1. Skip to content

Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Engineering

They are talking about this topic: General Skills

 

Narrow Your Results by:


    Region


The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers look for new hires who possess strong communication skills, both written and verbal. These skills are often lacking. Some employers attribute this to younger generations having less experience with face-to-face communication.

Employer Quote Region
"If we're looking to fill from a computer standpoint—not that we've had to fill one for a while—but we'd be looking more probably at the BCIS because we need the business side with the computer. It doesn't matter what position you're in with IT, you need the interpersonal skills because you'll be working with a business unit. You're not going to be crunching behind the desk programming. Our main focus would be business communication information systems, that's what we're looking to fill. Typically, they're probably more at a senior-level. We're looking for someone that's been in the profession." Central
"I think communication skills and being able to get along with people are important. You don't have to like your co-workers, you don't have to be their friends, but you do have to be able to communicate with them. You can have somebody who is just so smart and can do everything, but they can't talk to anybody. I've seen that happen time and time again. Eventually, they're out because they couldn't work with people." Central
"They can know just about everything, but if they can't work with other people, it just doesn't work. It sucks all the energy out of everyone else." Central
"Well, sometimes there's just the attitude that they know it all and that no one else knows anything. Or that they're just smarter than everybody else. It's like this: When you say something to me, I roll my eyes like, 'Oh, my gosh, you don't know that?' That's all you have to do, and do that consistently to everybody you meet, and you're going to very quickly not have anybody working with you. Even if someone works independently, they still have to communicate with their supervisor, or with other people working with different pieces of that project. And I don't know how you go about helping someone like that." Central
"It would depend upon the personality of the person when they interview. That's a big part of the employee being hired—they have the ability to communicate well." Central
"Those capstone projects and the core writing and the ability to express themselves in writing is important." Metro
"I think one of the items is, again, a cover letter. Most people that are going to hire you aren't going to see your design paper, so your cover letter is really the only way to communicate that you have technical writing skills. I think the most frequent screen is the cover letter. If you can't show that your communication skills and technical writing are up to par in your cover letter, then a lot of times you won't even get in the door." Metro
"As a consultation company, I think that the communication skills are important." Metro
"I think one thing that is different at our company is the way we're set up. We don't have—we call it a free market—so we don't have supervisors. So, you don't get assigned on a Monday morning, 'Here are your four tasks for today,' or on Tuesday, 'Here are your other four tasks.' We need people who can operate in that environment, that will show self-initiative and motivation. And again, that consulting soft skills communication and being able to talk to interactive teams and talk to clients. So, I think maybe the issue that we would see is if people can't operate in that kind of free market system—that they aren't comfortable developing that network internally. We try to screen for that." Metro
"We need people who can build an internal network across different divisions of the company as well as with the clients. People who can communicate and who are interested in understanding everything that we do." Metro
"I think that communication skills would be really important in consulting. We've seen people with really short cover letters or poorly written cover letters or resumes. And that is something that has a bit of a disqualifying element to their application. If they don't know how to do a cover letter, how will they be able to write a report to our clients? So, we do look at more than just the GPA and their internship, we look at the whole package." Metro
"You have all these retirements that are coming, so there's a huge demand. And a lot of the people who are graduating seem to be pretty unqualified. They lack some communication skills, which are important. And it's worse than it ever has been before." Northeast
"When I was in school, we had to pick various topics to make presentations on, or we were assigned topics to make presentations on. I think it was a good experience. At the end of the semester, we had to go to Grand Forks. The auditorium there holds a few thousand people, and we had to make a presentation in there. Of course, it was empty, but still it just gives you an idea of how to get up in front of people and make a presentation." Northeast
"I think—I'm noticing it in some of the newer grads—that social media has taken over and texting is becoming their mode of communication. Our engineers have to be able to communicate and express themselves. And some of our engineers also have to write emails or other things that have to be clear—they can't necessarily write in their engineering language. So, I think communication is a critical piece." Northeast
"I'm trying to think back to what we did in terms of technical presentations. I think we had one class where we had to do something like that, but it seems like it was just a real small part. But I don't know what there is now." Northeast
"We've hired two engineers over the last two-and-a-half years. In both cases it took six to eight months to find a qualified person. Our qualifications might be a little bit different than in some cases. We're looking for communication skills." Northeast
"We want somebody with technical skills and communication skills to be able to deal with the customers. That can be a struggle at times. I don't know exactly what's being included in the curriculums now. I know when I was at [out-of-state college], we had to do a class on technical presentations. I don't know if that's missing. I'm on the alumni committee there, and they were talking about eliminating that course at one point, and the alumni committee said, 'No, definitely not.' I think it helps prepare students for the real world when they have to deal with people." Northeast
"At the [MnScU college] engineering program, I got to sit in on one of the reviews that the students had presented for. There were four of us there, I think. That was wonderful. If I would have had to do that 27-30 years ago, whenever it was, I would've been shaking in my shoes, right? But it was a good exercise. You could see the student getting more confident as the time went on. We were there for something like an hour-and-a-half. I think that's a great exercise. That's what we need. We need that ability to think on our feet—some creative thinking and just writing down some stuff." Northeast
"I think that's one thing that our schools don't do a good job of any more, is teaching kids how to communicate." Northeast
"A lot of our engineers have to talk to other engineers, so they need to be able to communicate. This also made me think about my brother who is a civil engineer. He was telling me last weekend about some people he brought in, and he said, 'You've got to get some engineers that can write—some of these guys can't write a sentence.' So, that is another thing that I've heard." Northwest
"You need to be able to talk to the customer. We do embedded and custom controls, and you need to talk to people. A lot of times you talk even with sales people. So, they have to be able to communicate, and then write it down." Northwest
"We hire mechanical, civil, and electrical engineers. And I'd say the civil engineers have more of the soft skills than the mechanical engineers do. Just because of the—I'd have to assume the program. I think they have projects where they do public speaking and those types of things." Southwest
"It amazes me how many candidates don't do their research on the company. I think they have the working skills, but a lot of the interview skills are sometimes missing. And that affects your perception of them." Southwest