Dallas College Marketable Skills

The Dallas College Marketable Skills initiative is a student-centric approach to employability and living-wage opportunities in Dallas County. It matches the skills inherent in our Core Curriculum to the “soft skills” desired by employers and helps faculty and students articulate the employability skills developed in existing coursework.

Marketable Skills are essential for Dallas College students because:

Students want to know how college will pay off for them, while employers want to know what skills students possess. Dallas College Marketable Skills work to ensure everyone is on the same page.
According to a recent Inside Higher Education Student Voice survey, Gen Z students expect their college experience to result in being career ready — but students often have a hard time connecting the work they do in Core Curriculum classes with the skills that employers want.
It’s not a real skills gap, but rather, as Forbes notes, a “skills awareness gap.” That means Dallas College students learn valuable, foundational skills throughout the Core but might have a hard time explaining what they’ve learned to potential employers. The Dallas College Marketable Skills initiative is designed to reduce this awareness gap by purposely identifying and aligning Core assessments with specific marketable skills.

Preparing for Future Careers While Completing the Core Curriculum

Dallas College Marketable Skills are housed within the six expanded outcomes assessed in the Core Curriculum:

Critical Thinking

The Critical Thinking Core Objective allows students to develop a wide variety of skills:

Analyze issues
Complex/creative problem solving: anticipate problems, solutions and consequences
Knowledge application: apply knowledge to make decisions
Pattern detection: detect patterns/themes/underlying principles
Research: gather proper resources and information to conduct research
Analysis and interpretation: analyzing and interpreting data to synthesize information

Communication

Classes that assess the Communication Core Objective allow students to develop skills including:

Effective written communication: clearly and effectively articulate complex issues/ideas in written form
Effective oral communication: clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally
Facilitate discussion: using active listening and interviewing skills
Effective presentation skills: present ideas to an audience
Synthesizing ideas: summarize information from diverse sources
Effective interpersonal communication: clearly articulate ideas to diverse groups

Leadership and Personal Responsibility

Personal Responsibility skills include those that make anyone a successful employee and future leader, including:

Self-motivation and initiative: demonstrate time management and attention to detail
Ethical behavior: demonstrate ethical behavior and decision-making
Growth mindset: learn and grow from mistakes
Demonstrate adaptability and flexibility
Team leadership: lead and manage teams
Respect: demonstrate consideration and courtesy to others

Teamwork

The Teamwork Core Objective allows students to practice many skills that are desired by employers, such as:

Fulfill team expectations: accept responsibility for role on a team
Effective collaboration skills: negotiate team roles and responsibilities
Team management: make collaborative decisions, manage team conflict
Provide and/or receive useful feedback
Embrace perspectives: work effectively with people from different backgrounds

Global Awareness and Social Responsibility

Students fulfill the Social Responsibility Core Objective while developing the following skills:

Community awareness: demonstrate awareness of community issues
Global awareness: demonstrate awareness of global issues
Demonstrate empathy: recognize the emotions and perspectives of others
Develop civic responsibility: demonstrate good citizenship
Develop cultural competency: learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Demonstrate inclusivity: foster a sense of belonging

Quantitative and Empirical

Students learning Quantitative and Empirical skills in the Core practice skills including:

Data visualization and presentation: communicate results using tables, charts, graphs
Contextualize numeric information/data
Demonstrate logical thinking
Experimental design: design an experiment or model
Data inference: draw inferences from data, use data to formulate conclusions
Mathematical reasoning: use appropriate calculations to solve problems

Showcase Your Marketable Skills with Digital Badges

You’re already building marketable skills—now make them stand out. Through our Digital Badging program, Dallas College students can turn their skills and accomplishments into shareable, verifiable badges that highlight what they’ve learned and practiced in their courses.

Learn more about Digital Badges

Marketable Skills Faculty Integrators

Students interact with Core Curriculum faculty committed to bringing the world of work into the classroom and assisting students in becoming “career ready” by working with Career and Transfer Skills Development.

Faculty Integrators implement career-relevant teaching and learning by engaging in four intentional steps:

Awareness

Students are alerted to the marketable skills integration through introductory modules available in all Faculty Integrator courses

Connection

Faculty Integrators connect coursework to the relevant marketable skills

Demonstration

Faculty Integrators align existing assignments with marketable skills and/or design new assignments with marketable skills practice at top of mind.

Reflection

Students are provided opportunities to reflect on the skills they practiced in Faculty Integrator courses.

Faculty Integrator Spotlight

Why am I a Marketable Skills Faculty Integrator?

Read all Faculty Integrator Spotlights

I wanted to join a community of faculty who share ideas and methods for improving communication with students about how their classes prepare them for careers and provide professional growth. —Dr. Jennifer Baggett, Biology

Students who can articulate the job skills they learn in our classes are likely to secure better-paying jobs, which can then enable them to further their education. —Kristina Hunsinger, Philosophy

What Students Are Saying About Marketable Skills

Using the marketable skills in each of my classes assisted me in developing and improving job skills necessary for future jobs.
I used critical thinking skills to anticipate problems that I may have throughout this class journey. No matter how much I know or don’t know to solve them, I could stay focused because there was also someone available to help.
Communication is the marketable skill I find myself using both in my class and in my life. This skill helped me in developing and improving my writing and in organizing my essays.
The breakdown of marketable skills made it easier for me to conceptualize the qualities I should try to exude in my resume and in interviews.

For more information, contact:

Sharon Manna

Interim Dean, Marketable Skills and Digital Badging

Email Sharon