"Soft skills", universities and bad advice from Singaporeans

Today, I was appalled by a comment that my reader Light Blue Skies (LBS) left on my previous article - I almost feel bad about ranting about it because the poor girl was given really bad advice by her relatives (who no doubt meant well, they were not deliberately trying to mislead her). This is what she wrote:

Light blue skies 27 December 2013 05:23

Is taking a business degree better for me? From what I heard from my relatives, I was told that Law and Business degree are highly valued by employers because such graduates are trained to present and speak confidently.

What is the secret to presenting confidently?

When I read what her relatives told her, I went into a long rant telling her that her relatives were spouting bullshit and didn't know what the hell they were talking about. Gosh, I really feel bad for young people like LBS out there who are listening to advice from adults who no doubt have good intentions but often have no clue what the fuck they are talking about. You know, sometimes I have to take a step back and just leave things be because I cannot try to rectify the situation every time a stupid person spouts some bullshit like that - but in this case, I shall talk about the issue because I feel that I have some useful information I can share with my younger readers like LBS. After all, like her, my own parents or relatives were not any help when it came to career advice back when I was a teenager myself.

Okay, so why did this comment irritated me so much? I didn't realize it was even possible to cram so much misleading information into one sentence! Let me start taking it apart.

Do you know when you're given bad advice?

1. A university simply does not train graduates to present and speak confidently.

There are things that a university can do for a student - they involve mostly imparting knowledge pertaining to the course the student is studying. There are a whole range of other "soft skills" however which students are simply expected to figure out for themselves, a good example of that is time management. It takes a certain amount of discipline to manage your time properly at university - there is often a heavy workload and deadlines to meet. Many students will also have to do many domestic chores like cooking, cleaning, the laundry, shopping for groceries as well as try to maintain a social life, participate in sports and often also do a part time job.

Now what do you think your university lecturer is going to say when you approach him and say, "I need you to teach me about time management." The answer would be, "you're an adult, take responsibility for your own actions and figure it out. You're not an eight year old child!" Likewise, if you approach your university lecturer and said, "I need you to teach me how to present and speak confidently." What do you think the response is going to be? "That's not my job. Figure it out for yourself - seek professional help if you have to but that's not my responsibility."

There is no spoon feeding at a university: you're an adult, so act like one.

University is not primary school - if you have earned yourself a place at a respectable university, then you're expected to arrive on campus with a certain set of skills: such as a decent command of English (or whatever language the course is taught in) and the minimum standard of mathematics required for the course. Public speaking is not something universities will teach you - rather, it is something they expect you to have already done as part of your primary and secondary education and like basic literacy and numeracy, it is something you're expected to be able to do on your very first day at university. You need to be able to speak up and contribute ideas constructive and eloquently during discussions, tutorials and group work. If you turn up at university and claim, "I can't do public speaking so I can't contribute during tutorials, I need the university to teach me about speaking confidently." Then believe you me, everyone (staff and other students alike) are going to turn around and give you that "what is wrong with you" look.

There is a whole range of soft skills you're expected to already have when you start university - university is not the place to start learning them. If you are only thinking about picking up these soft skills at university, then it is just too late. These are things that your parents and teachers should have considered in the first 18 years of your life, when you were growing up. Don't expect the university to perform miracles if you (and your parents) have woefully neglected that aspect of your development in the first 18 years of your life.

You will learn a lot at university - but don't expect miracles.

2. Take responsibility for your command of the English language.

If your English really sucks and as a result, you lack the confidence to do public speaking because you're struggling with basic things like grammar or pronunciation, then you need to fix the problem. Your university is not going to sort that out for you. You'll probably meet many nice people in life who will brush the issue aside and sweep it under the carpet by saying, "oh don't worry, you sound fine, it's alright". But if you really think that it is an issue that is holding you back, then there are concrete steps you can take to improve your English.

It may involve seeking professional help from a voice coach or getting some intensive tuition from a native speaker, but again, this is not something your university will do for you. You have to decide if you want to do something about the situation and act upon it - take responsibility for yourself, do not wait for someone else to solve your problems because no one else is going to help you. Take control of the situation and get the help you need.

3. Learning to listen and be in control of the communication

Some children are very confident when it comes to public speaking - this is because they have been nurtured in a conducive environment. A neglected child who grew up watching TV instead of playing with his/her peers will not have the same level of confidence. Parents and other family members play a huge part in this process during the child's formative years and this can have a major impact on how a child deals with public speaking. An important part of teaching a child to talk is to listen to the child and give the young child plenty of attention and interaction - this is not something that can be replicated by a TV as children just sit passively in front of a TV (and this is why young children should not watch TV as it is very bad for them - they really need that human interaction).

Remember, public speaking goes a lot further than simply sounding articulate and eloquent - a big part about communication is about listening to the other party (whether it is just one person or a big audience) and responding accordingly, so the communication is flowing both ways. A big part about speaking confidently is knowing that you are in control of the conversation, that you know exactly what your audience is feeling and you know precisely how to communicate the message you want them to take away - and that begins with listening to your audience. A great speaker is always an even better listener and this is something that has to be cultivated from a very young age, from the time a baby is about 12 to 18 months old. That is the time when children learn to talk and this goes a lot further than gaining a mastery of the language, it is about learning how to communicate with others.

Learning to speak confidently starts at a very young age.

4. Parents have to take responsibility for this, not the university, definitely not NS.

What the fuck are LBS's relatives thinking, that you can neglect such a vital function in a child's development and then expecting the university to plug that big gap you've left in the poor child's development? Good grief: this is such a vital part of parenting and it is the parent's responsibility to deal with this issue - not the university's responsibility. And if a young person arrives at university with no public speaking skills and no self-confidence to stand up in front of a group of people to do a presentation, then it's already too late at that age to undo all that damage inflicted by the useless, neglectful parents at that stage! Unfortunately, many parents do not realize how important early education is.

This is what really pisses me off about the way some Singaporean parents think - they expect some element of the state to take over and perform vital parenting tasks on their behalf. I have encountered a similar attitude when looking at the issue of national service, where many parents imagine that NS will sort their sons out, make them grow up, make them more mature and responsible - when really, if you have brought up a son who is childish, immature and irresponsible, can you seriously expect the SAF to perform miracles after you've been a totally shit parent and failed to do your duty as a parent to bring up your child properly? If you have neglected your duties as a parent for the first 18 years of your son's life, don't expect the SAF to wave a magic wand and somehow rectify all the flaws in your son's character because that is not going to happen. No, it is already too late at that stage.

Some Singaporean parents expect NS to perform miracles with their sons.

By the same token, if you want your child to grow up with enough self-confidence to stand up in front of a group of strangers and deliver a presentation eloquently and confidently, then you have to start from the time the baby is 12 to 18 months old and continue nurturing that young mind for at least the next two decades. Don't expect a university course to do that on your behalf - this is definitely the parents' responsibility and it pisses me off so much that LBS's relatives (and many other Singaporean parents) have failed to recognize that.

5. Employers always test their job applicants thoroughly, rather than just look at CVs.

I have been in a position of the 'gatekeeper' both in my current company and in my previous company - let me tell you what the gatekeeper does. Say if someone is applying for a job with the company and they claim to have an expertise in a certain area, I would verify that and see if they are lying. I take my job of a gatekeeper very seriously and if someone is exaggerating any aspect of their CV, I will catch them out. So if they claim to have dealt with funds of hedge funds in their previous job, I would ask them many detailed questions about funds of hedge funds to see if they really know the subject matter well. Nothing, absolutely nothing escapes the gatekeeper's attention.

Nothing gets past the gatekeeper without intense scrutiny.

Such is the nature of the job interview. It is brutal and if you get a mean gatekeeper like me, it's not just brutal, it can be downright cruel. It is like going before Simon Cowell and claiming, "Simon, I can sing really well, I have what it takes to become a superstar." He's going to reply, "okay, go ahead and prove it to me. Sing." So if someone claims to know how to "present" and can "speak confidently", I would put them on the spot and expect them to prove it. So if some young graduate claims that he can "present and speak confidently", I would say to him/her, "so you went to NUS and studied political science. In two minutes flat, I want you to convince me why I should send my nephew to NUS to do the same course that you did - give me a quick presentation. By the end of those two minutes, if I am not convinced, then you have failed. Do you understand? Good. You now have exactly two minutes to impress me and prove yourself."

And if they're rubbish, I could be as cruel as Simon Cowell. Now I've never had any of the interviews I've conducted filmed - but here's Simon Cowell to give you a taste of how gatekeepers will react with some job applicants who are just plain rubbish. Oh yeah, beware of us gatekeepers. Now watch the clip below and have a good laugh.

What is the point of job interviews then, I ask you? Job applicants make all kinds of tall claims on their CVs and the job of the gatekeeper is to detect the lies and verify everything. LBS, go tell your relatives no gatekeeper in the world would ever assume that just because someone did a law or business degree that they're automatically eloquent, articulate and able to speak confidently. It is so typically Singaporean to default to paper qualifications rather than actually testing the candidate before you - duh. Like seriously you guys. Double duh.

A smaller company may just use a gatekeeper like me to weed out the jokers from the serious applicants to be considered - much bigger companies will have far more detailed procedures, interviews and psychometric tests that will evaluate every aspect of your faculties, especially soft skills. I think the most stressful one I ever did was in Geneva back in 2000 when I applied to join an NGO (and failed) - it was a two day long bilingual boot camp in French and English and gosh, they did everything they could to try to crack me in those two days (and I did crack once under pressure - which was probably why I didn't get the job in the end, quelle dommage mais c'est la vie). The bigger the company, the more resources they will have to test candidates to make sure they employ only the best talent.

Gatekeepers can be quite brutal - you were warned!

6. An example of such a communication test

Let me give you an example of one such exercise that is often used to evaluate the ability of a candidate to express himself and present a case confidently. This test would involve the candidates being shown ten different T-shirts. Now working in a group of about five or six, the group has to decide which T-shirt would sell the most at a market stall in a popular mall in town. There is no "right answer" - the purpose of the task is to simply see how you communicate and function within a group, how you can convince the other members of the group that your choice is right.

You will be watched carefully to see how you put your ideas across to others - are you convincing? Can you get the others to listen to you? Are you listening to what the others are saying and responding accordingly? Are you shouting or being ignored? Then once you have reached an agreement as a group, you will then have to explain why you have reached that conclusion. It seems like an easy enough task, but you'll be amazed how many people are unable to communicate effectively in a challenge like that. A short exercise like that (which can take as little as 10 to 15 minutes) can tell me so much about the individual's ability to communicate.

How well do you work in a group?

7. You can train ten people but will all ten people be equally competent? 

Here's another aspect of training - you can put the same ten people through the same course but you won't get the same results within that group. I remember at university, everyone had to do a compulsory statistics course. I breezed through it easily as I am good with numbers and to be fair, it really wasn't that difficult, just the standard quantitative analysis that any first year undergraduate is expected to master. There were two girls on the same course who just couldn't get their heads around that module though - I had to sit down and help them through the course work and they really struggled. With my help, they eventually managed to pass the module but only just!

I have been on so many courses over the years where some people do well and others don't - there's always the person who scores full marks and the person who barely scrapes through. So with that in mind, no gatekeeper would make any assumptions about what a university has successfully trained the graduate to do. Would you assume that everyone who has a driver's license is an equally good driver? No, some drivers are excellent whilst others are not - so if I were to hire someone specifically for their driving skills, I would always make sure I put them through a thorough test rather than just checking if they have a valid license.

8. Charisma, humour and beauty: so many other factors

Being able to present a case confidently (be it a sales pitch or a case before a jury) is about being persuasive and eloquent: this is a huge asset in the business world - it means being able to get what you want, whether it is whilst trying to close a deal with an important client or convincing your boss to give you that promotion that you deserve. Let's get real here. A university cannot teach you how to become persuasive and eloquent - there are so many factors involved here. I've already talked about being a good listener - but you also need charisma. If people like you, then they are likely to want to listen to you. If you give them a bad impression from the start, then you're not going to get them to give you what you want. Oh yeah, first impressions count in the business world!

Let me give you an example. I went to meet the publisher of a magazine about finance in London earlier year when my company was going to launch a new product . We were considering possibly advertising with his magazine. When I met this publisher, he didn't ask me how I was, if I wanted a drink or what my company's plans were with this new product. Instead, he was like a machine gun: he went on and on and on about his magazine's circulation, his magazine's history, why so many big companies have advertised with his magazine and what my options were in terms of advertising in the next issue. He was eloquent, articulate, he presented his case very clearly and spoke confidently.

Aaaargh, just get me the hell out of this meeting!

And I hated him. He was an arrogant asshole, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of that meeting. Needless to say, I said no to advertising with his magazine simply because I found him so repulsive. He was so full of himself and he made no effort to try to show any interest in me or my needs. So you see, it takes a lot more than being eloquent to do well in business - you need to charm people and this publisher had no charisma to speak of. Humour is a great way to get people to like you, if you can be funny and entertaining, if you can make them laugh, then they will enjoy being in your company. And of course, if you're handsome/beautiful, then congratulations, many people will instantly like you because they are that shallow and we live in a shallow world. There are so many other factors as well, such as dressing right to convey the right kind of corporate image in the working world - that is something I have covered last year.

Okay LBS, so that's 8 reasons why I feel your relatives' advice was so wrong on so many levels. I know they mean well and are only trying to help, but good grief, with no disrespect to your relatives, they don't know shit, they have no clue what the hell they are talking about. So kids, be careful whose advice you take in life - just because they care about you doesn't mean they have a clue what the hell they're talking about. If you have any questions on the issue, please feel free to leave me a comment below and I'll see what I can do to help.

Getting along with colleagues is an art form not taught at universities.