--- title: "Employers Say New Grads Arrive Missing the Basics and Here…" canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/new-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn" language: "en" author: "drashtigarach" published: "2026-09-02T10:40:42.000Z" modified: "2026-09-02T11:40:09.793Z" --- [Back to Blog](/blog) [Education](/blog/tag/education)[Skills](/blog/tag/skills)[Career](/blog/tag/career)[Jobs](/blog/tag/jobs)[Hiring](/blog/tag/hiring) # Employers Say New Grads Arrive Missing the Basics and Here Is What to Learn First Nearly 70 percent of employers now use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles. What that changes about what graduates should learn and prove first. [![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach) [September 2, 2026](/blog/archive/2026/09)12 min read ![Tiered lecture hall from the back row](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/10122-lecturehall-hero.png) [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn&title=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn&title=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First)[mailto:?subject=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn](mailto:?subject=Employers%20Say%20New%20Grads%20Arrive%20Missing%20the%20Basics%20and%20Here%20Is%20What%20to%20Learn%20First&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fnew-graduates-missing-basics-skills-based-hiring-what-to-learn) Employers across the country report spending far too much time teaching their newest employees how to read, write, spell and otherwise communicate, the technology investor and educator writing in [Inc.](https://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/college-costs-new-graduates-entry-level-job-training-skills-ai/91398426) argued this week, in a column questioning whether a four-year degree still prepares anyone for the job that follows it. At [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), we are less interested in whether college is worth it in the abstract and more interested in what employers are actually screening for this year, and on that question there is real data. Nearly 70 percent of them now use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles, which changes what a graduate should spend the next six months proving. ## What are employers actually screening for now? The [National Association of Colleges and Employers](https://www.naceweb.org/) reports in its [Job Outlook 2026](https://www.naceweb.org/research/reports/job-outlook/2026/) research that employer use of skills-based hiring has grown over the past year, with nearly 70 percent now saying they use it. The same report describes a cautious recruiting landscape in which employers rate the job market only fair and hiring plans for new graduates appear to be levelling off. That combination is the important part. A market that is flat and screening on demonstrated skills rather than credentials is one where the degree gets you considered and something else gets you hired. NACE's president and chief executive put the practical version of it directly in a statement accompanying the association's guidance on resumes: "In a recruiting environment that is increasingly based on skills that translate to the workplace instead of GPA and major, it's important for students to reflect on their academic, experiential, extracurricular, and work experiences to identify the skills they have sharpened and connect them to the jobs for which they are applying." ## Which experiences do employers actually value? Specific ones, and the ranking is unusually clear. In the same NACE research, nearly all respondents cited US-based internships as valuable and slightly more than three quarters found value in co-ops. More than 40 percent said they seek candidates with on-campus student work or with apprenticeships. Read that as a priority list rather than a set of nice-to-haves. An internship is the closest available proxy for having done the job, which is precisely what a skills-based screen is trying to establish, and its near-universal value among employers makes it the single highest-return thing a student can arrange. On-campus work being valued by more than 40 percent is the underrated finding, because it is available to almost everyone and is routinely left off resumes as though it does not count. It does count, and [how to make a resume for your first job with no work experience](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-to-make-a-resume-for-your-first-job) covers how to present it so that it reads as evidence. Apprenticeships sit in the same category and are expanding well beyond the trades into technology, healthcare and administration, with the [Department of Labor's apprenticeship programme](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/apprenticeship) listing registered routes by occupation and state. ## Is the communication complaint fair? Partly, and it needs separating from the rhetoric around it. The claim that employers spend time teaching new hires to write clearly is an assertion from a columnist rather than a measured statistic, and it is worth treating as such. But it is consistent with harder evidence from elsewhere, including a [TestGorilla](https://www.testgorilla.com/) report finding that 78 percent of employers surveyed had hired a candidate with strong technical skills who ultimately did not fit because of a lack of soft skills. What that suggests is not that graduates cannot write at all. It is that the writing a degree trains you to do and the writing a job requires are different tasks. Academic writing rewards length, hedging and demonstrating that you have read widely. Workplace writing rewards getting to the decision in the first two lines and being explicit about what you need from the reader. A dissertation is graded on thoroughness and a manager reads on a phone between meetings, so the same sentence that earned a first-class mark reads as evasive at work. Those are close to opposite instincts, and nobody usually tells a new hire that the transition is required. Practising it is cheap, and it is one of the few things you can visibly improve within a month. There is a second reason this matters more than it used to. When a hiring process screens on demonstrated skills rather than on a credential, the written application is doing more of the work than it once did, because it is the first and sometimes only sample of your thinking anyone sees. A cover note that states plainly what you did and what changed is itself evidence of the communication skill employers say is missing, which means the application is not just a request to be assessed. It is part of the assessment. ## What should you actually learn first? Start with the writing, because it is the highest-leverage and the least taught. Learn to open with the conclusion, keep an email under six lines, and end with a specific request and a date. That single habit changes how quickly people respond to you and how competent you seem, and it costs nothing but attention. Test it on your own drafts by deleting the first paragraph entirely, which in most workplace emails turns out to have been throat-clearing, and checking whether anything of value was lost. Second, learn the tools of the specific function you are entering rather than general software skills. For an analyst that means the querying and spreadsheet work that job actually runs on, for a marketer it means the analytics and campaign platforms, and for an operations role it means the ticketing and process systems. Generic AI familiarity is now assumed rather than differentiating, and [how to upskill for AI without going back to school](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-to-upskill-for-ai-without-going-back-to-school) sets out the difference between using the tools and being able to show what you changed with them. Third, learn to run a meeting, which usually means preparing an agenda, keeping a decision log and following up, and which is the fastest way for a junior person to look senior. What is deliberately not on that list is another qualification. In a skills-based screen an additional certificate is weak evidence, because it demonstrates that you completed a course rather than that you can apply anything, and employers have learned to discount it accordingly. The exception is a licence or credential that is a legal requirement for the occupation, where it is not evidence at all but a gate. Knowing which of the two you are looking at before you pay for it is worth the ten minutes it takes to check against the [occupation's own requirements](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/home.htm). ## Is the degree still worth it? That is the wrong question for someone already holding one, and a more nuanced one for someone deciding. The column's argument is that four years of maturation and the development of people skills, work ethic, patience and perseverance are real benefits, but that most of those are not learned in the classroom anyway. That is a fair observation and it points somewhere useful, which is that the value is heavily dependent on what you do alongside the coursework rather than on the coursework itself. For anyone weighing options, two-year vocational routes deserve genuine consideration rather than being treated as a fallback, particularly given the demand documented in [three skilled trade openings for every qualified worker](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/skilled-trade-openings-per-qualified-worker-2026). The honest comparison is not prestige but cost, time to earning and what the occupation actually pays, and the [Occupational Outlook Handbook](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/) is the place to check that without a marketing department in between. Organisations such as the [American Association of Colleges and Universities](https://www.aacu.org/) publish the counter-case on the broader purposes of a degree, which is worth reading before accepting a purely economic framing, and the [Department of Education](https://www.ed.gov/) publishes the cost and outcome data that makes the financial side of the comparison concrete rather than rhetorical. The more useful reframing for a student already enrolled is that the degree is a container rather than the product. Two people can graduate from the same programme with the same grades and completely different employability, and the difference is almost entirely what they did in the surrounding four years, which is exactly the set of things employers say they screen for. That is within your control in a way that the institution's reputation is not. ## What does this mean for your career? If you are graduating into this market, your task is to convert what you already did into evidence of skills rather than to acquire more credentials. Go back through your coursework, part-time jobs, campus roles and side projects and write down, for each, what the problem was, what you specifically did and what changed. That exercise is exactly what NACE describes employers wanting, and most graduates never do it, which is why their resumes read as a list of places they have been rather than things they can do. Do it before you write a single application, because the inventory determines which roles are worth applying for, and applying first and reflecting later is how people end up in a queue for jobs they were never going to get. Then close the visible gaps deliberately rather than broadly. One well-documented project that shows you can communicate, use the function's tools and finish something will outperform three more certificates. "In combination with layoffs over the recent years plus the rise of required AI skills, experience is no longer enough," Lacey Kaelani, chief executive of [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), told [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2025/12/16/job-market-so-bad-people-age-40-going-back-to-school/). For a graduate that cuts in a helpful direction, because if experience alone no longer settles a hiring decision then the gap between you and someone with three years is smaller than it has been for a long time, provided you can evidence what you can do. ## What should employers and universities do about it? Employers could start by writing job adverts that describe tasks rather than credentials, since a posting demanding a degree plus three years for an entry-level role is not skills-based hiring regardless of what the recruitment strategy says. If nearly 70 percent are screening on skills, the adverts should reflect it, and the ones that do get a wider and better-prepared applicant pool. The pipeline consequences of not doing so are real, as [why cutting entry-level jobs could backfire on employers](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/why-cutting-entry-level-jobs-could-backfire-on-employers) sets out. Universities have the harder problem, since the complaint is about general capability rather than any single course. The most tractable version is to treat workplace writing as a discrete skill taught explicitly rather than assumed as a by-product of essays, and to expand the paid work and internship routes that employers say they value most. Guidance from bodies such as the [Graduate Management Admission Council](https://www.gmac.com/) points the same way on the growing employer demand for communication, judgement and management capability alongside technical training. There is a structural obstacle worth naming, which is that the internships employers value most are unevenly available, and unpaid ones select for students who can afford to work for nothing. An institution that treats paid placement capacity as a core service rather than an optional extra is doing more for its graduates' employability than one that adds another module, and the [Society for Human Resource Management](https://www.shrm.org/) has published practical guidance for employers on structuring those placements so they produce hires rather than free labour. ## Related Articles - [What the Newest Class Actually Wants From Their First Job](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/class-of-2026-first-job-wants) - [The First Rung Is Vanishing, How Graduates Break In Without Entry Roles](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-2026-grads-break-in-ai-entry-level-jobs-vanishing) - [Entry Level Hiring Just Halved, How New Graduates Can Still Land a Job](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/uk-graduate-vacancies-halved-2026-entry-level-hiring) - [Why a Brutal First Job Market Can Dent Graduate Pay for Years](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/weak-first-job-market-graduate-wage-scarring-2026) - [The Complete Soft Skills Guide](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/soft-skills-examples) - [High-Paying New Collar Jobs That Do Not Require a College Degree](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/new-collar-jobs-skills-based-hiring-no-degree-2026) - [Why a Career Passport Could Replace the Resume for Graduates](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/career-passport-replace-resume-2026-graduates) - [Gen Z's Viral Survival Guide for Your First Nine to Five Job](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/gen-z-survival-guide-first-9-to-5-job) - [Why Some Early Career Workers Thrive With AI While Others Fall Behind](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/early-career-workers-thrive-with-ai) - [How Skills and Careers Connect and Why Employers Now Hire on Skills First](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/skills-and-careers) ## People Also Asked ### Q: What is skills-based hiring and how common is it? A: Skills-based hiring screens candidates on demonstrated ability to do the work rather than on credentials such as degree subject or grades. NACE's Job Outlook 2026 research found that nearly 70 percent of employers now use it for entry-level hiring, up over the past year, which makes evidence of what you can do more decisive than where you studied. ### Q: What experience do employers value most in a graduate? A: Internships lead by a wide margin, with nearly all employers in the NACE research citing US-based internships as valuable and slightly more than three quarters valuing co-ops. More than 40 percent also value on-campus student work and apprenticeships, which are far more accessible than internships and are frequently left off resumes. ### Q: What skill should a new graduate work on first? A: Workplace writing, because it is the most visible and the least explicitly taught. Academic writing rewards length and hedging while workplace writing rewards leading with the conclusion and making a specific request. Employers report spending time correcting this in new hires, and it is one of the few gaps you can close noticeably within weeks. If nearly seven in ten employers are hiring on demonstrated skills, the fastest route into a first job is finding the ones whose requirements you already meet. [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) indexes live entry-level roles and what they actually ask for, so you can target the openings that match your evidence rather than applying on hope. 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