Business communication courses play a key role in preparing students for job market challenges, such as matching resume skills to the job ad. This article presents a classroom activity where students analyze a job description, create a t-chart listing the criteria on one side and experience/skills on the other, and develop an action plan for filling the gaps between the skills and experience the student has and what the ideal candidate would bring to the job. Through this experience, students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses while creating actionable strategies to become the ideal candidate for their post-graduation employment.

In the globalized labor market, skills gaps between industry expectations and university preparation are becoming more prevalent. English communication skills (ECS) are vital soft skills in all workplaces, particularly in international business, where English is commonly used as a lingua franca. This case study examined the nexus between academia and industry regarding the instruction of ECS and their applicability to meet the requirements of the globalized business landscape by collecting data from 43 personnel in the international ready-made garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh. The research reveals that English courses in higher education do not adequately address the communication needs of the international RMG business, which requires practical experience in the workplace, trade-specific vocabulary, intelligibility, and clarity rather than a high level of fluency. The study recommends promoting the teaching of English for general business purposes in Bangladesh by integrating theoretical and practical learning in the classroom and workplace as part of the curriculum.

Institutions rely on career-ready competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) to understand the nationwide job outlook and labor market trends. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to inform a course redesign process in the business curriculum at a Midwestern university in the United States. Using an adapted NACE survey, we found that while Midwestern employers and alumni valued NACE core competencies and employability attributes similarly, there were certain elements that were overlooked in the previous curriculum. Thus, identification of the locally relevant top competencies and attributes was a leading factor in the course redesign process.

Understanding the expectations of employers contributes to the relevancy of business and professional communication (BPC) courses. Studies that bridge the gap between course content and workplace expectations support this process. This article presents findings from a scale development procedure to analyze BPC skills using a multimodal perspective. Employers ( N = 260) were asked what skills they perceive to be communication and how proficient they expect a recent college graduate to be to better understand the expectations that graduates face when entering the job market. The findings have implications for course design, curriculum selection, and program organization.

This study examines how and why 20 instructors (17 tenure-line and 3 nontenure-line) in introductory service courses enact their pedagogical values and address current concerns (e.g., personal branding, LinkedIn, and applicant tracking systems) when teaching résumés and cover letters. Research methods included a demographics survey, qualitative interviews, and critical discourse analysis of assignment sheets and deidentified student examples. Results provide an opportunity to renegotiate gaps between Business and Professional Communication’s research and pedagogical methods, shifting from overemphasizing formatting and checklists and toward understanding job applications as workplace genre ecologies to encourage deeper learning.

The demand for writing skills is becoming increasingly prevalent within the U.S. job market. Yet, the biggest barrier to developing successful writing skills, writing apprehension, has received very little attention from scholars in the past 30 years. The present study sought to identify the influence of instructional communicative behaviors on business students’ writing apprehension. Specifically, the study tested a model in which instructors’ immediate behaviors and clarity indirectly influenced students’ writing apprehension through the mediation of perceived immediacy. The data were consistent with the hypothesized model.

Instructors and administrators in business and technical communication (BTC) programs argue that assessment eportfolios can play a vital role in the success of BTC graduates on the job market. This study explores the use of assessment eportfolios by students, alumni, and employers in BTC. Nineteen interviews were conducted and analyzed for common themes and issues in participants’ experiences. The author found that, while the participants did use assessment eportfolios in the job market, their experiences varied widely. These and other findings are discussed, as well as implications of this study for eportfolio pedagogy.

Two business communication faculty share the story of teaching a 780-person business writing class. The article discusses the challenges of teaching such a large writing class. Challenges ranged from adopting a hybrid course model to hiring adjunct faculty for help with the task of grading. The article offers lessons learned, and recommends that one proceed with caution when considering a superlarge format for writing instruction. Both theory and experience are used to support this position.