Philosophy instructor skills for your resume and career

One must be proficient with computer technologies to create and disseminate content and materials in various formats. It is essential to master the school's platform for course management and online tools. One certainly needs to be proficient using Zoom but not every single platform.

First, I think the term "soft skills" underplays how important these traits and skills are - I prefer to call them essential skills. With that said, the most important of the essential skills are written and verbal communication, authentic listening, critical thinking (including adaptability and creativity), and conflict management. The ability to communicate effectively (both speaking/writing and listening) is essential to being an effective philosophy instructor because one must present difficult material clearly, facilitate discussions of that material, and offer critical and constructive feedback in a way that can be received well. These discussions are also often centered on sensitive topics, so managing disagreement and conflict in a way that is productive to exploring the questions and concepts is crucial.

Given the way COVID has disrupted college and the workforce, gap years will likely be more common. I think this gives job candidates more freedom to be experimental during their gap years. Working on a new language or learning trade skills is valuable and is likely to make you stand out among cookie-cutter resumes.

When you say "young" graduates, I think I hear undergraduates, but perhaps you mean to include also "graduate students," who are also young and also about to enter the workforce. Regardless, in both cases, I would say that "our" graduates, whether undergraduate or graduate, will not only have a set of skills but a vocation. Philosophers are professionals, but above all, they have a vocation, namely a love of and commitment to teaching. So, our graduates, our passionate teachers. Teaching as a vocation is versatile, by definition. This is why philosophers can assume many roles, i.e., step into many different situations to exercise different skills. By the same token, philosophy graduate students are both ready to acquire new skills and to address different levels of skills, whether they be reading, writing, or speaking in public. These skills are timeless, and we will always need them.

Philosophers teach us to think critically, which means a lot of things, but at the very least, that we can weed through fallacies, and above all, mendacity and ideology. Critical thinking is a skill we develop as social beings and precisely because we are social. This will never go out of fashion or become dispensable. But, there are two additional "skills" that our graduates need to bring to the labor market in order to make them succeed.

First, I would name "historical sensibility." One thing, for sure, is that philosophers learn history, both history of philosophy and the history of how that history came to be. Humans are historical creatures, and learning our history is key to our self-understanding. Philosophers are good at making sense of or attempting to explain our histories. Second, there is the key skill of understanding "difference" - by the difference, I mean things like sexual, racial, ethnic, religious, national, historical, and so on differences. If we are historical, we are also different. Philosophers are good are explaining and studying all those differences and how they make us richer and more human. So, our vocation is teaching, history, difference. There are different skills that get our graduates there.