Lesson 9

What Employers Want

Objectives
Students will

identify the personal qualities that are likely to influence an employers

decisions to hire employees.
understand that the personal qualities people present in a job interview can work
for or against them.
understand what employers are looking for in employees.
begin to assess their own transferable skills.

Materials Needed
Activities 10 and 12, one copy of each for each student
Activity 11, two copies only

Preparation
Select three students to engage in the Job Interview activity and coach them to
prepare for the role-playing they will do. Note: You may want to allow some
extra time for this lesson.

Vocabulary
transferable skills
review: benefit, cost, productivity

50 Choices and Changes in Life, School, and Work, National Council on Economic Education, New York, NY
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UNITLesson
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Getting Started
Begin this lesson by asking, What are the characteristics of someone you
admire? As the students respond, put key words on the chalkboard or have the
students summarize. Ask volunteers to mention admirable traits of the person
who was their subject in Student Journal, page 8-1.

Teaching Procedures
1. Lead the class in a discussion of the importance of making a good first
impression. Most people have many admirable traits, but we dont always
perceive those traits when we first meet someone. Here are suggested
questions:

When meeting someone for the first time, how do the class members
size that person up?
In what ways do the following factors influence a first impression:
appearance, facial expression, friendliness, speech?
What is meant by the saying, You never get a second chance to make a
first impression?
Is it fair to judge people on first impressions?

Make the point that someone who makes a poor first impression may become
someone you like once you get to know him or her. But there are circumstances
in which you dont get a chance to change a first impression. This is true of a job
interview. Its very important if you want to get a job to make a good first
impression in the job interview.

2.Review the terms benefit and cost. A benefit is a measure of the satisfaction
you receive from consuming a good or the gain from producing something. A
cost is a measure of what must be given up in order to obtain something. A cost
is a negative economic incentive and discourages behavior associated with it. For
a firm, the benefit of hiring an additional worker is the additional revenue the
firm receives from the sale of his or her output. A more productive worker (one
with more human capital) brings greater revenue and is thus worth more to a
firm. Thus the firm has an economic incentive to hire more productive workers.
Students learned earlier in this unit that costs, benefits, incentives, and
disincentives influence the choices they make. These factors also influence the
choices employers make in hiring, promoting, and firing employees.

For example, in choosing which employee to promote, the employer will

consider such things as: How much will I have to pay him or her? How
productive will he or she be? How well does he or she get along with other
 Choices &
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UNIT TWO
people? Does he or she complete work on time? How often is he or she absent
from work?
 Lesson 9

Employers have certain standards they use for judging and making decisions.
These standards are different for different jobs and different companies. For
example, its necessary to have a drivers license if you want a job delivering
pizza, but a license is not necessary if you want a job cleaning offices. Today,
more than ever, employers are looking for employees with at least a high school
diploma.
The standards employers use fall into two main categories: (1) the employees
personal qualities (such as interests and personality traits); and (2) the
employees human capital (knowledge and skills gained through education and
experience).

3.Explain that todays lesson focuses on personal qualities. Distribute Activity 10, What Employers Want, and give
the students a few minutes to read it. Then ask what personal qualities many employers look for in hiring
someone. List these qualities on the chalkboard.

4.Ask the students what other personal qualities they think are important to employers, and add these to the list.
(It may trigger their thinking to tell them that employers want many of the same things from people that
teachers and coaches want.) According to a survey of personnel managers, a major reason for not hiring is an
applicant acting as if he or she doesnt care whether or not he or she gets the job.

5.Now call on the two students to simulate a job interview, using the situation in Activity 11, Job Interview. In the
first scenario, the applicant behaves in ways that would probably discourage employment. In the second
scenario, the applicant behaves in ways that would encourage employment. Have the class make
observations about the two scenarios.

6.Even though many students probably have not held paying jobs, they have acquired some transferable skills
knowledge and abilities that can be put to use in a variety of tasks or occupations. For example, someone who
can follow a pattern to make a skirt could probably make a birdhouse from a kit or could develop the ability
to read an architects blueprints.

7.Give the students Activity 12, Your Shopping List of Transferable Skills. This list is for the students own use.
Depending on the class time available, the students can begin to complete the list.

Extension Activity
Bring in a store manager or personnel manager who hires teens to talk about
what employers are looking for.

Choices and Changes in Life, School, and Work, National Council on Economic Education, New York, NY
 Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 10

What Employers Want

This reading is an actual interview with an employer about the things employers
look for in job applicants. The reading reflects what employers want from
employees. You will note that the employer does not say anything about the business
he or she is in.

Q: When a young person comes to interview for a job, what is the first thing you look
for?
A: I look to see if the person has clean clothes, has bothered to try to look decent,
and appears interested in the job.

Q: Why?
A: I know from experience that people who really want to work get themselves
together for a first interview. No matter what others say, the first impression is
very important.

Q: What else do you look for?

A: All our prospective employees must fill out a job application. The job
application tells us a lot about candidates for a job.

Q: For example?
A: It tells us whether they can write, whether they can pay attention to detail, and
if they care whether they get the job.

Q: Dont you look at education and experience?

A: Yes, but most of our beginning employees have very little experience and may
have just graduated from high school. So we need to look at how well they
completed their job application.

Q: If you do hire someone, what do you look for then?

A: I like your question. We look for all the detail thingscoming to work on time,
dressing neatly, being courteous, doing assigned tasks willingly.

Q: Certainly there are some other things.

A: Yes, of course. I like new employees to ask questions, rather than telling us what
to do after they have only been on the job a short time. I like people who see
things that need doing and go ahead and do them. I like employees who really
try to find out what we are trying to accomplish.
Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 10 (continued)

What Employers Want

Q: Do you think other employers feel the same way?
A: I know they do. Several of us get together each month or so. We share ideas.
Sometimes we talk about employees who are very good and whom we can
promote. Maybe someone will have a position for them that is better than what
we can now offer. We all basically have the same views.

Q: If you had any advice to give to young employees, what would you say?
A: I have what I call the ABCs of employmentAttention, Betterment, Caring.
Does the person pay attention to what the business wants? Is the individual
willing to better himself or herself? Does he or she care about the work?
Although these arent the only keys to what employers want, I believe most
people can become successful if they work on these ABCs.
 Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 11

Job Interview

SITUATION
The employer is the manager of a grocery store interviewing an applicant for a
part- time carry-out job. In both scenarios, the employer describes the duties,
hours, and pay; asks the applicant why he or she wants the job; inquires what
other work experience he or she has; and so on.

SCENARIO 1
The applicant is dressed sloppilyfor example, untied shoes, mussed hair, wrinkled
clothes. The applicant may interrupt the employer, fidget, chew gum, and insult the
employer by recounting a story about once being overcharged by a clerk in the store.

SCENARIO 2
The applicant is neatly dressed, listens attentively, and gives the employer assurance
that he or she is eager to get the job and would be a valuable employee.
Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 12

Your Shopping List of Transferable Skills

A Skill I Want A Skill I Want
to Learn to Improve
1. assembling, as with kits, etc.
building
2. operating tools or as with drills, sewing
machinery machines, etc.
3. finger dexterity as with knitting, typing

4. fixing things as in repairing a motor

5. muscular as in swimming, etc.

coordination
6. observing as in noticing things
with eyes, ears
7. examining or as in looking over an
inspecting item before buying it
8. calculating as in arithmetic

9. keeping financial as with a budget, etc.

records
10. number memory as phone numbers

11. showing foresight as in planning ahead

12. visualizing in three as in imagining a

dimensions finished from a pattern
product
13. researching, gather- as in finding a street in
ing information a strange city
14. reorganizing, classi- as with sorting laundry,
fying etc.
15. diagnosing as in tracing problems
to their source
 Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 12 (continued)

Your Shopping List of Transferable Skills

A Skill I Want A Skill I Want
to Learn to Improve
16. putting things in as in laying out tools in
order the order youll use
17. imaging, inventing them
as in making up stories,
figuring out new ways
to
do things
18. designing as with new recipes,
woodworking, etc.
19. improvising, as on a picnic when
experimenting youve left something
important at home
20. drawing out people as when someone is
reluctant to talk
21. sharing credit as in giving credit to
your team, not taking
all the glory
22. counseling, guiding as when someone
doesnt know what to
23. playing a musical do
instrument, singing
24. making things as in crafts

25. dealing creatively as in photography, art,

with spaces, shapes architectural design
26. dealing creatively as in painting,
with colors decorating, making
clothes
27. expressing feelings as in acting, public
and thoughts speaking, dancing, etc.
through body or
voice
Lesson 9

ACTIVITY 12 (continued)

Your Shopping List of Transferable Skills

A Skill I Want A Skill I Want
to Learn to Improve
28. expressing feelings as in drawing, painting
and thoughts
through visual
images
29. expressing feelings as in writing poetry,
and thoughts in stories, song
words
30. beginning new as in starting a group,
tasks, projects initiating a clothing drive
31. making first move as in speaking first to a
with people newcomer at school,
32. organizing etc.
as with a team

33. directing others as in school program,

cheerleading
34. following through as in setting a time to
on plans, do
homework and doing it
instructions
35. paying attention to as in following a
details pattern, doing an
assignment as directed,
etc.