Malleable Skills

I found an article that talked about the glut of recent PhD's with limited job prospects. I had an email exchange with a friend and talked about why that may be the case. He mentioned it may be a lack of social skills. Below is my reply

"Along the lines of social skills the original article mentioned a deficit in the skills needed to actually do well in work like. Personally I am terrible at patiently wading through menial tasks which is always necessary in any entry level job. I know I had the perception that i would come in, be instantly recognized for my ability and get paid to think and design. The world doesn't work that way. You have to do what you are told even if they do know you are capable. They hired you to do something and only later will you get a chance to prove yourself. You just have to keep your nose on the grindstone and endure it - at least until you can get a promotion or move to a better job at a new company. Also in academia you can skip tasks you don't like. My homework usually counted for about 5%-10% of my grade in school. I could spare the points and became accustomed to simply skipping assignments I didn't like. I could come in late or skip class if I wanted as long as it wasn't too frequent (and in some cases it didn't matter at all) without any real repercussions. In a professional setting you have to do 100% of your work. You can't just decide to skip the tasks you don't like. Respecting bosses just because they are your boss is also another essential skill they don't teach you in school. Loyalty, or at least the perception of it, is highly valued. These could be called social skills, but I think they are something different... something similar to discipline. Something similar to what you probably found in the army"