Gallup asked employed adults to rate a list of 13 work-related
skills and subject areas as "critical," "very important," "somewhat
important," or "not too important" to doing their jobs
successfully. One's age, unlike other demographic characteristics
such as gender, education, and income, may have less of an
influence in the type of job one has.
Like other age groups, younger working adults tend to say skills
in dealing with people and critical-thinking skills are "critical"
or "very important" to the type of work they do.
"Dealing with people is my No. 1 priority," said Mark Wilson, a
29-year-old systems engineer from Silver Spring, Md. "If people
like you and want to include you in things, you'll go far no matter
what your career."
But younger adults report that some skills are much more likely
to be important to succeeding in their jobs than working adults in
other age categories. For example, nearly half (45%) of the
youngest working adults note that "physical strength" is critical
or very important to their success at work -- 12 percentage points
higher than the U.S. population overall. Younger people tend to be
stronger, healthier, more energetic -- and above all, more willing
to take on physically demanding work. Younger people also value
certain other job skills more highly than older people do, but the
explanations for those differences are not as obvious.
In addition to physical strength, young Americans are somewhat
more likely than those in other age groups to say public speaking,
artistic skills, and knowledge of history are important to their
jobs. In the latter two instances, about one in three working 18-
to 29-year-olds say these are critical or very important, while no
more than 20% in any other age group says this. Many of these
skills tend to be emphasized in school, and perhaps that's why
young adults are more likely to feel that they are important.
Wilson was a communications major in college and credits his
college courses in public speaking with encouraging his natural
talent. "A genuine love of communicating," he said, "allows you to
develop the skills that let you be you."
Noah Kodeck, 27, a public affairs manager in Washington, D.C.,
credits a course in diction at Georgetown University with giving
him even more self-assurance in public speaking. "When speaking to
groups about the company's role in the community," he said, "I've
always had confidence in what I'm saying -- but now I have
confidence in how I'm saying it."
Bottom Line
It appears as if those who most recently left school for the
workforce are more likely to say that standard school subjects such
as history are more relevant to success in the type of job they do.
However, this does not extend to all areas of school instruction.
While educators emphasize the importance of math and science -- two
areas in which American kids lag behind other developed nations --
younger working adults are no more or less likely to say these are
relevant to their jobs than other American workers are. However,
the critical-thinking skills that these subjects help develop are
valued by Americans of all ages.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 588 adults
employed full or part time, aged 18 and older, conducted Aug. 4-6,
2003. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one
can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is
±4 percentage points.
