The talk among both employers and jobseekers increasingly seems to be focusing on struggle. Employers bemoan a dearth of qualified candidates, while young jobseekers who are just beginning to launch their careers voice frustration. Recent research has found that well under half of new college graduates are finding jobs in their field. Are the jobseekers doing something wrong, or are employers to blame?
Facing Up to a Disconnect
Many employers are finding that the cliché is true: Good help really is hard to find. And recent grads are just as frustrated.
A report from education technology company Cengage Group released in September found that just 30% of 2025 graduates and 41% of 2024 graduates found jobs in their field. Also, 48% of those jobseekers felt unprepared to apply for entry-level positions.
Cengage Group’s 2025 Graduate Employability Report shows a widening gap between what employers want and what educators teach. The report says employers ranked job-specific technical abilities as their top priority, but educators placed those skills behind soft skills like critical thinking and problem-solving.
Certainly, employers value both soft skills and job-specific ability, according to research from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the College Board. The Cengage Group report finds that employers value candidates with soft skills, such as critical thinking and communication, for entry-level jobs, but the hiring managers surveyed also highly value industry-recognized credentials.
Among the report’s key findings: 40% of the hiring managers surveyed cited trade schools and 37% cited four-year colleges as ways jobseekers can acquire early-career skills.
Balancing Hard, Soft Skills
Although those hiring managers value post-high school education, they especially value real-world experience, whether it comes from internships, career and technical education, or on-the-job experience.
The report says 89% of the hiring managers surveyed believe experience is more valuable than formal education. But higher education is still important. In fact, the Cengage Group report mentions a resurgence of degree requirements, even though much of the buzz over the last few years has been about how employers are dropping degree requirements for many jobs.
The Cengage Group research found that 71% of employers now require a two- or four-year degree for entry-level roles—up from 55% in 2024. But the new graduates who were surveyed note that employment takes more than a degree.
More graduates cited personal referrals, internships and prior work experience, and interview skills as being more decisive in securing employment than those who said the degree itself was most important.
The report notes the importance of strengthening partnerships between institutions, employers, and learners to ensure graduates have not only academic knowledge but also the connections and practical experience needed to build careers.
Employer Challenges
A report from Indeed Career Guide released in July says that a majority of employers surveyed in summer 2024 said hiring has become more challenging compared with three years ago. One of the pain points identified is a lack of “quality” applicants.
The Indeed report cites data from a National Association of Colleges and Employers survey that found the top skills employers want represent a mixture of hard and soft skills. The highly sought attributes are problem-solving skills, the ability to work in a team, written communication skills, initiative, a strong work ethic, technical skills, verbal communication skills, flexibility/adaptability, analytical/quantitative skills, and attention to detail.
The report also says that 51% of the hiring managers surveyed also believe that relevant, on-the-job experience is the most important indicator of quality over educational degrees, job titles, and years of experience.
2026 trends
Management consulting company Korn Ferry’s 2026 report on trends in talent acquisition touts the human-artificial intelligence (AI) “power couple.”
“AI is the big story—84% of talent leaders plan to use it next year—but that’s just one piece of the 2026 [talent acquisition] puzzle,” the report says.
The report adds that cutting entry-level employees—thereby cutting payroll by perhaps millions—and replacing those employees with AI is “the easiest sell in the boardroom.” That move, however, can result in a leadership crisis down the road, as it’s today’s entry-level employees who will become managers and leaders in the future.
“Entry-level and back-office positions aren’t just about getting routine work done,” the report says. “They’re where people learn your culture, understand your processes, and develop the institutional knowledge that makes them valuable leaders later.”