The Power of Durable Skills in Early-Career Success
In today’s fast-evolving job market, technical skills often dominate the headlines — especially with the rise of AI and automation. Yet beneath the surface, employers continue to prize something far more enduring: durable skills. A new report from UpSkill America, commissioned by Western Governors University (WGU), reveals that what employers value most in early-career talent isn’t just what workers know, but how they show up, collaborate and grow.
The Human Foundation of Work
Durable skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability and integrity, are the timeless competencies that sustain careers through change. The report’s national survey of over 550 employers across all 50 states confirms that these skills remain the true differentiators for early-career success.
Durable skills are defined as those transferable, people-centered capabilities relevant across industries and roles, while attitudes refer to mindsets and traits such as responsibility, patience and empathy. Together, they form the backbone of workforce readiness.
And the findings are clear: while degrees and technical credentials still matter, employers hire for reliability, integrity and collaboration — qualities that can’t be automated or easily replaced.
Five Clusters of Skills and Attitudes
Beyond individual skills, employers tend to think in clusters: groups of abilities that work together to drive performance. The study identified five such clusters:
- Reliability and Execution: Trustworthiness, attention to detail, responsibility, teamwork and integrity.
- Problem Solving: Analytical thinking, creativity, critical reasoning and communication.
- Adaptability and Self-Reflection: Humility, metacognition and managing uncertainty.
- Purpose-Driven Persistence and Inclusivity: Empathy, curiosity, justice and resilience.
- Service-Minded Emotional Intelligence: Patience, growth mindset, flexibility and active listening.
While employers consistently emphasize reliability and execution, the other clusters hint at the broader qualities that enable long-term success, such as innovation, empathy and inclusive leadership.
The Core of What Employers Value: Reliability and Execution
Across industries and company sizes, one cluster of skills emerged as universally essential: the “Reliability and Execution” core. This cluster includes trustworthiness, attention to detail, responsibility, teamwork and ethical behavior. These are the “non-negotiables” for new hires, the traits employers expect from day one.
More than 56% of employers rated ethical behavior and integrity as “extremely important,” closely followed by teamwork, attention to detail and communication. These findings echo what hiring managers have long known: competence is important, but consistency and character are what sustain success.
Interestingly, 85% of employers believe durable skills are developed through life and work experience, not formal coursework. That insight challenges higher education institutions to create learning environments that blend classroom theory with real-world practice, ensuring graduates don’t just know, but can also do.
How Employers Evaluate and Prioritize Skills
Employers use a mix of tools to assess durable skills. Nearly 70% conduct structured interviews, 60% use skills demonstrations, and over 50% apply formal assessments. References and simulations also play a role, as organizations seek evidence of how candidates communicate, collaborate and respond to feedback.
When asked what they expect from early-career hires, the top three responses were telling:
Professionalism and punctuality (63.7%)
Coachability and eagerness to learn (63.4%)
Understanding workplace etiquette (40.8%)
These expectations suggest employers aren’t just hiring for hard skills; they’re hiring for maturity, adaptability and respect for workplace norms.
Industry and Organizational Differences
The study found subtle variations across industries and company sizes.
Customer-facing sectors such as healthcare, retail and food services prioritize communication, emotional intelligence and service orientation.
Finance and technology firms value analytical and critical thinking.
Smaller organizations emphasize interpersonal versatility, seeking employees who can “wear many hats.”
Larger corporations focus on communication, risk management and internal consistency.
These distinctions suggest that context matters. Effective workforce preparation must account for both industry and organizational scale, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model.
Implications for Education and Employers
The report calls for a closer partnership between educators and employers. For higher education, this means embedding workplace expectations — like punctuality, teamwork and communication — directly into coursework. It also means layering learning to include reliability and execution along with the growth-oriented skills that drive advancement and leadership.
For employers, the takeaway is equally clear: hire for reliability but develop for adaptability. Recruiting for observable, measurable traits like dependability is logical, but long-term success depends on cultivating empathy, creativity and resilience within the workforce.
A Human-Centered Future of Work
At its core, Durable Skills, Strong Starts is both a data-driven report and a call to action. It reminds us that amid technological disruption, human skills remain the most durable advantage. Early-career professionals who combine reliability with curiosity and empathy aren’t just ready to work; they’re ready to lead.
As WGU continues to redesign its general education curriculum around these insights, the message is simple: education must evolve to reflect what employers and society truly need. In every industry, success still begins with one enduring truth: skills may open the door, but character and curiosity keep it open.
ChatGPT contributed to the creation of this blog.
