Customer Reviews

10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College, Revised: The Know-How You Need to Succeed

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The description of this title does not exactly make clear what the book is about.

Part I - Know How Groups
Details specific skills in 10 groups by saying 1) why they're important 2) how college-level coursework can help you develop them, and 3) how activities, jobs, and internships can help you develop them.

Part II - What you should be doing in college to help yourself get a job/internship
Explains the idea of an apprenticeship, how to make college choices, volunteering, thinking BEYOND college, and more

Part III - Planning your success
More on careers, improving your "know how" skills, and how to use show off your know how skills in your resume and cover letter

Part I I found useful for some skills and a lot of fluff for others.
The explanation of the skill itself is mostly useless and consists principally of 1) a discussion of a rather irrelevant quote put at the top of each section, 2) how you might use it in a business/management type position. Of course that helps you out if you enjoy irrelevant quotations and are heading for a career in management, but be warned - this book was written for liberal arts majors. That is the type of student this author has had the most experience with and portrays most skills that are necessary for a position in sales, management, or some other business-oriented capacity. It's not for engineering majors.

Parts II and III I found very useful and eye-opening was the discussion of internships, jobs, and other activities outside of campus that comes after Coplin's foray into "know how groups." It details how you can use your connections and campus/online resources to find a career-starting experience at a relevant company. It also sheds some light on the internship experience and why it's important to "pay your dues."

If 1) you're majoring in some liberal arts field, or 2) want to learn more about what you SHOULD be doing with your time in college, this book is for you. But don't pick it up if you want to go to med, law, or some other graduate school. There are simply better titles for guiding you to those areas.

The book points out that college students need to develop real-world know-how in ten crucial skill groups:
Work Ethic
Physical Performance
Speaking
Writing
Teamwork
Influencing People
Research
Number Crunching
Critical Thinking
Problem Solving
A degree might get your foot in the door, but having these skills will make you a valuable employee. I agree with the author that if a work ethic is missing, then all the other knowledge and skills are wasted.

Want your children to succeed in the job market? Want to upgrade your own skills? This book offers much needed data about the value of work ethics, communication both verbal and written, working with others, influencing others, internships, building relationships. It is a job research primer. It also tackles the negatives of "helicopter parents" whose well-meaning attempts are often counterproductive to the individual learning process of the young adult trying to grow up and develop skills needed in the work force. Author Bill Coplin also explores time and money management, the interview process, identifying problems and developing solutions.

A timely and well-written perspective.

The book is a tremendous aid to help a college student, or for that matter any young man our woman get a leg up as they prepare for the real world they face outside of formal education. It addresses things that our formal education system misses. If you plan on working in a career, like most people, then you need this book to help you be prepared to face reallity of the work world. It suggests an investment of thought, time and energy but the payoffs will be worth it. Ask the HR people in your company if it is on target. My children will be reading it as they prepare to move into the "real world". Yours should too!

I recorded this book for RFB&D (blind and dyslexic and liked it so much that I sent it as a gift to several friends as a High School graduation present. The response from parents and teens was enthusiastic. I will order more.

We've all seen the lists on job finder websites of skills you need to succeed, but this book goes into excellent detail of exactly what, for example, a good communicator is, or what it means to have a strong work ethic. The author has done extensive research on the topic and has helped thousands of students get jobs.

I took this book out of the library to assess what I actually learned in college. According to this book I fall way short of the mark. I should be angry for having spent around $51,000 for a mediocre education which not only didn't prepare me for the job-market but also didn't help me to learn any job skills which would have been useful. They were either taught haphazardly by my professors and/or were completely non-existant in my classes.(AND I went to what is considered a good school).I'm not angry and I am glad I did the assessment so that I can work on attaining those skills in graduate school. To a new student on their way to college and smart enough to be preparing for the work world I advise you to follow the advice since it will be helpful for you to secure a half decent job offer. The world is so complex that if you don't teach yourself what is missing then you will find yourself out of the loop. Good luck with your education. It is what you make of it.