The skills employers want from new graduates

Julia Pollak, Chiefe Economist at ZipRecruiter, explains the industries looking for recent graduates and the skills those employers want to see.

Transcript

00:00So, in terms of college graduates, they've got their cap and gown, they're ready to hit

00:08the job market.

00:11What skills are being most sought after?

00:14So, there's huge demand for AI-related skills, and a lot of companies don't know exactly

00:19what they want yet, right?

00:21They're hiring for very, very technical AI-related roles, but in every other sphere, companies

00:26are starting to realize that there are going to be huge implications of AI, legal implications,

00:31intellectual property implications, creative implications.

00:34And so, they're looking for people who are sort of technologists at heart, who pay attention

00:40to new technologies, who stay abreast of new developments and can figure out how to apply

00:45them in any setting.

00:47So sometimes there's a mismatch, right, between what the skills that the employer wants and

00:53the skills or the jobs that the graduates want.

00:57Yes.

00:58So, talk to me about the kind of industries that are seeing the most attention from college

01:04graduates.

01:05So, the biggest skills mismatch that we see is actually in areas like the skilled trades.

01:10There is sort of an inexhaustible demand for people with skilled trades experience, and

01:16there are actually very few candidates developing those skills.

01:19Now, we are seeing that those market signals are starting to get across to young people,

01:23and we've seen a recent uptick in enrollments in vocational training programs, but it's

01:28not nearly enough to quench the demand of employers.

01:31They want to go into these white-collar fields that are fun, flexible, remote, but also where

01:37employers are pretty slow to hire at the moment.

01:39One, just because of market conditions, but two, because they're dabbling around with

01:45AI and wondering whether perhaps they can replace these entry-level employees and have

01:51their superstars do more with these new, incredible tech tools.