With the latest figures Showing graduate unemployment at a 15-year high, Liverpool,along with other universities, believes "soft skills" are more important than ever. Once,your degree alone would get you a job, says Paul Redmond, head of the careers and employability service. Today employers can afford to demand much more of prospective staff. "The competition for jobs is so intense, and often the differentiators are those so-called soft skills," he says. "Small talk isn’t small talk in a business setting." Research by the Sutton Trust in 2009 found that while only 7% of children in the UK are privately educated, the majority of those at the top of the leading professions went to independent fee-paying schools. And as unpaid internships--often obtained through family contacts--become increasingly common, experts on social mobility believe young people from less privileged backgrounds are being put at an even greater disadvantage. Redmond hopes the Gradvantage programme run by Liverpool University will help to create a more level playing field for young people who don’t necessarily have the ready-built networks of their more middle-class peers. The course aims to be as hands-on as possible: Paul Cullinan demonstrates his tips on getting the most out of networking events by telling half the group to start chatting amongst themselves, while the others observe their body language. "If people are standing face to face, they’re saying they don’t want anyone else to join in, but slowly but surely they’ll open out," he says. "That’s when to in tr0duce yourself." Martin Pennington, the interim chief executive of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, says universities have been focusing increasingly on skills like networking since the recession. "It’s not just about helping with their CV or job application, which careers services have always done, but help with selling yourself, getting out there and pushing yourself in front of employers." Chris Kennedy, 22, who studied psychology at Liverpool, says he didn’t realise the value of networking. "I honestly didn’t even know what it really meant before the session. Now I’ve found out about all sorts of events and I feel a lot more confident I can get something out of them.\ What does Paul Redmond mean by saying "Small talk isn’t small talk in a business setting. "
A. Soft skills can make a difference in job hunting. B. Small talk can be big in doing business. C. People should behave politely in a business setting. D. People should speak loudly in a business setting.