Join/Renew
This article is a follow up to Their Words, Their Worries: A Grounded Look at Career Readiness from the Student Perspective. It shares insights from year two of a three-year cross-sectional study exploring students' perceptions of career readiness and their futures. Throughout this study, the two faculty researchers are asking their organizational communication students related questions, such as What do you feel prepared for? What scares you as you look forward to your future careers? What do you wish colleges and universities would do differently? In year two, students shared many similarities with the first year’s cohort, but there was a noticeable shift among this year’s group of upper-level students.
Recent college graduates are entering a drastically different work landscape than their counterparts did just a year ago. According to a labor market report by LinkedIn, over the past year, the U.S. hiring rate has hovered below pre-pandemic levels, stalling entry-level recruitment while at the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping workforce entry points. Many employers now require job candidates to possess a baseline familiarity with AI tools, excel in uniquely human capabilities such as communication, problem-solving and adaptability, and already possess several years of work experience just to land a job interview. Due to the rapidly changing nature of the workforce, college graduates getting ready to enter the workforce have had to refocus their goals coming out of college, which has led many to get creative, spending time in the gig economy or starting their own ventures as entrepreneurs.
A year ago, we launched a three-year, cross-sectional study to better understand how students conceptualize their own career readiness, one part of our two-pronged approach to understanding what it’s like not to be just getting started in your career. In July 2025, we shared how students in our first cohort communicated uncertainty about their preparedness to meet communication challenges they were expecting to encounter once on the job. To help better prepare them for their first professional role, they told us they wanted exposure to critical workplace conversations. They wanted faculty in their classrooms to allow them to reflect and get feedback in a low-stakes environment, where they can get comfortable with feedback. They also hoped to see respect in communication modeled for them, from the adults and mentors in their lives. This year, we’re back to share what came up when we posed the same questions to a new cohort of organizational communication students. This group expressed the same communication concerns—and a heightened sense of uneasiness as they prepared to transition into the workforce.
What We Found in Year Two: Students Feel Uneasy
This year’s students worried that their degrees may not prepare them for the realities of a rapidly changing workforce. Questions in class centered around the practicality of skills learned in the college classroom and if these skills would translate into those that employers most value. When asked what colleges could do to better prepare students for the current workforce, student responses echoed what we’ve all seen in the career readiness literature.
This year, students told us they want colleges to better prepare them for a dynamic workforce by introducing (or expanding) experiential learning opportunities in the classroom. This aligns with the findings from Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey. Surveys of students show that experiential learning is happening in the classroom; although the largest number of student participants complete an internship, they are followed by those participating in undergraduate research and completing a capstone project or experience. NACE has reported that students engaged in experiential types of education receive multiple benefits, including receiving multiple job offers and higher starting salaries. Research on early Gen Z career professionals found that experiential learners during college had a better impression of the value of their undergraduate degree than did their nonexperiential learning counterparts. Early Gen Z career professionals also reported higher rates of career satisfaction, faster than expected career progression, higher rates of mentors in the workplace, and higher rates of a network to outreach to.
This year’s students also articulated a need for higher education institutions to elevate career preparedness by more clearly connecting curricular content to their future career pathways. This was another shared sentiment with the students participating in Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey: Forty-four percent of students surveyed indicated they had some general knowledge of career outcome information, with 17% reporting they have heard this information from friends/peers, and 11% reporting they do not know where to find this information. Research indicates that college students are asking faculty members to provide higher levels of disciple-specific career mentoring and job-search guidance. In a study conducted by NACE, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and the Society for Experiential Education, 92% of the 6,800 faculty respondents reported being asked by students for career advice. Students are seeking more substantive advice from faculty, such as types of jobs they might be able to land, and questions regarding advanced degrees.
Finally, this year’s students requested that employers be invited into the college classroom to help connect what happens there to what will happen in the workplace. NACE acknowledged this high-impact practice in their 2026 Internship & Co-op survey: Sixty percent of employer respondents indicated that they are involved in a variety of classroom activities, such as capstone courses and projects, undergraduate research, collaborative assignments, and service learning/community based projects. Collaborative assignments that pair students and employers bridge the gap between theory and practice, equipping students with both the academic insights and workplace dynamics needed for long-term success.
What to Do Now: Partner for Impact
We must take a holistic approach to helping students become career-ready as they face an evolving and changing world of work. Our study isn’t over yet but it has already shown us that those of us in higher ed may know what we need to do but we are not necessarily doing it to the full extent that we should. We’re not alone in suspecting an execution problem on campus: While Inside Higher Ed’s student success administrators survey reveals that 65% of administrators highly encourage experiential learning, only 36% see it being widely adopted in classrooms and on campus.
Closing this gap requires building a unified career ecosystem, something that we’ve both seen start to come together on our own campuses.
At Assumption, this looks like our new program “ Foundations Forward,” a four-year experience that connects our mission-driven approach to liberal arts education with internships, mentorship, and professional preparation. This program provides every student with a full, dedicated team—their academic advisor, who is also a faculty member; a career coach from our Career Development and Internship Center; and an alumni mentor who is currently working in the field. Foundations Forward acknowledges that professors cannot connect students to resources that they do not know exist.
NACE has highlighted a profound opportunity to increase faculty awareness of campus career services. By investing in targeted professional development, such as the NACE Faculty & Staff Fellows program, institutions can empower faculty members to embed career-ready competencies and work-based learning directly into their syllabi. Fort Hays State University (FHSU) took full advantage of these resources this past academic year. After three faculty members and our career services team completed the NACE training, they launched a campus-wide community of practice workshops. This initiative drew broad participation across campus, allowing educators to learn directly from the FHSU NACE Faculty Fellows how to integrate career-ready assignments and experiential learning into their coursework. When faculty are empowered to transition from isolated lecturers to active champions of career readiness, classroom theory naturally aligns with market demand.
This internal ecosystem must look outward to remain viable in a rapidly shifting professional landscape. Integrating active industry advisory boards into campus planning ensures that both faculty and career services staff stay ahead of workforce trends, technology shifts, and emerging skill gaps. At FHSU, faculty within the Business Community Program have engaged in extensive dialogues with employers regarding AI use policies in the workforce. These conversations have allowed us to maintain a consistent, clear message regarding the value of a business communication degree in the era of AI. Driven by these employer insights, faculty developed classroom assignments that encourage the ethical exploration of AI tools while strictly emphasizing student accountability. This approach aligns with national trends. The NACE 2026 Job Outlook Spring Update indicates that employers expecting AI competencies want graduates skilled in identifying appropriate AI tools, prompt engineering, and output evaluation.
When career services, faculty mentors, and regional employers partner up, operating as a coordinated support system instead of fragmented, individual supports, our impact on our students shifts. If we commit to working in this way, we are more than capable of providing every student with the network, experience, and confidence to thrive, not just survive, as new professionals.
