Today is the first day of school in my town, or as parents like to call it, “The most wonderful day of the year!” As I sent my cute little first-grader into the big school for the first time, I hope that his teachers work to prepare him not just to do schoolwork but for a career (in the very distant future!).
Then again, in many ways even the best schools can never fully prepare you for life on the job. Here are some key differences in how employers think compared with school.
1. If you can’t do the work, you’re out. In school, they bring in specialists to help, and parents hover and work with you to bring grades up. Some bad parents (yes, I said it) simply demand that the school change a grade so that their little darling doesn’t suffer any adverse consequences. In the workplace, we simply fire you. Sometimes we’ll give you a 90-day performance improvement plan, but that’s about it.
To keep reading, click here: 10 ways school is different than the working world
As a marketing writer and editor, I wish businesses would really, really, really want employees to know how to write. They don’t have to be gifted, but it would be nice if they knew some basic rules of grammar and punctuation, could spell properly (not abbreviate everything as you do when texting), and had a decent vocabulary. Spell-check isn’t going to write anything for you. Having math skills alone isn’t enough to make you valuable to a company. You have to be a skilled communicator. That means knowing how to speak and write well — not simply being a master at texting.