Ideal employee

Speaker series highlights what employers wish students learn

Students learned about what employers are looking for in the university’s latest speaker series event. Photo by: Aubrey Kemme | Multimedia Editor

Students learned how to make group work more effective in Ferris State University’s speaker series event “What Employers Wish You Were Taught In College.”

The event was held 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21, in the Science Building, room 102. College Readiness Specialist Angela Buys, and Manager of the Staff Center for Training and Development Jody Gardei hosted the event.

“I learned a lot about great group‑working skills,” said Ferris pre-nursing sophomore Quentavia Robertson. “The way you act towards your group members affects the group’s whole mentality.”

Buys and Gardei gave students a hand-out depicting a triangle pinpointing the key parts of group-member capabilities: intention, attention and behaviors.

“To use that in everyday life would make a lot of stressful situations in life seem a lot easier,” said Ferris human resource management junior Lydia Geldhof.

Ferris human resources management junior Joshua Colon said the event helped him learn how to better himself in a group situation for both business and personally.

“I would love to use it in my future career by trying to better group situations,” Colon said. “[By] cutting meetings down where people who are not necessary for the situation don’t have to be there so we can get to the point quicker and have many productive meetings.”

Geldhof said she would use the triangle to pay more attention to everyone else’s behaviors and their intentions and attentions to better integrate them into the group.

“I learned some key steps in order to make groupwork more effective and then how to handle behaviors with people and groups,” Geldhof said.

Roberston said that if somone wants to learn, they must be intuitive and attentive to the conversations in the group.

“In order for you to be more positive and intuitive in your group, you have to be able to listen. You have to find the right intention to listen,” Robertson said. “Don’t just listen because you want to get the work done. Listen because you actually care.”

Some students thought the workshop offered valuable information that every college student should make note of.

 “I was very attracted to the topic of it in general because it’s something I think every college student should know about because it helps better them overall,” Colon said.