International Competence and Career Readiness: Setting Your Students Up for Success

As the workforce becomes more diverse and globalized, employers are looking for graduates who can navigate cultural differences with empathy and emotional intelligence in order to better collaborate, share knowledge, and solve complex problems. Enter intercultural competence—which is generally understood as the ability to interact effectively and appropriately with people from varied cultural backgrounds and adapt one’s behavior based on acquired knowledge and skills.

International education professionals are keenly aware of the importance of intercultural competence in today’s workplace and are exploring different ways that institutions and students can cultivate and articulate this important skill.

Why Employers Value Intercultural Competence

Employers today are looking for graduates who can use their intercultural communication skills to solve problems working from multiple viewpoints and not just a Western perspective, says Kate Hellmann, director of international student and scholar services at Washington State University. “Ten years ago, receiving a bachelor’s degree was enough, but now the crux of the matter is that the knowledge received from that bachelor’s degree does not mean much if you cannot successfully employ your intercultural communication skills working in diverse groups,” Hellmann notes.

Employers often assess intercultural competence through surface-level indicators, such as a candidate's background, the languages they speak, or the countries they have visited, studied, or worked in, says Anjam Chaudhary, global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program director at Michigan State University. “However, a critical yet less tangible skill is cultural code-switching—the ability to shift between different cultural norms,” she says. “This flexibility is vital, especially