Competencies: Employers Weigh Importance Versus New Grad Proficiency. Spotlight for Career Services Professionals Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals Career services offices can help their students stand out and prepare for a successful transition to the workforce by providing programming and resources to help boost their proficiency in critical thinking, communication, and professionalism.
NACE’s Job Outlook 2022 survey found that these career readiness competencies have the biggest gaps between employer perceptions of importance and student proficiency. Nearly all employers indicated that critical thinking and communication are very to extremely important for college graduates to have to enter their workforce. (See Figure 1.) However, only slightly more than half—just 55.8% for critical thinking and 54.3% for communication—rated recent graduates either “very proficient” or “extremely proficient” in these competencies.
The Job Outlook survey is a forecast of hiring intentions of employers as they relate to new college graduates. The top 10 skills recruiters are looking for in 2021. Top 11 Skills Employers Look for in Job Candidates _ Indeed.