Decoding Gen Z: What Actually Makes Gen Z Job-Ready?

For decades, higher education functioned as the clearest signal of employability: study hard, score well, and the credentials would speak for themselves. But as hiring markets become more competitive, a diploma alone no longer appears to guarantee what it once did.

CV Genius’s 2025 State of Entry-Level Hiring Report, based on 2,000 UK hiring managers, found that only 20% said their entry-level roles were typically filled by candidates with no relevant experience. Soft skills (61%) and job-specific technical skills (56%) also ranked above academic background (25%).

The result is a generation caught between two messages: study more, but also do more. To understand how Gen Z is navigating this paradox, IE Talent & Careers ran a focus group with IE undergraduates across business, law, communications, international relations, and data programs. 

Experience as the New Differentiator

A degree opens the door, but experience is what gets you through it. That was the consistent message from the students, and Martin Kostadinov, a third-year Dual Degree in Business Administration & Data and Business Analytics student, explained.  

"If you don’t do internships, the more you grow, the more suspicious you’re going to get to people," he said. "Even if you have a 9.5 GPA, that’s not an excuse to not do any side work."

For many, internships matter because they replicate something a classroom cannot. 

"In the work environment, they’re not going to teach you how to do something," added Leonardo Rivas, a third-year Bachelor in Communication and Digital Media student. "When you’ve already been in a work environment, you know how to ask for help, when to ask for help, and how to adapt."

The numbers reinforce why that exposure matters, with NACE's 2026 Internship & Co-op Report showing intern-to-full-time conversion rates climbing to 63.1% for 2024-25 interns, the highest level in five years, confirming that internships remain a key bridge into the job market.

Virginia Vila, a third-year Dual Degree in Business Administration & Laws (LL.B.) student, pointed to clubs and projects as the dividing line for students with otherwise similar credentials and no internship experience.

"Just having a degree doesn’t differentiate you enough," she said. "Someone with a high GPA versus someone with a bit lower, but who’s in a club — that’s already going to make a difference."

This emphasis on practical experience is especially visible in technical fields.

"Experience is a great factor for jobs that require engineering skills rather than theoretical knowledge," said Kostadinov. "In our field, formal education is not enough, because university gives you some theory, while you’re being judged on your portfolio and your projects." 

That preference for demonstrable ability is particularly visible in AI-related hiring. Oxford Internet Institute research found that AI skills carried a 23% wage premium, compared with 13% for a master’s degree, suggesting that employers may reward specialized capabilities more strongly than additional formal credentials. 

"In data science and software development, you’re not even expected to have a bachelor’s degree, as long as you can actually build something," Kostadinov said.

Yet gaining that initial experience is becoming harder. An analysis of more than 2,000 postings by The Interview Guys found that 35% of LinkedIn roles labelled "entry-level" required years of prior relevant experience, with some demanding up to five years. In software and IT, more than 60% required at least three years. 

The Master’s Degree Debate

If a bachelor’s plus experience is the new baseline, the obvious next question is whether a master’s automatically follows. For most students interviewed, that assumption has changed, with postgraduate study now seen as conditional on having a clearer sense of their career direction. 

"The master’s degree right after my bachelor’s will not bring the value that I’m thinking it would bring for the money I’m going to put down for it," Gergana Ivanova, a third-year Bachelor in Business Administration student, said. "I’m looking for more experience and opportunities, or even getting a certification that works more in the finance industry, and then looking for a job right after university." 

Vila said her own experience already confirms that shift. "In interviews I’ve done, they ask you one time what you studied, but they ask you more about your experience," she said. "When it comes to going straight from studying to more studying, I feel like it’s better to first get some experience."

Andrea Sánchez, a third-year Dual Degree in Business Administration & International Relations student, said working first is essential to figuring out what your master's should specialize in.

"I do want to do a master’s, but not right after university. I want to gain experience," she said. "When you do a master’s, it’s specializing and diving deep into a specific topic. When you’re already working and putting your hands on specific things, then you are more critical in deciding. You’re going to be better at choosing the master’s you really like."

Rebecca Rocamora, a third-year Bachelor in Communication and Digital Media student, also framed a master’s as a route to specialization, rather than simply another credential. "It shouldn’t just be an added layer," she said. "It should be truly immersive, and I think you can become a specialist. That’s the point of a master’s program."

At the same time, students recognised that postgraduate education remains highly industry-dependent. In law, formal qualifications continue to play a central role.  

"Just undergrad law school isn’t enough of a qualification," said Madison King, a third-year Bachelor in Laws (LL.B.) student, who plans to take a master’s directly after graduating because the credential is structural in her field. 

Is GPA Still Important?

NACE’s Job Outlook 2026 found that the share of U.S. employers screening candidates by GPA has fallen from 73% in 2019 to just 42% today, with employers increasingly relying on demonstrated proficiency in core competencies like teamwork, communication, and critical thinking, instead. 

Yet students said the importance of grades still depends heavily on the industry. In law, where academic performance is often used to narrow large applicant pools, GPA can remain an important first-stage hiring criterion.

"When they’re looking for interns in law firms, they’re looking first at the GPA," King added.

Rather than becoming irrelevant, GPA appears to be shifting from a universal measure of employability to an industry-specific screening tool. In some fields, it still determines whether a candidate reaches the interview stage; in others, demonstrated skills and experience carry more weight.

Soft Skills and Attitude as the Deciding Factor 

There is a reason why experience has started to outweigh GPA and the simple fact of holding a degree, and the students traced it back to one thing: experience is where soft skills are actually built. LinkedIn's Global Talent Trends report found that 92% of hiring professionals consider soft skills equally or more important than technical abilities.  

"Communication skills, when you get to the interview, are primarily even above the technical skills," said Kostadinov. "You can always learn the technical part. But the more you grow, the harder it gets to learn the soft skills."

Several stressed that confidence and the ability to communicate the relevance of an experience can shape hiring outcomes. 

"Someone that is outgoing, that is able to put themselves out there, that has confidence in what they did — it’s all about how you frame your experience," said Sánchez. "You can have the most random experience, but put it in a way that is framed for the specific job, and that will set you apart." 

Beneath the skills themselves sits something harder to teach: attitude. "It’s a lot of attitude," said Rivas. "Even if you're not clear on what you want to do, you know you want to try stuff. If you actually want to do it, just go ahead and search for it and show that you want to do it. That’s the base."

That emphasis mirrors broader employer priorities. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2025 report identifies resilience, flexibility, curiosity, and lifelong learning among the fastest-growing skills employers say they need. 

The New Job-Ready Profile 

For Gen Z, the mindset isn't anti-education; it's that education without experience, soft skills, and direction no longer signals readiness on its own. The new job-ready profile is layered: a degree as the basis, applied experience as proof, intentional specialisation, and the communication skills to translate all of it into a story a recruiter can recognise. 

As the students put it, the question is no longer whether a candidate has a degree. It is what they did with the opportunities around it.