Fortune 500 exec: College grads aren’t ready for today’s jobs

It’s an uncertain time for college grads. Nearly half say they feel unprepared for even entry-level jobs in their fields.

Many employers agree. One in six hiring managers hesitate to bring on recent grads due to a lack of workplace skills like teamwork and communication. Yet nine in ten educators say their grads are ready to enter the workforce.

Employers can’t afford to wait for this gap to close on its own. As retirements accelerate and artificial intelligence automates some entry-level work, they’ll have to take the lead — by partnering directly with colleges and universities to give students real-world experience before they graduate.

The pandemic widened the disconnect between employers and young workers. Years of remote learning deprived students of formative experiences like lab work and campus leadership. Many graduates now have strong academic foundations but less practice navigating unspoken professional norms. 

On top of that, many entry-level roles that once taught young professionals the basics — data analysis, coding, and report-writing among them — are disappearing as companies turn to AI. That may boost productivity today. But it prevents firms from developing the next generation of talent to lead them in the future. 

Universities and employers have grown apart, too. Curricula struggle to keep pace with rapidly evolving fields like AI or cybersecurity. Many faculty still measure preparedness for the workforce by mastery of course material. Employers, by contrast, may prize the ability to work as part of a team and to solve problems under pressure over the ability to recall facts quickly — especially given the rise of AI.

Meanwhile, with hybrid work the norm at many firms, new hires may have fewer opportunities for the informal learning and mentorship that can accelerate their competence and professional growth.

The result? Graduates entering an economy that prizes skills they haven’t had a chance to practice — and employers facing talent shortages they can’t fill. 

One of the most effective ways to close that gap is through closer collaboration between universities and industry. 

When students work directly with industry mentors — in a lab, on a factory floor, or in a startup — they learn the teamwork and communication skills that few professors can teach, no matter how collaborative or group-oriented the class. An engineer troubleshooting a real production issue can learn more about working in the “real world” in a week than in a semester of lectures.

For their part, employers get to identify and invest in talent early, developing pipelines for graduates who already understand workplace expectations. These partnerships ensure a steady flow of job-ready professionals in high-demand fields like engineering and healthcare technology, where demand for talent far outpaces supply.

Universities and employers are demonstrating how effective this model can be. 

Purdue and Eli Lilly are training biomanufacturing talent through a $250 million partnership in AI and robotics. Google’s AI lab at Carnegie Mellon gives students real-world experience before they graduate. Siemens’ new Center of Excellence at Georgia Tech immerses engineering students in digital twin and simulation projects. 

At Abbott, we’re investing in similar partnerships — linking classrooms to cutting-edge healthcare technology and helping launch careers in science and engineering. Through the HBCU Cybersecurity Industry Collaboration Initiative, we’ve joined with Microsoft and [hotlink]Raytheon Technologies[/hotlink] to strengthen cybersecurity curricula at engineering schools at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Initiatives like these can restore what technology has eroded. By building bridges between classrooms and workplaces, they offer students the chance to build hard and soft skills. An engineering student designing a prototype for a company gains not only technical fluency, but also the kinds of judgment and teamwork skills that textbooks can’t teach. At the same time, companies can observe how students solve problems and collaborate — insights that inform hiring and training. 

Technology is reshaping every industry. But no algorithm can substitute for sound judgment, teamwork, or the ability to communicate clearly. Those skills are the sole product of human experience. If companies want ready talent tomorrow, they need to help build it today.

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com