4 Importance of Career Readiness Decrying the use of resources in providing what they considered remedial workforce readiness training, employers have expressed need for entry-level professional employees to integrate quickly into their respective organizations (Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, & Wright, 2009). The need for a more focused form of readiness, one that is specific to college graduates entering the workforce, could not be more pressing. To guide this effort, NACE proposes the construct of Career Readiness as the solution. Individuals, Institutions of Higher Education, and employers would all benefit from having a shared understanding, vocabulary, and guideposts. At the national level, career readiness has been recognized as a critical developmental piece in securing an efficient economy. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career and Technical Education (OCTAE) released a fact sheet entitled Employability Skills: Supporting Opportunity Youth to Be Successful in Their First Job to help guide employers, state and federal agencies, as well as families and job seekers as they prepare to support and hire individuals who are career ready. Responding to the desires for enhanced college graduates’ preparation for joining the workforce, institutions of higher education around the country have been recognizing the importance of career readiness by instituting campus-wide initiatives. In fact, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) recently introduced a new minor degree granting program in their interdisciplinary studies program called “Career Readiness Skills” that is designed to help students navigate the workplace when they leave the university (Efetie & Oetjens, 2021).
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