Summary Notes on "A CE News Roundtable - What employers want from new hires - and what they're getting," by C. Murphy and S. Fauerbach, P.E., CE News, March 2001, pp. 50-56 (Referred by Professor L. L. Lowery, Jr.)

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 3/26/01

"In an effort to understand the characteristics that employers want in the young men and women they hire directly from college, researchers at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, conducted a survey of professionals, which is described here. … After the university compiled the results, Shanon Fauerbach, P.E., the CE News editor, chaired a roundtable, which was held at Roger Williams University on Nov. 10, 2000, to discuss the findings. … Surveys were mailed to randomly-selected subscribers of each magazine. In total, 1,589 usable responses were returned… -23 percent from CE News, 13 percent from Information Week (IWeek), 24 percent from Architectural Record, 14 percent from Fortune, 11 percent from Human Resource Executive, and 14 percent from Inc."

"CE News respondents were also asked to rank the attributes of their new hires in order of importance…

Analyze and interpret data

Problem solving skills

Learning new things quickly

Motivation

Written communication skills

Oral communication skills

Self-starter

Innovative thinking

Teamwork skills

Job-specific computer skills

Realistic job expectations

Knowledge of the profession

Basic computer skills

Flexibility

Confidence

Self-centered"

"… Employers are looking for different things. New opportunities may also indicate that students need to be educated in different areas. … In the 80s, civil was broken down to environmental, structural, and whatnot, and we continue to break it down. … It's really gotten to a point where it's very difficult to have one engineer with the expertise to take a project from beginning to end. …"

"… Graduates have been weaned on computer now, and they're all more than computer competent. That's become a major problem, because instead of using the computer as a tool, it's now being used as a crutch. … Designers should have an idea, before they enter into the computer what that beam size and pipe size should look like, and they don't. … The problem-solving skills are the things we should be stressing in the universities. …"

"… We don't spend enough time going into high schools, and we don't get down to grade schools. … People don't understand what civil engineers do. … We have … an identity crisis. … We don't broadcast, vocally, what our needs are and what we do. …"

"Perhaps the pace of society today is so rapid, so quick that, by necessity, many of the employers right now are looking for somebody fresh out of school who can do everything. … You try to get the students in and out in four years because education is very expensive, and yet, when they leave, the employers are expecting them to come onboard immediately, because they can't wait around; there is so much competition out there. …"

"The new criteria, EC 2000 … seems to address all of those issues … the soft skills … that will make you fit better in the workplace, in addition to the technical skills that you're expected to know. … We need to recognize that we have to change, and it's awfully difficult to make that change. … Most programs are still four-year programs, and we're being challenged to put more and more into these programs yet reduce the credit hours so the students get in and out in four years, because education is very expensive. And at the same time, the graduates have to be effective from day one at their jobs. That's a big challenge … to get the students better prepared - not necessarily train them, but educate them."

"There definitely needs to be some legal training and business training. … In storm water management, a lot of what we do is because of drainage law … many engineers can design a detention pond well, but they don't know why they're doing it. … That's disturbing to me - the purpose of it is to protect the public, and they don't know how."

"Would it be correct to say, at this point, that a four-year program in civil engineering, may not be enough? … Maybe today there is more reason … that the first level at which you'd consider yourself an engineer would be at the master's level. … There aren't enough engineers in any of the disciplines. … If you go to a six-year program, where a master's is the minimum degree, the only thing that's going to do is decrease the number of students. …"

"Let's talk about some of the skills needed to be a manager. … As engineers, we need to figure out a way to communicate these complex issues - engineering issues - in terms that non-engineers can understand. … I think there has to be an emphasis on the humanities. … People need to learn how to write. …"

 

"Surveying has been taken out of the box at many universities. … I do think that's a mistake. … Recently, I worked with an environmental engineer with a master's degree. … When we were doing some plans and I asked her to lay out a base line, she didn't understand the concept of it. … Why do we keep worrying about squeezing everything into this box, instead of saying, 'This box may have to get bigger."? …"

"… As long as individuals have the basic understanding of what is needed, the software … and the computing skills … are moving so fast that if an employer stays with one company any period of time, they're going to be doing some training. … Academia needs to be really careful about how they use computers in the construction process, because, particularly with hydrology software and hydraulics, there's a tendency to rely too much on what the computer says. … It's more important, in an academic setting, to learn the methodology. …"

[Readers who are interested in this article are encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]