I made a comment earlier to someone that it is really hard to find someone or people that have depth and breadth across the board. In fact this exact discussion took place at Social South late in the Summer by a pretty smart group of folks worth following on Twitter. The group included  Scott Schablow, Tom Martin, Jason Falls,  David Griner, Beth Harte and myself.

The question or challenges continues to present themselves to me and that is, trying to find someone with a blend of skill sets that can take on the challenges that this new marketing and communications world has presented us with.

What types of skills are needed? Here’s a quick list that I threw together, I know I’m missing some obvious ones, if so let me know.

1. Understand the nuances of customer service and why the customer matters
2. The ability to understand technology’s big picture as well as the small stuff
3. PR skills-“the how tos”, “the whys”; and “the what fors”
4. Soft listening skills
5. The ability to write a blog post with tags, links and proper attributes
6. Know how to comment on a blog and why
7. Know how to post a blog post and where
8. SEO skills-How to write for SEO
9. How to write PR releases with SEO in mind
10. An understanding of social media
11. A deeper understanding of social media
12. How to use Twitter and what the purpose of twitter is
13. How to write an email-I know it sounds simple but…
14. How to create an email blast and send it properly
15. How to write a proposal
16. How to monitor a brand across multiple channels
17. An understanding of basic HTML. CSS would be nice
18. The ability to use Photoshop to some degree
19. The ability to use a MAC or a PC well.
20. The ability to present in front of a group-speaking skills, remember them?
21. The ability to create a PowerPoint presentation
22. An understanding of UI-know what sucks and why
23. The ability to manage your time effectively
24. Know how to prioritize
25. Know what web tools can make your job better and make us better
26. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion,it matters
27. The ability to share and be selfless, it’s important
28. The ability to learn quickly and absorb it
29. The understanding that everything that you create digitally, now is this close to being consumed publicly.
30. The ability to change direction on the fly

Though it would be nice to find the person that had half of the skills mentioned above or perhaps knowledge or understanding of 3/4 of them, I know that might be asking too much. If I can get someone who knew a few of them, that’s a start.

Does this seem like I’m asking too much of college graduates? I don’t think so. This is a new world where having expertise or a degree in one discipline just won’t cut it anymore. Our industry requires that you have knowledge in lots of areas. It almost demands it. The good news is that a lot of graduates and individuals are already armed with these skills. The bad news is, it might be changing tomorrow.