informs Vol. 38, No. 2, March–April 2008, pp. 140–146 issn 0092-2102 eissn 1526-551X 08 3802 0140
®
doi 10.1287/inte.1080.0342 © 2008 INFORMS
ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Skills Employers Want from Operations Research Graduates ManMohan S. Sodhi, Byung-Gak Son
Cass Business School, London EC1Y 8TZ, United Kingdom {
[email protected],
[email protected]}
We analyzed the text of more than 1,000 ads for operations research (OR) jobs. Our objective was to help industry employers benchmark the skills they are seeking in OR graduates with those that other employers are seeking. Educators can also compare their offerings against the skills industry employers seek. We found that employers of OR graduates consistently require modeling, statistics, programming, and general analytical skills in an operations management context as their primary requirements regardless of sector, function within company, and even degree type. These employers also require communication, leadership, project management, spreadsheet and database, and team skills in that order. Key words: personnel; OR/MS education; OR/MS policy standards; data analysis.
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word occurs in an ad, we also increment the number of relevant job ads for the parent subcategory and category (Table 1). For example, if the phrase “bachelor’s degree” (or a variant such as “BS degree”) appears in an ad, we increment our count by one for ads that require a bachelor’s category. If the ad specifies “bachelor’s or master’s,” we increment the count for ads requiring master’s degrees as well. Some ads have no degree requirements. Thus, categories such as bachelor’s or master’s are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive when it comes to counting ads and placing them in these categories. If an ad specifies “C++,” we increment the number of ads in both the programming category and the programming languages subcategory. Thus, an ad could fall in more than one category or subcategory. For example, it could require math modeling skills and advanced statistics skills; therefore, we would count it in both corresponding categories. Details can be found in Sodhi and Son (2007).
or our analysis, we collected 1,056 ads—408 from Monster.com, 362 from OR/MS Today, and 386 from Hotjobs.com. After collecting these ads in a database, we manually coded categories for the industry sector (e.g., computer services, banking, consulting), which we adapted from Fortune magazine’s classification, and the function (e.g., marketing, IT) within the company. Our sample uses only online ads for jobs that are based in the United States. Moreover, some jobs are not advertised. However, our broad findings are consistent in terms of the relative importance employers give to various skills across industry sectors, functions, and degree types. Therefore, we do not believe this is a major concern.
Statistical Analysis of Text We developed a list of more than 300 relevant phrases and words (key words) that occur in these ads and arranged these key words into 15 categories and 49 subcategories. We infer the skills as well as the academic degree required (BS, MS, MBA, or PhD) from the text of these ads by counting the number of ads that include any of these key words. When a key
Results The proportion of ads that have any subset of the key words associated with the skills categories reflects 140
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70.0 59.4%
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Figure 1: The data show the percentage of OR job-related ads that require a particular set of skills. Each “skill” comprises a number of different key words. The subcategories in Table 1 describe these categories and break down these numbers further.
the relative importance of these skills to employers (Figure 1). We divide the skills into two groups as we delve into details for each (Table 1). Technical skills comprise operations management, modeling, statistics, programming, spreadsheet and database, and basic IT skills. Soft skills comprise communication, general analytical, project management, leadership, and team-related skills. As we shall see, the order in each group represents the decreasing proportion of job ads requesting these skills. First and foremost, employers consider operations management skills to be important. These skills, which 53 percent of all employer ads require, include processrelated skills (21 percent of all ads), performance measurement in manufacturing or in services (15 percent), and supply chain management (22 percent), which includes quality improvement (Sodhi and Son 2007). Modeling requirements appear in 52 percent of the ads. Optimization and mathematical programming (28 percent), forecasting (15 percent), model development and formulation (28 percent), and simulation (15 percent) are particular employer needs. Employers also want statistics skills—48 percent of the ads mention this as a prerequisite. The ability
to program using SAS is a requirement in 24 percent of the ads. Requirements range from general data analysis (15 percent) to statistical modeling using linear or logistic regression (19 percent). Data set management skills including data gathering and cleanup are also in demand (12 percent). Programming is a requirement in 47 percent of the ads. Three subcategories stand out: programming skills, primarily in C++ language (24 percent), database development and programming in SQL (14 percent), and development of Web applications using Java, JavaScript, Perl, XML, and HTML (24 percent). Nearly 30 percent of the ads require spreadsheet and database skills. MS Excel is a requirement in 27 percent of all ads and MS Access in nearly 10 percent. In addition to these technical skills, employers emphasize “soft” skills. It is clear from the data in Figure 1 and Table 1 that most companies, regardless of the industry and functions within the company, expect OR graduates to have strong communication skills; the largest proportion of ads—nearly 60 percent—require these skills. However, employers want strong communication skills in other types of jobs as well; a similar analysis of supply chain jobs for MBA graduates (Sodhi et al. 2008) reflects this.
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Categories and subcategories
% Ads
Categories and subcategories
% Ads
General analytical Analysis General abilities Problem solving
423 223 119 219
Leadership Change management Leadership—general Team leading
350 23 311 36
Communication General communication Presentation skills Written and verbal skills Programming Programming languages Database programming Software applications Web applications Programming general Project Manage projects Lead projects Project misc. Team Interpersonal skills Team-related skills
594 370 152 348 472 243 137 88 235 214 368 337 102 38 350 195 218
Operations management Business process related Inventory Operations—misc. Performance related Procurement Supply chain management Modeling Modeling languages Algorithm development Optimization Optimization applications Decision science and analysis Decision support Forecasting Model development Simulation
527 208 92 109 152 30 225 523 33 98 277 70 80 87 147 283 148
Statistics Stats. software programming Stats. data set management Stats. general data analysis Stats. data mining Stats. modeling Stats. misc.
478 235 116 148 70 186 150
Spreadsheet and DB MS Excel MS Access Basic IT General PC skills MS Office Word and PowerPoint
299 274 97 274 67 116 163
Table 1: The data show subcategories for each category and the percentage of the 1,056 ads that include key words corresponding to each category and subcategory. An ad can belong to more than one subcategory under a category; therefore, the total number of ads with subcategories in any category exceeds that of the category. The titles of the subcategories indicate the type of key words included in each category.
More than 42 percent of the ads in our sample mention general analytical skills. The best way to describe this category, as we use it in this paper, is in terms of its subcategories: analytical skills (22 percent), including the ability to perform quantitative and qualitative analysis; general abilities (12 percent), including being able to pay attention to detail and work independently; and problem-solving skills (22 percent). These attributes make general analytical skills more basic than any particular mathematical or mathematical modeling abilities. Project management, which includes the ability to handle multiple projects, appears in nearly 37 percent of the ads. Managing projects (34 percent) and leading projects (10 percent) are also important. However, we
should be careful not to confuse project management with CPM/PERT techniques. Leadership skills, which are tied to the ability to run an organization, are listed in 35 percent of ads— as are team-related skills. Leadership includes being able to bring about change or lead a team. Teamrelated skills include interpersonal skills (20 percent), the ability to work in a team, be a team player, and be team oriented. The above “soft” skills seem to indicate that our ads are the same as non-OR job ads. However, the requirements for modeling, statistics, and programming in half or more of the ads in our sample belies this. Detailed examination of the number of ads with specific, individual key words confirms this—some of the most frequently occurring individual key words
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are C++ (in 20 percent of the ads), SQL (in 14 percent), project management (in 23 percent), SAS (in 22.5 percent), modeling (in 26 percent), forecasting (in 15 percent), and simulation (in 13 percent) (Sodhi and Son 2007). We ran similar analyses using the same key words on 700 supply chain jobs for MBA graduates for comparison (Sodhi et al. 2008). Although the supply chain and OR domains overlap, the ads for MBA graduates do not overlap with those for OR jobs in our sample. We found that the proportion of ads requiring communication, organization, spreadsheet, team, project, and basic IT skills occurs in more or less the same proportions. However, employers expect OR graduates to have much stronger basic analytical, modeling, programming, and advanced statistics skills.
Across all 11 skill categories, the results indicate there is a large variation of the skills wanted by different industry sectors; however, the top six are virtually the same regardless of sector (Figure 2). Modeling is the highest priority for the computerservices sector, basic analytical skills for the banking sector, and communication for the consulting sector. Likewise, programming is the second-highest priority for computer services, communication for banking, and modeling for consulting. Interestingly, the computerservices sector has a great need for both modeling and programming skills. However, the top six skills that different industries require are similar regardless of sector. We also analyzed the ads based on the function (e.g., marketing, manufacturing) under which we expect the company to place the job being advertised. Analyzing by function is all the more important because most companies do not have a department called OR; therefore, OR graduates tend to work in a wide range of functions. As with sectors, a similar pattern—variations within a consistent, overall pattern—appears when we analyze by function (Figure 3). For example, having basic analytical skills is the highest priority for the audit function, communication
Results by Industry Sector, Function, and Degree We analyzed the ads by industry sector to determine how the skills needed by employers vary by industry sector. Instead, we found that the need for core OR skills is more or less the same across sectors, functions, and degree types; this indicates that OR has the same connotation to a wide variety of employers.
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Figure 2: This graph shows the proportion of ads of the top three industry sectors with the skills desired by the advertising employer. Note the great need for both modeling and programming in the computer-services sector.
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90 Analysis/decision support Marketing IT/system integration Consulting (internal/external) Process management All
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Figure 3: This graph shows the proportion of ads of the top five functions with the skills desired by employers. However, as noted in the text, the coding of job ads by function is rather tenuous; interpreting these results requires caution.
wanted by employers from graduates of different degrees; however, they show the same overall pattern (Figure 5). For example, employers who are seeking graduates with bachelor’s or MBA degrees typically emphasize communication skills. On the other hand, employers who are seeking graduates with master’s or PhD degrees typically emphasize modeling skills. Still, the top six skills—modeling, statistics, programming, general 50.0 45.0
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skills for (internal) consulting, and modeling for finance (and risk management). Interestingly, the highest-priority skill for the supply chain management function (after operations management) is modeling (Sodhi and Son 2007). Still, it is clear that the top six desired skills—operations management, modeling, statistics and programming, communications, and operations management—are very similar for each function. Unlike the sector or function, an ad could correspond to more than one degree; therefore, we inferred the “degree” from the text of the job ads by counting key words, as we did for skills. The four degree categories—bachelor’s, master’s, MBA, and PhD— overlap because an ad that asks for a master’s or a PhD degree would be counted under both categories. However, an ad might not specify any degree; therefore, similar to skills, the degree categories are neither exclusive nor exhaustive. Most of the companies that placed OR ads require a bachelor’s (46 percent) or a master’s degree (33 percent). Many prefer a PhD (16 percent) or even an MBA (11 percent) (Figure 4). Indeed, when we look at the results across all 11 skill categories, they show variations of the skills
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Figure 4: This graph shows the percentage of ads asking for a particular degree. An ad might state a requirement for more than one degree—or none; we determine the membership of any ad in a particular degree category through content analysis of the ad text.
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80 Bachelor’s Master’s MBA PhD All
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Figure 5: This graph shows the proportion of ads with the skills desired by employers based on the degree sought.
analytical, communication, and operations management— are also generally within the top six for each degree individually (Figure 5).
Conclusion We analyzed the text of more than 1,000 OR-related job ads. We found there is a clear, identifiable core of four OR-specific skills that employers want within an operations/business process context: modeling, statistics, programming, and general analytical skills. These skills are OR-specific because they are in the top six requirements for OR graduates regardless of sector, function, or degree type inferred from the ad; they are also significantly different from non-OR jobs such as supply chain jobs that are appropriate for MBAs. Thus, we have provided a prioritized list of skills to help employers benchmark their existing and required skills. Educators could use the same list to examine their offerings of degree programs and individual courses. The remarkable consistency of specific requirements across sectors, functions, and degree types in OR jobs, and distinct from non-OR jobs, strongly indicates that we can define OR operationally: OR is the
application of modeling, statistics, programming, or general problem-solving skills in improving operations and business processes. Arguably, this consistency is in stark contrast to what OR means to academics if we were to derive a working definition from a similar analysis of OR courses, degree programs, and journal articles. Benchmarking “typical” OR courses and degree programs against the list of skills or the above definition of OR will likely indicate that apart from modeling, other aspects of OR as defined above, are emphasized selectively or ignored altogether. Worryingly, the “operations management” context is noticeable in many OR programs only by its absence. Also noticeable by its absence in many OR programs (in contrast to MBA programs) is the development of “soft” skills— communication, leadership, team-related skills (e.g., working in or leading a team)—that are invaluable for improving operations and business processes. As such, employers might find that newly hired or even somewhat experienced OR graduates might not meet all their skill requirements and might need in-house training. For OR academics, the danger is that these employers will hire computer science, statistics, or business graduates instead to get the
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146 overall mix of skills they want (Sodhi and Tang 2008). The implication of our work for employers then is that they must ask OR programs for the development of the specific skills we inferred from job ads. The implication for OR academics is that they must pay close heed to these employers in revising the OR curriculum to provide the skills that industry needs.
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References Sodhi, M., B. G. Son. 2007. Industry requirements of operations research skills based on statistical content analysis of job ads. Retrieved December 9, 2007 http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1011468. Sodhi, M. S., C. S. Tang. 2008. The OR/MS ecosystem: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Oper. Res. 56(2) 267–277. Sodhi, M., B. G. Son, C. Tang. 2008. What employers demand from applicants for MBA-level supply-chain jobs. Interfaces. Forthcoming.
