Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills
Terrific Washington Post column on research done by Google on the skills that matter most to its 
employees success. Big surprise: it wasn’t STEM. The Post writes:
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both brilliant computer scientists, founded their company on the conviction that only technologists can understand technology. Google originally set its hiring algorithms to sort for computer science students with top grades from elite science universities.
In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
Those traits sound more like what one gains as an English or theater major than as a programmer. Could it be that top Google employees were succeeding despite their technical training, not because of it? After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.
This, of course, is consistent with the findings of the employer-led Partnership for 21st Century Learning who describe the foundation skills for worker success as the 4Cs: collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity. And the book Becoming Brilliant which adds to those four content and confidence for the 6Cs.
And consistent with the work on the value of a liberal arts degree of journalist George Anders laid out in his book You Can Do Anything and in a Forbes article entitled That Useless Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket.
It’s far past time that Michigan policymakers and business leaders stop telling our kids if they don’t get a STEM related degree they are better off not getting a four-year degree. It simply is not accurate. (Not to mention that many of their kids are getting non-STEM related four-year degrees.) And instead begin to tell all kids what is accurate that the foundation skills––as Google found out––are not narrow occupation-specific skills, but rather are broad skills related to the ability to work with others, think critically and be a lifelong learner. The kind of skills that are best built with a broad liberal arts education.
The Post concludes:
No student should be prevented from majoring in an area they love based on a false idea of what they need to succeed. Broad learning skills are the key to long-term, satisfying, productive careers. What helps you thrive in a changing world isn’t rocket science. It may just well be social science, and, yes, even the humanities and the arts that contribute to making you not just workforce ready but world ready.
Exactly!
It’s not one over the other (i.e. STEM over liberal arts or vice versa). The answer is both.
Of course. But not for all kids. What is common for all kids is that the liberal arts/6Cs skills are the foundation skills for whatever path you choose to take after high school/college. There are and will be good-paying careers for those in non STEM fields. In fact, one can make the case that over the long term the proportion of good-paying careers in STEM related fields will go down. That is the Mark Cuban (and many others) argument.
But this situation is also contingent upon assumed differences between ‘science’ and ‘art’ and what not! In fact, a recent book titled _Technological Forms and Ecological Communication: A Theoretical Heuristic_ (2017) is informative in this regard. Its Conclusion also has some sections devoted to an alternative curricular design, parlance. May be useful to this conversation.
a bit of an overreach. There are many jobs out there that are not google. Not everyone is going to work on a team, many are borderline autistic, introvert, and are some of our very brightest who need time to assimilate, reflect and space to think outside of the ongoing clamor. We absolutely need to make sure we have space for these thinkers as well. Einstein, Steve Jobs, many of our past writers and thinkers were of this mindset. Please do not pigeon hole all people and jobs and require such skills that paint all with a broad paint stroke. This does much damage to those who are ostracized for thinking outside the box.
I agree with both the article and what you are saying. I am a secondary music and theater teacher who sees the value of 21st century skills learned through the arts and creativity; and also have a son who you are describing as a bright mind who needs time to assimilate. The current school model fails both of these learning-style needs.
I totally agree with your thoughts, it would be wrong to wait for a fish to fly or a bird to swim. People’s interests and skills are different. Those who have talent in any field will be successful. As long as he has the will and effort in this regard. However, people who are skilled and have analytical thinking in these two areas will be the ones who make the difference.
STEAM!
Yes, STEAM has it. Appel Farm Arts & Music Center in rural Elmer, NJ (30 minutes from Philadelphia, PA) in South Jersey, just received approval (3/9/18) from the State of NJ to open Creativity CoLaboratory Charter School for 5th – 8th grade in September 2019. The school’s founding board asked Appel Farm to host the school, working to foster the 4 C’s of the 21st Century Learning program through the STEAM model. This fully arts integrated model is looking for teachers and administrators to promote STEM through the arts so that the children will be exposed to a different approach that will promote creativity, team work, understanding of different views and so much more. As an arts education organization, it is our responsibility to help the public understand that the arts are integral to the work force by providing an arena to develop future humane, caring, creative leaders who will take the next generations into a bright and profitable future. If there are any administrators, and NJ Certified middle school teachers who are interested in sending their resumes to join this venture, please contact Cori Solomon, Executive Director at csolomon@appelfarm.org.
Yepper!
Exactly. These skill are complementary not mutually exclusive. The 4Cs are like your force multiplier to STEM skills. Areas like Medicine, Food Safety, Construction, etc. need people with technical depth. To suggest and generalise that STEM skills are less important is quite misleading and dangerous.
Once again its Google, who as a result of their research, decided to open up their hiring process to those without STEM degrees. Unless you thing Google are dopes then the their conclusion (I was just reporting on their findings) is not “quite misleading and dangerous”. What Google did not say is that STEM skills are irrelevant, only that they are less important to employee success than the other so-called soft skills which are possessed by some who get non STEM degrees as well as some who do get STEM degrees.
Google has a very rigorous tech qualification exam. There sample was laced with people with strong tech skills. Once that threshold is met then other skills come into play. Most theatre majors aren’t going to get those coding skills in their program whereas a CS major definitely will.
So, I think it’s deceptive to tell someone that they can spend 100s of thousands of dollars pursuing a degree with no particular industry function and expect the world to be their oyster. While it is possible, it’s atypical.
What facts do you have for your assertion that a non STEM degree has “no particular industry function”? The data say the exact opposite. Look at George Anders works cited in this post and particularly his Wall Street Journal column cited in my post “Liberal arts lead to good-paying careers” post and you will see how wrong your assertion is.
I agree with you man,
I guess this is the result of an analysis based on an population which already have a high STEM level. I guess STEM is the common base here. Not sure Google would be Google with just a bunch of artists (without being patronizing — i’m an artist myself.. )
İ like this idea but the answer is not both
Yes but how did they quantify these intangibles? Employee surveys?
Here is a link to a New York Times article on the research:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html
If you want to look for more details search for project oxygen.
” 4Cs: collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity” Guess who supports these skills? Teacher librarians! Time to hire them back in Michigan schools!!!
Amen! We are big supporters of the 4Cs as the foundation skills for all Michigan students as the real measure of college and career success. For us it is the 6Cs from the book Becoming Brilliant. They add content and confidence.
Very refreshing…. And so positive for all students…. Learn in what you like… And don’t forget to learn all your life! Something I tell my students all the time!
Students’ priorities must be respect and supported. I fully agree with nurturing and supporting learning to succeed.
Project Oxygen evaluated most important qualities of top managers at Google – not “employees.” Managers manage people – stands to reason people skills would be more important than technical skills. That’s what they need to be good at their job. But the people they manage – programmers, data analysts, systems designers,, network specialists – need technical skills to do theirs. People skills help too, but for the entry level positions that folks get hire out of college to fill, and for senior technical staff, strong STEM aptitude and education are a must.
If you read the Washington Post article that was the starting point for the post you will find that Google has found these non-occupation-specific capacities essential in the performance of their most productive professional staff as well as managers. And have changed their hiring practices at all professional levels to consider those without STEM degrees. No one is arguing that STEM skills are not a path to good-paying work. But they appear to be not adequate to get to the best-paying work. And also not necessary, even at a company like Google, to get good-paying work.
Oh my gosh, reading through more of your comments it is obvious that your are entrenched in your misinformation. Please, read through the data more and get a better understanding of what the studies were about and what is really available in the Google job market prior to continuing to spread this nonsense.
This article and your comments are a prime example of why we need a stronger emphasis on critical thinking, research, and NOT TRUSTING WHAT IS POPULARLY SPREAD AROUND just because of a misleading, click bait style title.
“Google has found these non-occupation-specific capacities essential in the performance of their most productive professional staff as well as managers. And have changed their hiring practices at all professional levels to consider those without STEM degrees. “- This is easily disputed by just looking at the google job postings and the education requirements. Jeez, research man, research. Here is the DC area, you can easily change locations:
https://careers.google.com/jobs#t=sq&q=j&li=20&l=false&jlo=en-US&jl=38.9071923%3A-77.0368707%3AWashington%2C+DC%2C+USA%3AUS%3AUSA%3A9.169593926818076%3ALOCALITY%3A%3A%3A%3ADC%3ADistrict+of+Columbia%3AWashington&jld=20&jed=BACHELORS&je=FULLTIME&
Take your public position of spreading information seriously and reevaluate the level of integrity of the material that you share.
“skills related to the ability to work with others, think critically and be a lifelong learner. The kind of skills that are best built with a broad liberal arts education”
That’s a bit of a claim. What makes you think that an arts education is better than a technical education for improving those skills?
You also seem to have neglected to notice that “problem solving” was up there on google’s list with critical thinking, exactly the skill that is so well practiced in technical subjects.
Its not what I think that matters its what Google and other employers think. And increasingly they are hiring liberal arts majors. See the list of majors that is in the post and the Washington Post article that Google is now hiring from. And a George Anders Fortune article on Silicon Valley now hiring more liberal arts majors than engineers. Problem solving is really important. But the notion that you only learn problem solving in a technical training setting is simply wrong.
Could not have said that any better, exactly my thoughts.
STEM skills are very important but these are solitary skills. Once you are out of schools and start working in the outside world, you are expected to work in collaborative environments. Almost all cases, you are expected to work with others. In successful corporations, you will have to work not only with other workers with related skills but also with others who may not have similar background such as non technical executives, assistants, technicians, and others.
You do not learn these “skills” in schools. As you progress in any business environments, the non STEM skills become more important. That is when what I call liberal arts background becomes more relevant. Curiosity for learning new things, be they managing people, projects, scheduling and organizing and other subjects, become crucial. I studied engineering at U of M including two years in their gad school but I benefited greatly by having four years of liberal arts college education as well as singing in choruses and playing musical instruments with others. The latter experiences taught me to listen to others and collaborate with them. In my opinion, our education system does not emphasize so called liberal educationssuch as histories, literature, music, etc. We need both STEM as well as broadly defined liberal arts education for the country and corporations to succeed.
Exactly!
I graduated from Albion College with a dual major in theater and psychology, two big focuses on the soft skills and humanities. During my four years at that liberal arts college, i became leery that the theater degree would still offer enough courses not to be relegated to a minor-only offering. That was because year over year the entire budget for theater arts (and other arts) was trimmed and pared, and classes killed, and teachers let go because the college was deciding to put more focus into the STEM curriculum. I had to watch as my theater season was cut in half because there was no budget for the shows, while at the same time they were able to build an all new science center and put an overpriced and underwhelming shark tank in the basement and adorn the entryway with a multi- million dollar clock tower that regaled stem students with 32bit bell renditions of tasteless gothic orchestrals.
Thank you four sharing this article.
Amen! Absolutely agree! I always found that the soft skills provided me an employee with the capacity to be great in our field. I can “teach” and “train” someone on how to do Procurement, but I could not teach (at least not easily) how to be empathetic, creative, collaborative and a good listener. Cher’s for this article!
Watch again the movie “Disclosure” (1994). With soft skills only you cannot create or manage the products in the tech field. But AFTER you already have these STEM skills, then the soft skills will help your career. So it is MORE soft skills but only of you choose between people who already have STEM skills or even brilliancy.
No one is arguing that STEM skills don’t have value. Clearly they do. But they are the not the only degrees that have value. That is why Google as the blog states has “enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.”
Drama Kids is a franchise that uses developmental techniques to build the soft skills listed here. Kids need to learn these skills long before college. Begins in elementary school.
Did you know that a good majority of jobs at companies like Google aren’t even tech related. I am not sure of the exact number, but I do know that Google Sales team is huge and is responsible for a very hefty part of its profits — sales people do not require STEM related skills in order to sell a google product.
Summer of 2017, I worked with a group of young people in the Bronx who went around the community offering to bring local business owners online. By doing so, they were able to help support their communities while establishing pretty much every soft skill mentioned in this article.
Those interactions then encouraged students to go back and start exploring web design skills because now they could go out and help offer to build websites and manage reviews and listings, something our kids can do pretty well. Few of the young people from this project had any intention of wanting to develop STEM skills, but the positive engagements led a lot of them to begin exploring things like social media marketing and web design all for the sake of providing a service. All of those are the type of transferable skills that need to be nurtured.
Big companies only really support initiatives tied to inner city communities when it is through the traditional STEM track. Tons of money goes into promoting coding and computer programming and very little is spent on identifying young people who don’t necessarily excel in those areas.
Thank you for sharing that! That sounds like such a wonderful and meaningful project for the kids. You make such an important point that not all kids are going to be programmers or into STEM and that that is ok too and they can still make a difference!
I’m teaching a senior high school software engineering class this semester. We start off with IEEE’s SWEBoK (https://twitter.com/CWcomptech/status/962052353644945408) Collaboration and communication are keys to building successful software projects. The seniors know this in their bones after watching what poor communication and collaboration did to projects the year before. They aren’t going through the motions of teaching IEEE’s software best practices, they are evangelizing them.
I’ve got a liberal arts degree and a pile of technology qualifications. Both things have value, but to say that STEM does not mean collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking suggests a failure on the part of traditional STEM programs. Those teachers who treat science, technology and engineering courses as knowledge based learning are undermining the practical skills needed to actually perform STEM. Perhaps the real issue is we don’t do enough applied STEM and have too many academics treating it as a white colour, theoretically driven discipline.
Anyone who teaches modern software engineering would be mad to try and teach it as a solo coding course based on theory. No one actually builds software that way, least of all Google.
Exactly! Both skills set are valuable. I would argue that one has a longer half life. In addition, those with the Cs and without STEM skills are doing well in the labor market today and will in the future. One set of skills is foundational for all, the other isn’t. That is not the message conventional wisdom is delivering.
[…] has been taken apart and rewritten several times now. It started with a colleague sharing an article about how STEM grads aren’t particularly useful to STEM based industries. I’ve […]
The notion that STEM is a dehumanized, decontextualized set of skills is unfortunately one that most school systems and our popular culture tends to further. I would ask: what do we mean by STEM? Who does STEM? Where and why? In answering these questions, and in considering the human race’s history, it becomes clear that humans have engaged in both artistic and scientific practice for millennia. We sing, we make music, we design abodes, we look at the skies….- because we are human. Reducing these ways of knowing and experiencing our world to just one way is an artificial act. We are human, we are complex, and our ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us are varied and fascinating. Why not find ways to express this to our youth so that they can be protected from the false dichotomy of STEM vs non-STEM. Although my nonprofit is called talkSTEM, we firmly believe that Art & Design is embedded in STEM just as STEM is embedded in the work of every artist (not just da Vinci). We are committed to sharing this perspective of a unified set of experiences in all our programs and publications.
Id be interested to learn more regarding resolving this false dichotomy, as a former Engineering Student I struggled with the stark mathematical abstraction being only 18, 19, 20 years old figuring out life and taylor series algorithms at the same time was not very easy or fun. I went there to invent, to create, but found myself behind a desk penciling in answers and always being told to wait till my senior year when the fun stuff comes. I couldn’t wait, I left school, and eventually came back to graduate with an interdisciplinary degree combing both my engineering curricula and more broadly focused sociology and environmentalism courses. I learned how to express myself, make friends, and begin feeling human. I was disappointed at level of dumbing down the California state school system puts its supposedly best and brightest through for the first bit of college. Its like programming sheep, with the stick of getting on academic probation always right there. I think its a hangover from the 1950s educational style. There are studies showing higher levels of creativity of engineering freshman compared to seniors, and i absolutely understand why because i saw first hand how out of touch with reality too much Science can be without contextualization in the human domain.
A lot of these skills are possed or developed during military service, most of these veterans have these people skills with their technical background training. People Skills are required to lead people, you have to have people skills and be a people person to have compassion for your troops. “The day that your people stop coming to you with their problems and issues, is the day you have end to being their leader”.
chuck in a healthy portion of good old fashioned common sense, often sadly lacking in the word today.
No single system of learning can be full proof because every learner is different and unique.
The best a student can learn are the broader life skills like confidence, logic , analysis, interpretation and human values.
I believe this article should be an eye opener for many theoreticians , educational analysts, school heads etc.
What evidence is there for the (causal) claim that the “ability to work with others, think critically and be a lifelong learner …are best built with a broad liberal arts education”? Are there actually controlled studies that answer this question?
I don’t know the answer to your question. Its our point of view. What I do know is that Google, as the article, states decided, based on their research to hire humanities majors as having the skill set of their most successful employees. And that lots of professional schools are adding the liberal arts to their teaching and learning because they believe it is the best way to instill these skills. Search under liberal arts on my blog and you will find more of my thinking on the topic.
Hello Nick!
I would encourage you to recognize that controlled studies are not the be-all and end-all of human life.
A brief point exemplifying this: Science once believed in the flatness of the earth. Once a theory came along to “disprove” this, Science switched its mind to the belief that earth is actually spherical.
Further, Science, Tech, Engineering, & Math are all beautiful languages from which have come much practical usage to humanity.
They are just those though; languages of the human race which have yet to solve many of our questions, and which must not be relied upon as omnipotent entities. They deserve respect of course; just not our utmost reliance upon as humans.
I would add another “c” to the list. Character. Most of the hard and soft skills can be taught, but, in most cases, people either have character or they don’t.
We would agree that it should be on the list. But probably not that it can’t be taught.
Clearly, from a group of people selected for being the best at a single ability, another ability will be what separates one from others in the group.
Possible. But Google’s response, which is ongoing, is to hire those without your “best at a single ability”. As we quote in the article: ” After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.”
their research was only about managers
Wrong. From the Washington Post article cited in the post: “Project Aristotle, a study released by Google this past spring, further supports the importance of soft skills even in high-tech environments. Project Aristotle analyzes data on inventive and productive teams. Google takes pride in its A-teams, assembled with top scientists, each with the most specialized knowledge and able to throw down one cutting-edge idea after another. Its data analysis revealed, however, that the company’s most important and productive new ideas come from B-teams comprised of employees who don’t always have to be the smartest people in the room.”
Anyone who has worked with children from birth – five, for any length of time, no matter their skill level- can tell you this to be true.
It can be seen in the child’s processes for problem solving and proper brain ? development.
If’n y’all need a little “reality” or “statistics” to back it up, check out our current employment stats. Hmmmmm.
If a piece of early year brain development is missing (soft skills) the complete process of neuron development is disrupted and atrophies – like puzzle pieces that don’t fit properly. Thus, the gaps we see in our standardized test scores.
Wake up-
Look at the whole child when we teach our nations ?? children. I promise you will save money in the long run and encourage our future students self reliance.
Duh ?
Stellar Teachers ⭐️
This is no surprise.
What we NEED are smaller class sizes, giving every student a voice and opportunity for collaboration. What we NEEEEEED are more teaching assistants, more ART, more MUSIC – art and music provide personal commitment, accomplishment and collaboration. When I visit schools, I see hardworking, unappreciated teachers who are not being supported by the community. Teachers who have smaller classes and assistants can create collaborative learning experiences and build lifelong learners. and we need better infrastructures! Crumbling schools are depressing. Healthy food!– there are too many students who are not food-stable.
HEALTH insurance for families!!! You cannot learn if you are sick, your family is sick, and you are going bankrupt.
Lastly, testing has derailed education for greed. Remove the Bureaucrats from the equation. Stop trying to run schools like corporations. They need to be Care-Centers where kids can learn and grow in safe environments.
Why were the Technical Science degrees like Organizational Leadership and Supervision, from University’s like Purdue, ignored in the article? Seems to me, that those degrees would be even more beneficial than a Liberal Arts Degree.
The name on the degree doesn’t matter, it the skill set that that degree develops. So if the Purdue degrees develop the capacities Google identified they are right on. If they don’t then they are not. The liberal arts aren’t only taught in majors that lead to liberal arts degrees. It the non-occupation, broad, rigorous skill set that matters.
Nice article, but what it doesn’t say is that while the soft skills mentioned ARE more important, you often don’t get in the door at a place like Google wo technical skills, and most people who major/minor in the humanities don’t compliment that w a minor/major in computer science or math. Add to this that there is a gargantuan emphasis on technical skills and coding “to get good jobs,” which seems 100% at odds with an article like this one. I agree with the article, but you can’t have it both ways. Fact of the matter is that a lot of people go after what they see as a skillset to land a job and earn good money, and if it’s soft skills, companies need to start talking about that.
If soft skills matter that much, Google should hire people with humanities degrees and teach them to code.
What the article does say is that Google has changed their hiring practice. “After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.” And the George Anders Forbes article cited in the post presents the data that it is not just Google who are hiring liberal arts majors because of their soft skills.
I’d love for you to check out what we are doing in Career Services at Michigan State working with a concept called the T-Shaped Professional as well non-cognitive factors for success.
Good info. Thanks for sharing. Not everyone will end up working for Google. My son will continue working towards his STEM degree at the private school he attends. Luckily, his school also focuses on several of these other soft skills which are important to long term success. This is something I never had at my prep school or college.
That’s great. For those going into STEM occupations the non-occupation skills that turn out to matter more for job and career success should be a part of all STEM education. For those not going into STEM those other skills are the key to a good-paying career.
Well, a large international company hired a retired English professor to do what? Exactly what engineers and other STEM degree people though was unnecessary, namely proper grammar, proper syntax, proper spelling and proper punctuation. Why? Because communication by writing was breaking down. Engineers told her ‘you know, well, they’ll get what I’m driving at’, which does not fly when someone isn’t into mind reading. Those with proper communication skills, both verbal and written were promoted. For one reason, get sued, go to court and have some lawyer read the babble that is printed and it can cost a company. One company lost several million over a ‘comma’. Two ideas were not separated so, the judge ruled as read. Likewise, another manager gained success because his interpersonal skills were stronger than his engineering skills. He was able to focus on developing employees strengths and not berating them over their weaknesses. Thus performance and enthusiasm increased as well a productivity. Everyone has a large circle on their chest which reads inside “I Am Important”. We are all human and knowledge of the ARTS helps develop that side.
had googles founders not have STEM skills google would not have existed
If you are a surgeon than how good surgeon you are is mainly based on your skills as a surgeon e.g. how well you can perform an operation. Same is with programming. And anything else. I think you are misinterpreting the research done at google. Google founders themselves based Google on invention which is google algorithm. If they weren’t good computer scientists, Google would have never existed.
What matters is not my interpretation of the research, its Google’s and other employers. George Anders’ Forbes article cited in the post that Silicon Valley employers are now hiring more liberal arts majors than engineers is reality.
“George Anders’ Forbes article cited in the post that Silicon Valley employers are now hiring more liberal arts majors than engineers is reality.” -> That still doesn’t negate the point I am making. I am saying when you are a computer scientist or a programmer or anything else e.g. a surgeon, you must be an expert in your field, and in the case of computer science (STEM), the only way to be that is to have good STEM skills. That’s it. The fact that Syllicon Valley hires more liberal arts majors or whatever doesn’t negate my point anyway.
No one, certainly not Google, is arguing that technical skills aren’t important. They are. But what Google and other employers have found is that technical skills alone are not enough to make the best employees and that there are lots of important, high-wage jobs where STEM technical skills aren’t mandatory. That is not a message that kids, parents and educators are hearing. With the conventional wisdom being that the only four-year degree that is valued in the labor market are STEM degrees.
OK then I didn’t get correctly the message of your post. My point was that as a STEM professional, a person should strive to improve her/his STEM skills and not communication skills etc. (which are also important but not as much).
Our school district actually teaches SEL every single school day in our elementary schools! It is WONDERFUL! ❤
I agree with your point that 4C and Soft Skills Google is now looking for are evergreen skills that my school never spent enough time teaching me. We need more of that. But we also need more STEAM. It’s not just the technical expertise that is important, it’s the soft skills kids learn pursuing STEAM.
Resilience
Hypothesis
Data
Curiosity
Analytics
Mental Toughness
And more….
Sure. The soft skills (which really are as a rigorous as the so-called hard skills) can be integrated into all technical training programs/degrees. STEM, STEAM, whatever. The problem is they too often aren’t.
Hi Lou,
I don’t know much about STEM skills and those that are required to be effective at Google but I am certain that the most important skill in the world today is public speaking. I speak about it a great deal. Here’s an article that I wrote a while back that explains. Maurice
https://mindfulpresenter.com/mindful-blog/important-skill-public-speaking/
Great article. Having a specific Skill set, regardless of occupation is extremely important. Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Engineers, Electricians, Plumbers, Programers, Musicians, Artists, etc. all need skills. But, it seems the BEST employees are often the ones who have the ability to develop genuine relationships with their clients and coworkers. In the end, it’s not about the “product” you produce; it’s about the people you impact.
I think. Hard (Ex:STEAM) and Soft (Ex:Coachable) skills are the two sides of the same coin. I don’t see any point of comparing these two since they are both important and aren’t alternative to each other, either.
[…] (Source: https://michiganfuture.org) […]
OK but there is zero evidence that a Liberal Arts Degree teaches you the six C’s better than a STEM Degree. What Liberal Arts courses teach confidence and collaboration, and why can’t these be also learned in STEM courses? If you say creativity cannot be learned in a science course the other side of that coin is that critical thinking can’t be learned in a Liberal Arts course.
No one is saying you can’t integrate the liberal arts into STEM programs/degrees. In fact the best programs do just that. But many are not designed to build those skills. The liberal arts, for centuries, have been designed to build the kind of broad, rigorous skills that Google found to be the most important in their most successful employees. Clearly there are some schools where the liberal arts don’t build these skills adequately. But that is a problem of execution, not design. So as a result of their research Google expanded their hiring criteria to include those with liberal arts majors. Just as many Silicon Valley employers have. Whether they have STEM skills or not.
1. My son is earning a computer science degree from a state university and the gen. ed clusters requires a minimum of 27 credits in liberal arts classes. These classes are in clusters labeled: critical thinking, human communication, writing, literature, human questions and contexts, sociocultural domaine, etc. High tech degrees are more well rounded at his school than liberal arts degrees because the gen. ed. clusters only require 9 credits in STEM classes, therefore a person earning a BA would need very minimal STEM and those classes are typically very basic (natural systems, physical principals, and a basic math).
2. The google study project oxygen was specifically about MANAGERS at google, not all employees. The original WaPo article by Valerie Strauss and Cathy Davidson is very misleading , it insinuates that the skills listed are what Google looks for in all employees which is wrong. Stem skills are still the most critical skills for engineers at Google. Different job will need different skill set hierarchies. This continued spread of misinformation to push for increased critical thinking is absurd and contradictory. To oversimplify, take out of context, and manipulate information for any reason, even if considered good, is against the core of what we should be teaching.
This is also wrong: “So as a result of their research Google expanded their hiring criteria to include those with liberal arts majors. Just as many Silicon Valley employers have. Whether they have STEM skills or not.” Google’s Project Oxygen listed “Has key technical skills to help advise the team” as the last on the list for managers but still stressed the importance of strong tech skills. To reference the Project Oxygen study and claim that STEM skills are unimportant is a lack of understanding of the study and its findings.
I appreciate a lot of what Cathy Davidson has to say about ed but she has said some misleading things about tech. In a video that I watched on her twitter feed she was talking at Duke and said “I’m on the board of directors of Mozilla, the inventors of the Firefox browser, and, in fact, they were basically the inventors of the internet”. While pre-Mozilla Netscape did have an undeniable influence on the internet, it is an oversimplification of info and misleading to say that they basically invented it. Just like the misleading use of the data from Google’s Project Oxygen.
It’s great that your son’s STEM program integrates the liberal arts. That is what is needed for all. But the core skill for good-paying forty-year careers is the skills Google identified as mattering most, whether you have STEM expertise or not. The or not is accurate. Lots of folks with good-paying careers today and tomorrow with non-STEM four-year degrees.
The George Anders writing cited in the post, the change Google made in their hiring practices to include those with humanities and arts majors and the Project Aristotle research cited in the Washington Post article all make that clear.
There are some good paying careers for liberal arts but they are harder to find. I have a liberal arts degree. My degree did not stress soft skills, it was mainly memorization of facts and timelines. No group work, no real life skills or even knowledge, and little true depth of thought. I have found no high paying jobs with this degree.
My husband has a degree that is a mix of programming and business, it stressed soft skills AND tech. He has found many, many high paying job opportunities. The recruiters that came to the college looked for that combination, they passed by MANY liberal arts degrees. My husband knows some tech people in the industry who have liberal arts degrees BUT they went on to learn tech skills. There are some jobs for design teams with artistic and front end usability knowledge that do not need the tech depth. But, to say that the liberal arts degree is a good choice because there are a few opportunities that one MAY find is incomplete. Even my dad, 20 years ago, said “at least get in a few business classes.” Wish I had listened to him. Now, as a parent, I tell my kids “at least take a couple of programming classes.”
In todays world we must strive for the spread of useful, accurate knowledge (no more fake information spread via social media). ALL of your connections with Google’s research are inaccurately linked to YOUR desired conclusion. Project Aristotle was about team work, it does not correlate to how they hire.
Let me expand a little more:
I have a liberal arts degree, no pay
my sister- liberal arts, very low pay even with a masters
brother- liberal arts, in poverty until he went back for a tech cert
mother- liberal arts, technically in poverty until she went back for med. related degree
dad- no higher ed, well paid in a job no longer available in this world we know
uncle and aunt- liberal arts, work in unis, low pay
father in law- accounting, is that STEM? it is math based, high pay
sister in law- same, high pay
husband- business/ tech, high pay
With the current cost of higher ed being so outrageous, how can we encourage our kids to take the risk of getting a degree that may or MAY NOT lead to a job that they can live off of without assistance? Having seen my family struggle to make ends meet with liberal arts degrees, why would we want to do this to others? My sons friends in college are already wondering what they will do with their liberal arts degrees. My cousin is considering joining the military, he is getting a music degree and is the last person that I could see in the military but he feels like he has little choice. You say that you are a catalyst for prosperity, but this is not the right way to lead.
It’s kind of a weird thing and I was always thinking I am a misfit or an odd ball. I studied philosophy in a very strict and exclusive school but I ended working as an engineer all my life without going to an engineering school.
I run a code bootcamp in the Middle East. Consistently our ‘best’ graduates are those with non-STEM backgrounds. They generally are the first hired. Why? Creative cognition. Social intelligence. Ability to connect disparate ideas. Self-awareness. And as it turns out, passion.
This is yet another confirmation that the money we invested in our child’s Interlochen Arts Academy education was well spent. While he chose not to stick with music, the skills and discipline he learned have enabled him to move into other academic and employment areas pretty painlessly.
I find Google’s continual steps to be a better and more socially conscious & progressive business honorable. I am especially appreciative of their constant work on equal hiring practices and opportunities with in the company. Which is in example by this study. I just find the results obvious.
Anyone who has been on a sports team or in the work force at all. If you want to have a great TEAM of employees having collaborative skills is important. Even in customer service. The employees that are team players, help each other out, help cover, take simple steps to make the next shift easier make for a great team and a great working environment. When you get a staff member among their mist that does bare minimum or skips, lets say the cleaning duties of their job, but is absolutely perfect at the “technical” part like using the computer or handling the money, you end up with anger and resentment from the other staff. The manager will be faced with firing that one person or replacing several staff members who will look for employment elsewhere rather than deal with the hostile environment that gets built up over time.
That being said, just because I find it obvious does not mean it is to the rest of the world. So I appreciate this article and google publishing their findings and changing their hiring process. This is a very important step to employers having a more rounded whole view of their staff.
Not surprising! Highly Sensitive people are revolutionizing the workplace 🙂
http://hlysensitivealien.bestonlineblogs.com/
[…] From “Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important” by Lou Glazer in Michigan Future. […]
[…] 2017. Then on January 5, 2018, Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, wrote a short post titled, “Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills.” We shared it to social and the internet went nuts for it. In January alone, the post had 99,000 […]
false news spreads faster than truth online
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/false-news-spreads-faster-than-truth-online-thanks-to-human-nature/
good luck getting a job at google without a stem degree
What about “After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.” is unclear?
It is easy to go online and look at the jobs that Google has to offer and what the education requirements are for each job. There are a couple of marketing jobs and I saw one Technical Writer position but the rest are all tech with expectations of tech degrees and experience. Even the marketing and technical writing jobs expect a fairly deep understanding of technology.
[…] Link: https://michiganfuture.org/01/2018/google-finds-stem-skills-arent-the-most-important-skills/ […]
[…] Source: Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills […]
I have a B.S. in Economics, was a Manufacturing Operations Manager in the Printed Circuit Board Industry for 22 years. Now I have a M Ed, in Curriculum and Instruction and teach STEM. The path to success depends on the person, their experience in the workforce, and their strengths, not the degree.
our answer is homeschool. everyone wants kids who were homeschooled.
How will this help the stundent in high school right now. I’m in 10th grade and it makes no since.
isn’t it built on the work of the person not the degree in the world.
Hi Sam, we aren’t quite sure what you’re asking–but we think it’s great that you’re engaged. I’d be glad to talk to you or send you more info and will reply if you email me directly. Email addresses are on the About>>Team page. Thanks for reading.
Having read most of the comments posted so far it seems that the most important skill – I would call it metaskill – is left unrecognized — the skill of knowing which skill to employ in all and any professionel and work related situtaion. This ability or skill cannot be taught as it relies heavily on intuition. I have seen this problem countless times while working with engineering colleges where practical prolems that crop up is approcahed with a mathimatical solution, instead of relying on ones practical intelligence !!
I agree that the skill you emphasize matters a lot. But my instinct is it can be taught. Probably through problem solving projects and/or simulations. You can put people into situations where when they don’t apply “practical intelligence” and fail they are assisted in figuring out what they could have done differently.
[…] Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills […]
[…] upon a time, we all thought that a 4-year degree was the golden ticket to career success, but when Google shared an internal employee survey that showed no link between having a 4-year degree and being a […]
If a higher ed student is passionate about a particular idea within the liberal arts realm, then the degree will hold value and will potentially motivate the student to find a career that utilizes that passion. Unfortunately, many of us with liberal arts degrees have one because we went to college not knowing what we wanted to do or maybe we had a vague idea of our interests and we fell into the degree. Many of us may look back and see that the interest that we had could have been categorized as a potential hobby but not so much a potential career. If we are completely honest, then some of us would also say that we picked our liberal arts major because we were not in the most motivated part of our lives and we wanted to be in school but maybe not work too hard. Part of the issue may be that many us just expected to go to college, get a degree, but had little idea of what we really wanted to do with ourselves beyond that. In Virginia, k-12 schools are starting to initiate programs to familiarize all students, at every level, of potential careers so that they can enter higher ed with a better understanding of what they want to do and how they can accomplish that goal.
Listen and read what Cathy Davidson really has to say about higher ed and you will see that she is a proponent of increased interdisciplinary approaches to learning. She preaches the thoughtful use of technology and updated teaching/learning approaches. She is against current assessment approaches and she believes that cost of higher ed is a big issue. These are the ideas that you should be focusing on as potential catalysts for prosperity. Not which degree is the best, but how to make all degrees more useful in the current world and how to make higher ed more accessible to everyone. Additionally, if all states implement a progressive approach to familiarizing k-12 students with career options then hopefully students will be able to make more of their education, knowing what they like and how they can find work will mean less people go to college and fall into degrees that they have little real desire or ability to find work with.
[…] provides several of the skills top employers need. In the article, “Google finds STEM Skills aren’t the most important skills,” Lou Glazer shares research conducted by Google. “The seven top characteristics of […]
[…] 7. Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills […]
[…] not just knowledge of STEM, but the ability to think, create and collaborate that leads to success. Google, a powerful company, began hiring employees with a wide range of degrees including humanities and […]
[…] response to Davidson’s Post column, blogger Lou Glazer continued the conversation about the value of a liberal arts education, citing the 2017 book by […]
This is the right blog for anybody who really wants to understand this topic. Looking forward to reading more from you. I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your post
[…] the obsession with STEM is a bit […]
[…] https://michiganfuture.org/01/2018/google-finds-stem-skills-arent-the-most-important-skills/ […]
It is great to see that this these skills are being recognized by America’s greatest organizations. This is exactly what my program Moving Minds was built to address. We use dance to develop the 6Cs. We do so by specially designed movement games and choreographic challenges. Would love to talk to any of you about the specifics.
[…] skills when considering how best to prepare our kids for the world they will face in the future. Google came out with a big study of their employees and found that the ones that were most successful were […]
[…] are no longer as separate as they once were. Recent articles point out that modern companies like Google don’t just consider employees’ technical skill when assessing them for raises or […]
All of the soft skills mentioned here are taught in Interpersonal Communication and Small Group Communication classes, not English classes. I found in working with employers, they are thinking old school of speech and English classes. Today, Communication classes include and are much more complex that those alone and should be required for all post secondary students.
Nice article
Here i want to explain some of the important Technical competencies required fora job:
1. Know about Microsoft office.
2. Learn how to write and reply to emails.
3. Know the specifications about calling.
4. Use of computer accessories.
5. Know about important software.
Therefore, try to equip yourself with the basic technical skills required to succeed in getting a job.
For more information check my blog:
https://blog.unisquareconcepts.com/work-life/5-essential-technical-competencies-sought-by-employers/
[…] upon a time, we all thought that a 4-year degree was the golden ticket to career success, but when Google shared an internal employee survey that showed no link between having a 4-year degree and being a […]
I don’t think that is what Google found at all. As the post says “the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.” So four-year degree holders are still what Google hires, not just narrowly those with a degree in a STEM field.
[…] than in the past. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning considers the “new” foundational leadership skills: collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and […]
Thank you for sharing the informative article with us.
Fantastic post.Never knew this, thanks for letting me know.
Of course, but for companies to succeed, we need both STEM and broadly defined liberal arts education.
Today’s world needs new type of personality: the T-type. Not only STEM skills make the person succesful but also other skills are needed. So the companies have to read this new paradigm of humanity and focus on the skills like critical thinking or connection abilities.
I agree with this view.A person who has the skills of collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity content and confidence can progress and we are more likely to encounter this individual’s skills in the future. I believe that liberal arts education is great importance for learning and productivity.
I am doing a technology-intensive job as a business management graduate.
Managerial disposition is related to personality. Technology aptitude is related to curiosity.
I can’t agree on this more. 1+1 > 2 implies that you will need more than hard skills to succeed. One commonly overlooked skill set is tenacity.
Of course, STEM skills of the person are very important for a technology-based industry, but it is a fact that it will not be enough on its own. Working environments and customers’ requirements; It also requires teamwork, cooperation, creativity and human relations skills. I think that social intelligence and talents should be included in every field.
I agree with the conclusion of the published post and your thoughts. I congratulate Google for researching such an issue and radically changing their recruitment process. The decision they make can set a great example. Of course, STEM skills are important. The power of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is indisputable. However, it is not everything. It would be a one-sided and incomplete practice to require only STEM skills to be high while evaluating a person or bringing them to a task. These skills should not be an evaluation criterion alone and social skills should not be excluded. From an educational point of view, it is a smarter way to be a productive adult, instead of imposing mathematics, technology or science to the student as a measure of success, to be a productive adult, because the person is happier and more efficient. Technical education is insufficient to acquire social skills such as communication skills, empathy skills and creativity. These are skills that can be acquired through humanities and arts. No skill in any subject is superior to belittling any other skill. Actually, both areas are important, they are complementary to each other, and those who can develop themselves in both directions will be the preferred ones. I think it was appropriate for Google to include social science experts, MBAs and artists, which they do not care about at first, in the employment process.
Google puts STEM skills a vital priority in today’s world, but is it enough as Steve jops insists? I’m not sure if that’s enough. In today’s world, we need educated people who have developed creativity, communication skills, cooperation skills, and cultural and social skills.
I agree on this and this is such a great and elaborative post
Soft skills or hard skills. Neither is better than one another or easier to be acquired. I understand that Google’s algorithm has demonstrated such results, however it’s not necessary to take a side. it’s opine that it’s important to be both good at STEM and soft skills, as in professional life both are vital.
In order to be successful in business life, it is more important to develop social skills than technical skills. Anyone can learn and integrate existing technical knowledge into their own work with hard work and research, but it is more important to develop social skills and integrate these skills into the work being done. From social skills; Being a good leader, communicating and listening well, having an opinion about others, empathizing with and supporting colleagues, being a good critical thinker and problem solver, being able to make connections between complex ideas are among the most important social skills.
This underlines the importance of a well-rounded education that includes the humanities and arts, as they contribute to the development of these essential skills. The shift in perspective, as evidenced by Google’s hiring practices, aligns with broader trends in the business world and education, emphasizing the 4Cs (Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Creativity) as foundational skills for success in the 21st century. It’s a reminder that success in a rapidly changing world isn’t solely reliant on technical know-how but on the ability to adapt, collaborate, and engage with a diverse range of challenges and perspectives.