With U.S. companies saying 2026 will be the worst college graduate job market since 2021, colleges and universities need to reframe career readiness. The answer isn’t better résumé workshops. It’s helping students recognize their careers have already started.
According to the Cengage Group’s 2025 Graduate Employability Report, 48% of graduates say they feel unprepared for entry-level roles. Too often, students are encouraged to “get ready” for their careers. When we reposition “career” as something unfolding now, not next, we invite students to turn inward, and to recognize, examine, and ultimately take ownership of the process of shaping their professional lives.
It’s time to challenge students to rethink the traditional notion of career as a fixed destination, a singular title, or an industry. Career is no longer a static noun but rather a dynamic process, a dialogue between who we are and how we contribute to the world around us. It evolves with each barrier we overcome, each win we celebrate, each identity we carry, and each expectation — both others’ and our own — we learn to navigate. Career isn’t something we reach. It’s something that continually unfolds. It’s not merely what we do; it’s who we are becoming.
Saying that students can have multiple careers isn’t enough. This framing still treats career as something external, implying a certain “otherness” that is separate from the present moment. We should instead help students to see career as work they are already doing, shaped by their choices, values, and growth. What will help students succeed in the early career transition is not contingent on the perfect interview, cover letter, or LinkedIn profile. It comes down to character, self-knowledge, and trust — and the ability to leverage these qualities to navigate complex workplace ambiguity.
So how do we help students adopt this reframed concept? Colleges and universities often focus on transforming students to become career–ready. But the truth is, the transformation starts long before they ever set foot on campus and is ongoing — it happens every day, in ways we often overlook. Career readiness isn’t confined to a classroom or résumé workshop; it’s built through lived experience. It’s in the teamwork and leadership shown on the field, the communication and time management practiced during group projects, and even the professionalism and conflict resolution learned while navigating roommate challenges. Faculty can help reinforce this reframing by connecting course material to professional practice, making clear that the classroom isn’t separate from the career journey, but central to it.
With today’s workforce defined by constant change, we must rethink what career readiness truly means. It’s not preparation for a distant future; instead, it’s the practice of self-awareness and adaptability that begins long before formal job titles. We’ve heard it loud and clear: Students and families are asking for more from the college experience. It’s not enough simply to be career-ready for entry-level jobs; we need students to become career-savvy once they enter the workforce. Students are voicing that traditional career preparation is not enough, “because readiness isn’t just about getting in the door. It’s about what happens after,” as Karen McCullough and Laura Nicole Miller point out in examining the student perspective on career readiness.
The University of New England’s recent Industry Exploration Day reimagines traditional career preparation by embedding experiential learning into career development programming and normalizing learning as part of professional practice. Beyond the familiar career-fair format, students met with employers to workshop their résumés, refine their LinkedIn profiles, and practice interview questions. A student photographer provided professional headshots, building a portfolio while supporting their peers. Redesigning career programming as more than events students simply attend — but as spaces where they actively shape their professional identities — shows that career is a continually unfolding process, one that invites them to step into multiple roles as peers, future colleagues, and emerging mentors.
To truly prepare students for the world of work, we must move beyond teaching them to anticipate it; instead, we need to help them experience it. By simulating real-world challenges, we push students to think on the fly, to read a room, to connect context with action, and to wield the most powerful tool they possess: themselves. Helping students navigate ambiguity means cultivating adaptive expertise — the skill of drawing from what they’ve learned, who they are, and what they value to make sense of what comes next.
But this approach to experiential education only works when we stop treating career as a future destination and start seeing it as a process already in motion. Anticipating change, making decisions with intention, and drawing from lived experience — this is how we prepare students for what comes next.
Career readiness isn’t a path to the future waiting to be discovered; it’s an internal process that’s already well underway. And it’s time higher education acted like it.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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