A recent study conducted by Wall Street Prep revealed that recent finance grads—many of whom missed out on in-person internship opportunities because of the pandemic—are less experienced than those who came before them and ill equipped to hit the ground running.
"Despite massive investments in training programs, the harsh reality is that many juniors show up at the desk on day one completely unprepared and require significant hand-holding from the business to be productive," wrote Alex Gorbansky, managing director of corporate training at Wall Street Prep.
"With COVID officially over and juniors now in the office, the pressure is on for learning and development (L&D) to re-imagine training around skill-based programs that produce as close to desk-ready analysts as possible.”
This correlates with separate data from McKinsey which suggested only 29% of Gen Z workers want to work remotely, with the vast majority keen to integrate via in-office days and feeling anxious about getting their careers off the ground in a remote work setting.
The soft skills shortage
Underpinning this issue is a lack of soft skills among junior workers, notably the communication skills that in the past would have been organically gleaned from being around more senior and experienced members of staff daily.
So much so, a survey of hiring managers conducted by Resume Builder established that nearly all have experienced a Gen Z candidate acting inappropriately or displaying questionable behaviors during the interview process.
These include not dressing appropriately (58%), bad eye contact (57%) and using inappropriate language (19%).
How Gen Z can bridge the soft skills gap
From a company perspective, this means more needs to be done to get junior workers up to speed but for those who feel they might be lacking in soft skills, there are plenty of ways to take matters into your own hands.
For starters, lean on advancements in AI technology to get going. Practicetalking.net is a fun AI tool that lets you have conversations with chatbots that sound like celebrities, run through interview questions, and even practice for an interview for Stanford. Similarly, SmallTalk2Me allows you to practice your small talk ahead of in-person water cooler moments.
Another great way to develop your communication skills outside of the workplace is by volunteering for a charity or organization that requires you to speak directly to the public, or by joining a sports team that will also help you hone your teamwork skills.
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UX Product Design Intern, Roku, San Jose
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Intern, UBS, New Orleans
Looking for an opportunity in The Big Easy? UBS is hiring an Intern to work alongside financial advisors in its Global Wealth Management branch office in New Orleans.
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ENSCO’s Mission Systems Group is seeking a Meteorology Intern who is interested in applying their meteorological skills to real world problems. ENSCO projects support government initiatives and require a broad range of meteorological skills, including numerical weather prediction, transport and dispersion modeling, Python coding and plotting, statistical data analysis, and weather analysis and forecasting.
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This article was written by Aoibhinn Mc Bride
