Certifying Soft Skills?

By Matt Reed. “Lose the do-rag.”
A dozen or so years ago, I actually had to say that to a student who was on his way to a job interview. It simply hadn’t occurred to him that wearing a “do-rag” (a bandana over his hair) would be a problem. (Now, faculty tell me, similar conversations occur with young women who favor bare midriffs.)
That didn’t happen at Williams. There, most of the students arrived with the informal folkways of the professional class already at hand, and those who didn’t, picked them up quickly.  We knew that you didn’t go to an interview in a t-shirt, or unshaven.  We knew about the handshake, the small talk, and the rule about showing up 10 minutes early.  We didn’t necessarily know how to write resumes, but we knew that they existed, that they mattered, and that we could get help from career services. Read more...