With cap and gown ceremonies in the rearview mirror, the job hunt is now front and center for recent graduates. Julia Pollak, Chief Economist, ZipRecruiter joined TheStreet to discuss the most in demand skills and industries for new grads.
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Full Video Transcript Below:
CONWAY GITTENS: So in terms of college graduates, yes, you know, they got their cap and gown. They're ready to hit the job market. What skills are being most sought after?
JULIA POLLAK: So there's huge demand for AI related skills. And a lot of companies don't know exactly what they want yet. They're hiring for very, very technical related roles. But in every other sphere, companies are starting to realize that there are going to be huge implications of AI. Legal implications, intellectual property implications, creative implications. And so they are looking for people who are sort of technologists at heart who pay attention to new technologies, who stay abreast of new developments and can figure out how to apply them in any setting.
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CONWAY GITTENS: So sometimes there's a mismatch, right, between what the skills that the employer wants and the skills that or the jobs that the graduates want. Yes so talk to me about the kind of industries that are seeing the most attention from college graduates?
JULIA POLLAK: So the biggest skills mismatch that we see is actually in areas like the skilled trades. There is sort of an inexhaustible demand for people with skilled trades experience. And there are actually very few candidates developing those skills. Now we are seeing that those market signals are starting to get across to young people. And we've seen a recent uptick in enrollments in vocational training programs, but it's not nearly enough to quench the demand of employers.
Young people want to go into marketing. They want to go into communications. They want to go into these white collar fields that are fun, flexible, remote, but also where employers are pretty slow to hire at the moment, one just because of market conditions, but two, because they're dabbling around with AI and wondering whether perhaps they can replace these entry level employees and have their superstars do more with these new incredible tech tools.
