Tell Me About Yourself: A Soft Skills Assessment in Career Readiness and Development of JMU Students

The project is based on an assessment of the effectiveness of a networking event the office of Career & Academic Planning (CAP) at James Madison University hosted for students in February 2016 called Handshakes and Hellos Expo. The focus of this event was on networking with employers from marketing, communications and media industries. The employers provided networking advice prior to a networking reception where students were responsible for engaging with the employers to practice their networking skills. This event was an opportunity for the researcher to assess how students rated their skill and confidence levels in communication soft skill categories prior to and after a practical networking intervention. In addition, motivation to engage in these communication soft skills while networking was assessed. The researcher also conducted a comparative analysis based on gender and other differences (ex. graduation year; majors). The purpose of this study was to determine how to further develop communication soft skills in JMU students and to examine how motivation is related to student’s willingness to engage in the skills necessary for networking. In career services, a hot topic is in how to compellingly “tell the story” of the effectiveness of the career development and readiness resources an office provides