Every graduation season, students hear the same reassurance: you're ready for work now.
Our CEO, David Harkin, has been asking a question that doesn't quite add up. If schools are spending more time than ever preparing young people for work, why do employers still say they aren't prepared for it?
It's a question worth sitting with, because the answer isn't that schools aren't trying hard enough. Vocational pathways have expanded. Employer involvement in education has grown. Skills frameworks have been built, refined and rebuilt. By almost any measure, this should be the most work-ready generation in history.
And yet the gap persists. Part of the reason is that the careers students are being prepared for keep changing. Twenty years ago, few schools were preparing students to become app developers or sustainability officers. Today, those are established professions. According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, 39% of workers' skill sets are expected to change by 2030, and 63% of employers say skills gaps are a major barrier to business transformation.
That raises an uncomfortable possibility. Maybe schools aren't falling short on employability at all. Maybe the definition of "work-ready" has become too narrow, focused on a student's first day in a job rather than their fifth.
In this article for The PIE, David explores what a broader definition of readiness could look like, and why the schools producing the most adaptable young people aren't always the ones talking most about employability.
Read the full article: Our obsession with 'work-readiness' may be making young people less prepared for work.