The soft-skills crisis: 1 in 4 execs wouldn’t even think of hiring an entry-level Gen Z grad
One thing both bosses and workers can agree on: Entry-level workers aren’t cut out for the job.
Fewer than half of workers (48%) and just 12% of mid-level executives think today’s entry-level workers are adequately prepared for the workforce, according to a new report from General Assembly, a technology education provider.
The biggest factors driving this lack of confidence? Managers polled feel new workforce entrants don’t have the requisite soft skills—like communication, collaboration, and adaptability—needed to thrive at work.
“The entry-level employee pipeline is broken,” Jourdan Hathaway, General Assembly’s chief business officer, wrote in a statement. “Companies must rethink how they source, train, and onboard employees.”
For bosses committed to tackling the issue, there’s no shortage of evidence-based approaches to beefing up workforce readiness, Hathaway added. “Technology apprenticeships and skill training programs, for example, provide employees with experience that mimics a real work environment, allowing them to build communication and collaboration skills alongside technical skills.”
For the report, General Assembly surveyed 1,180 workers across the U.S. and U.K., as well as 393 VPs or director-level managers.
Nearly one in four of those executives said they wouldn’t hire today’s entry-level employees. About 23% of all employees, at all levels, said the same—including one in three baby boomers.
Missing the real value
Even the entry-level workers can tell they’re missing something crucial.
Two in five (40%) of Gen Z respondents—many of whom are the new hires in question—say that lacking soft skills is a major shortcoming in their career advancement. Also high on the list, according to both executives and workers, are technical skills—and coming into work with the right attitude.
Then again, it’s not entirely younger workers’ fault. Many spent their college years in pandemic lockdowns, hamstrung by canceled internships or fully remote roles, and thus missed opportunities for networking and in-person professional mentoring.
One in three executives—and a similar share of employees—agreed that companies don’t provide adequate training for new hires, effectively setting them up for failure, or at least underperformance.
Among the companies that actually do set aside a budget for training stipends or funds, nearly half said employees “sometimes, rarely, or never” use them. That’s likely due to a lack of motivation or time—or maybe even the sense that they’re not the problem.
Interestingly, U.S. and U.K. employees diverge somewhat on the issue; U.K. employees were more than twice as likely to believe the government bears some responsibility for job preparedness than American workers. U.K. bosses were seven times more likely than U.S. bosses to say the same.
Despite AI, soft skills still reign supreme
Even as the future becomes increasingly digitized, the human touch remains vital, General Assembly’s report finds. That’s been echoed by a smattering of other recent reports.
A Harris Poll carried out exclusively for Fortune in January found that 82% of managers said their new Gen Z hires’ soft skills require more guidance, time, and training. They also think Gen Zers often have unrealistic workplace expectations—like speedy promotion timelines, ample room for flexibility, or consistent work-life balance—and they’re harder to train in soft skills than in technical skills.
A September 2024 study by workplace education platform Pearson found that communication—the most in-demand soft skill—was mentioned in 110 million job listings, while data analysis—an AI skill—appeared in only 9 million.
Plus, in a recent Deloitte study, workers put teamwork as their number-one valued skill, followed by communication and leadership. Only in fourth place did a more technical skill—coding—make the list, followed by data analysis.
Many Fortune 500 companies are already heeding the call. Microsoft, for one, has partnered with virtual education platform Coursera to offer workers courses and certificates in hard (data analysis) and soft (communication) skills alike. Accenture CEO Julie Sweet has prioritized continual learning from her first day on the job, and this year her company bought Udacity, an AI learning platform akin to Coursera, to build on that mission and prioritize upskilling.
Companies that put too much stock in technical training at the expense of “enduring human capabilities—like divergent thinking, emotional agility, [and] resilience—could end up impeding innovation and leaving employees ill-equipped to lead teams, adapt to market opportunities, and fully harness the potential of technology,” Anthony Stephan, Deloitte’s chief learning officer, wrote.
General Assembly said much the same.
“When we see a trend impacting so many people, we have to take a step back and consider that the system needs to change,” Lupe Colangelo, director of alumni engagement and employer partnerships at General Assembly, wrote in the report. “People clearly need more support to enter the workforce and succeed. We can’t expect individual employees to close today’s skills gaps on their own.”
