Question

Job postings often state that the successful applicant must have superior critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Yet employers tell college administrators that graduates, both from undergraduate and graduate programs, often lack these skills.

1. How would you define critical thinking?

2. Why are employers making these comments? Are they justified?

Your response should be at least 250 words. Please use your own words and be sure to reference your sources.

Answer 1

Often in a business environment a person needs to have very different approach from the university or college environment, because there is nothing such as ideal scenario and there are many grey areas where things are not completely right or wrong . Many time a person is expected to use the common sense, gut feeling or sometimes a good foresight and ability to read between the lines, and take appropriate actions at the right time. Often, one needs to optimise the processes and use the resources in justified manner, so as to minimise the harm and maximise benefits. This is where critical thinking comes into picture, where a person is expected to have an ability to foresee the action and analyse the facts in a critical manner so as to find out the most optimum alternative out of many, one which would maximise the favourable output while minimising the risks. This ability to analyse the given (and perceived) information to find out the best alternative is known as critical thinking skill.

Employers complain this because the resources they get from the colleges are raised in an idealistic environment where the things are black and white, and they need to make decisions out of information provided. They hardly come across the real life issues which need different approaches to tackle, and sometimes street smartness works better than the knowledge gained through studies. These practical skills that are needed to survive in a real life environment by resolving issues as they come, is the need which the employers find their trainees to be deficient in. Field work, summer internship or on the job training might fill the gap where students are exposed to the real life issues and the way they are resolved.