Aspire to Be Hired

Aspire to Be Hired: NCTC Library Supports the Quality Enhancement Plan
NCTC’s Quality Enhancement Plan is focused on developing students’ employability and marketable skills in CTE courses. The college recognizes that these skills prepare our graduates to enter the job market and succeed in their careers. NCTC library has been pleased to support the college’s Aspire to Be Hired through research and literature reviews, planned collection development, and a forthcoming soft skills-centered subject guide that can be used by both faculty and students.

QEP Literature Review: Research Shows Gaps, Opportunities for Community Colleges
NCTC librarians contributed to the narrative of the QEP Report by researching and writing literature reviews over eight desirable soft skills: Professional Communication, Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, Ethical Decision Making, Teamwork/Collaboration, Leadership, and Interpersonal Skills/Professionalism. Librarians provided further research on integrating soft skills into higher education curriculum, including embedding soft skills in course content and assessing results.

Research for the literature review confirms: new college graduates entering the workforce have notable soft-skills gaps, while hiring managers are increasingly on the lookout for articulate, highly collaborative, and self-directed employees. Community colleges are in a prime position to impart soft skills to students, making them more marketable and ultimately better employees.

NCTC’s approach of embedding soft skills into the curriculum, as well as developing and integrating the ‘soft-skills centered’ support services provided by NCTC’s Completion Center and Career Services are fully supported by peer-reviewed research.

Collection Development: Acquiring Materials to Support Soft Skills in the Classroom
As the QEP’s development phase continues over the coming months, the library will provide further support for the QEP by adding high-quality and targeted materials to the library’s collection. These resources will include physical books, electronic books, or other media as requested. Dean Diane Roether and librarians will work closely with the QEP Committee and course instructors to ensure that purchased library items support focused student-learning as well as the embedded course content. Instructors may suggest ‘Aspire to Be Hired’ materials by visiting the new materials request form or by contacting any librarian.

https://www.nctc.edu/library/new-material-request.html

Coming This Spring: QEP-Inspired Soft-Skills Subject Guide
As NCTC moves closer to the submission phase of the quality enhancement plan, the library will shift QEP support to the creation of a soft-skills focused subject guide. A subject guide can be described as a map of library resources, or an “information locator”. The subject guide will be useful for faculty searching for materials that support inclusion of soft skills in curriculum, or students seeking to research or improve their own skillset.

Corinth campus librarian Sabrina McKethan will spearhead the initiative, and the subject guide is set to include connections to books and reference materials from NCTC’s libraries, along with web resources from technical and professional organizations and trade publications. Once complete, the guide will be available virtually on the NCTC Library’s website for easy access by faculty and students.

Looking Forward
In the following months, faculty and students can keep an eye on NCTC Library’s social media pages and blog space for announcements, including new additions to our collection and the publication of our soft skills subject guide. The upcoming November blog will feature Dean Diane Roether delving further into the topic of soft skills. Be sure to stay tuned!

Contributed by Miranda Peña, Bowie Campus Librarian