New grads and employers agree on what student proficiencies are necessary — graduating seniors ranked communication, critical thinking, and teamwork as the three most important competencies for a job candidate to develop to be considered career ready on a 2023 NACE student survey. Employers positioned the same three career readiness competencies at the top of their list in the association’s job outlook survey in 2024. However, the two groups disagree about what new grads are best at and how proficient are.
