Some favorite quotes:

“Firms are looking for talent. They’re not looking for content knowledge, per se.”

“Education is more than technical learning.”

Still, a recruiter for Barclay’s is quoted thus: “applicants from the liberal arts often need to ‘undertake extra due diligence on the industry.’ ”

My summary: for many middle class jobs, a person needs to have underlying general-purpose skills (analysis), enough sense and information to work well within a context (liberal arts information and historical context), as well as specific knowledge for one specific job.

But not everyone agrees. This article reviews, rather succinctly, a number of studies that poke holes in that theory, adding to my understanding (and perhaps yours) of the current state of job-seeking and job-getting in our economy. One I’m less familiar with — a big part of the mismatch is geographic, and a big part of the reason that persists is the housing finance situation. Many unemployed workers can’t move to where jobs are, because they’re tied to their underwater mortgages.

Another argument that makes a lot sense to me — a great many of the long-term unemployed lack not only technical skills, but basic skills like communication and basic literacy and math skills.

This recent op-ed in the Star Tribune offers an entirely different argument against the jobs-skills mismatch paradigm. While the focus there is to discredit an effort of MnSCU, DEED, and Dept of Commerce, I would argue that MnSCU’s response makes a certain amount of sense even if you agree with the author’s premise. MnSCU’s sphere of influence is mostly in the training of people / workers. For MnSCU to put effort into figuring out what skills those people / workers / students want to learn makes perfect sense, regardless of the question of who *ought* to pay for that training. Makes sense for MnSCU to act within its sphere of influence.

Venture for America appears to be an inspiring program, launching this year, aiming to place aspiring entrepreneurs to work for 2 years, with lots of support and training. It’s sort of apprenticeship, sort of service learning, definitely hands-on training for business-oriented folks — and they earn a salary all the while! The key goal is to create more jobs, by supporting folks who will eventually create them. Sounds like a winning proposition, and much cheaper than an MBA.

Check out this great resource. The MN report is very interesting to me. Despite being an early leader in transparency, we are now in the middle of the pack (a pack with exceedingly low standards). Three out of five major statewide programs providing subsidies have NO online recipient disclosure.

These are a great, succinct collection of tips for your job search.

Makes me wonder: What will the biking and walking movement look like once we embrace a multi-cultural vision of these modes of transportation? It won’t involve so much specialized equipment, for one thing. It won’t be much about the equipment at all.

State Smart Transportation Initiative

\“Flow\” – the iPhone (and Web) Experience that Sells

Comment after the article is interesting:  ”There’s easy fun, hard fun, people fun, and serious fun. And we better get good at designing all that.”