not people. These systems de-construct you, reducing you to a bullet list of key phrases (it’s disconcerting, I agree, but it’s the way it is), so you must be the architect of this re-designed representation of your abilities.
Font Size Rarely Matters, But When it Does …
For those rare occasions where someone actually sees your printed résumé—not an uploaded version that’s lost all the artistry you thought you were including—make sure the font you use isn’t too small. If you’ve crammed the details onto your one page using a 10-point font, stand back and look at the page you’ve created as if it weren’t your own. Would you want to read it? White space is inviting. Densely packed words on a page aren’t. Remember, too, that the hiring manager or recruiter who’s reading your résumé might not have the great eyesight you have.
Talking About Your Experience
When it comes to job experience, don’t just say what you did—Responsible for this…. Duties included…. Yeah, so what? Say also what good came of the work you did. What were the results? Sales people usually have the easiest opportunity to exploit this—like “Implemented a new cold-calling sales approach that resulted in a 8% increase in sales the first month.” But they’re by no means the only people who can do that.
For example, a student recently submitted her résumé draft to me. It said she’d worked in the university library as part of a group to assess security issues. Her résumé listed the name of the group she was with and then said “Examined student safety issues at library.” Yeah, so what? “What came of the work you did?” I asked her. “Nothing,” she said. “Well, except we made recommendations for changes to make in some library areas.” “And?” I asked. “And they made those changes, so students feel safer now.” Ah ha! She changed it to: “Our group examined student safety issues at the library, made recommendations for physical security improvements which were implemented. Students now have an improved sense of personal security while using those sections of the library.”
More Than One Version?
Yes, you should have several versions of your résumé. I’ve been helping my nephew with his recently. He’s been in hot pursuit of part-time work in the food service industry. He has three versions: One highlighting his barista experience, another focused on his general food service experience, and a third describing his customer service abilities. All of them list his jobs and education but they do so in slightly different language, helping prospective managers see his abilities in different ways. (He got a job, by the way, thanks in part to version #3.)
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