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While the job market for new college graduates continues to improve, many companies are specifically seeking out candidates who possess excellent communication and teamwork skills as well as critical thinking and analytical abilities. (See both the recent New York Times article and AAC&U’s own recent survey of employers.)
In the current climate and given these employers’ expressed needs for talent, how can new graduates demonstrate to a prospective employer what they know and can do as a result of their college experiences? The traditional records of a student’s education are the academic transcript and his or her resumé, but both of these documents are limited in their ability to describe the effect of meaningful experiences such as project-based work, leadership in extracurricular activities, internships, and studies abroad. In a 2007 national survey, AAC&U discovered that more than two-thirds of employers found the college transcript either “not useful” (33 percent) or “just somewhat useful” (34 percent). In contrast, a majority of employers thought that e-portfolios would be “very” or “fairly useful” in evaluating college graduates’ potential for success.
