We often talk about hiring as a funnel. Education feeds the top; HR catches talent at the bottom. But what if the funnel itself is broken? The disconnect between what schools teach and what work demands is growing too large to ignore. From soft skills to collaboration, from initiative to real-world problem solving—graduates are entering the workforce underprepared, not because they’ve failed, but because the systems preparing them never aligned with the ones hiring them.

This is not a critique of education. It’s a call to HR. If we want stronger early-career talent pipelines, we need to stop meeting candidates at the finish line and start shaping the race.

The Readiness Illusion

Most hiring systems still use legacy indicators: degrees, test scores, job titles. But these rarely predict actual performance—especially in roles that demand adaptability, creativity, or collaboration.

Meanwhile, students often spend years focused on academic outcomes, only to enter a workplace where entirely different rules apply. A group project becomes a cross-functional team. A final exam becomes an open-ended challenge with no right answer. And the feedback—if it comes at all—is often months delayed and devoid of real clarity.

This gap isn’t theoretical. It shows up in onboarding time, early attrition, and the silent struggle of new hires trying to understand what’s expected of them. HR feels the impact. So why are we waiting to act?

From Reactive to Preventive HR

The typical HR response to underprepared candidates is to plug the gaps: onboarding bootcamps, coaching plans, early-career learning modules. These are necessary—but they are also reactive. A more strategic move is upstream collaboration.

HR professionals—especially those working on early-career hiring or L&D—have insights that education leaders need: where new hires succeed, where they stumble, what behaviours matter most in the first 90 days. If shared early, this data could reshape how readiness is taught.

We can’t expect schools to guess what work requires. Nor should we expect employers to undo years of misaligned preparation. A bridge is needed—and HR is well positioned to help build it.

What Collaboration Could Look Like

This doesn’t require national policy reform or reinventing the curriculum. Small, practical steps can go a long way:

• Co-designing Challenges: HR can help educators create classroom simulations that mirror real-world ambiguity. Not every task has a rubric. Not every team is aligned. Helping students experience that—safely—can foster resilience early.
• Embedding Feedback Literacy: Schools often focus on outcomes, not feedback. HR leaders can support institutions in building cultures of structured feedback that reflect how workplaces operate.
• Recognising Non-Academic Strengths: Instead of rewarding only grades, what if schools tracked consistency, initiative, or leadership in group settings? These are qualities that hiring managers value—but rarely see evidence of in traditional transcripts.
• Guest Sessions With Purpose: Instead of generic career days, bring early-career employees to speak candidly about their first six months. What surprised them? What skills did they wish they had practiced earlier?
• Shared Language: HR and education often talk past each other. Defining shared language for behaviours like ownership, collaboration, or communication can help both sectors align expectations.
• Why This Matters for HR

We’re entering a phase where talent scarcity is no longer just a numbers issue—it’s a relevance issue. The pace of work is outpacing the rate of preparedness. If HR wants stronger internal mobility, reduced early turnover, and better cultural fit from new hires, the solution isn’t just in better recruitment filters—it’s in rethinking what “ready” looks like before hiring begins.

This also affects inclusion. Many capable young people—especially those from underrepresented or non-traditional backgrounds—struggle not because they lack skill, but because they were never taught how to signal it effectively. Helping education systems teach those signals early is one of the most powerful diversity tools we have.

A Call to Action

Too often, HR is left managing the downstream effects of an upstream design problem. What if we shifted the model? Instead of waiting for talent to arrive “ready,” we help define what readiness means—collaboratively, inclusively, and practically. This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about raising alignment. It’s about designing a transition between learning and work that is intentional, not accidental. And it starts with one question: Where does HR’s role in talent development really begin?