I have hired roughly 100 people in my career.
That translates into 500 interviews, maybe 5,000 or so resumes. Most blur into one another. Only the exceptional and the insane stand out. The exceptional I tried to hire; the insane I slid into a folder marked “People to investigate in case you find me dead.”
Among those applicants, mostly young reporters and editors looking for a first or second job, I can remember many who boasted study-abroad credentials. Never once did that fact factor into my hiring decision.
And it seems I am not alone.
A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article explores why so few companies set out to hire recent graduates who have studied abroad and, more importantly, how universities are responding to it. The article offers many ideas, but what links them all together is a need for clearer communication between all stakeholders – universities, students and potential employers.
Study-abroad programs have an image problem. As this article correctly points out, more than one survey of employers ranks international study low among co-curricular activities in its relevance to the workplace.
As a True Believer in internationalization, that drives me nuts.
But as a guy who once did the hiring, I completely understand it.
Like many things on a university campus, study-abroad programs tend to be administered in an echo chamber. We think they are great; so they must be great. And they are.
But that belief does not hold true off campus.
Many employers see study-abroad programs as perks, nothing more than a final semester victory lap backpacking across Europe for privileged students. The numbers don’t do much to dispel that notion. In the United States, 82 per cent of study-abroad students are upper-middle class white kids, and 60 per cent of them head to Western Europe instead of 21st century hotspots like China, India or Russia (11 per cent combined). Canadian numbers are similar.
As universities, we tend to focus on getting students overseas, anywhere overseas, and not on what happens once they return. That’s a disconnect explored in the article and across interview desks every day.
True, some study-abroad programs are jokes. That shouldn’t be cause for employers to write them all off. But this documented distrust needs to be a wake-up call for universities. The rigorous programs need to be upped even more. Then we need to market that rigor to students and employers.
Go survey a number of university study-abroad websites. Here’s what you’ll find: Vacation over vocation. Universities sell students, and indirectly employers who look at those same sites, on the fun of study-abroad programs. More site-seeing than fact-finding. That’s understandable. But there needs to be balance.
Upon return, students need to be able to articulate how the experience made them a different person and, in turn, a better candidate for the job. I’ll pluck a quote from the article that says it perfectly:
“The value isn’t that you had the abroad experience itself. It’s what you learned overseas that allows you to work in a cross-cultural environment. Students have to learn how to talk about that experience in terms of transferrable skills, how it relates to what an employer wants.”
Funny, not a single candidate I interviewed sold the study abroad credentials as anything beyond a “great experience” or “great time.” Those are the kind of responses that feed this negative image.
As Western pushes to increase its already impressive study-abroad numbers, we must not forget to explain why we are doing it to the outside world.
We need to be mindful of external perceptions. And when we encounter them, don’t make excuses, inform. Employers need educated on how these program create better citizens, employees and people.
Jason Winders, editorial services associate director, serves as editor of the Western News. Contact him at jwinder2@uwo.ca.