Employers Value Human Skills Amid Rise of AI: Report

As demand for workers with experience in artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow, employers say human skills remain critical for recent business graduates.

Skills like problem-solving, strategic thinking, and leadership are key to potential employers, according to a recent Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) survey.

The 2024 GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey found that employers expect AI skills to grow in importance, but they still overwhelmingly value the leadership skills taught by a traditional graduate business education.

These core business school skills … are really what employers are looking for both today and tomorrow, report author Andrew Walker told BestColleges in an interview.

The GMAC interviewed 931 corporate recruiters and hiring managers, including many from Global Fortune 500 companies, as part of the most recent iteration of the survey.

Employers said they expect AI to continue to grow in importance, even as they highlighted the more traditional leadership-based skills taught in a graduate management education (GME).

AI is a key point of focus for employers and business schools alike.

A growing number of business schools are making AI a core part of their curriculum. The American University Kogod School of Business, for instance, revamped its curriculum earlier this year to incorporate AI, and Arizona State University has rolled out a number of AI-focused business degrees.

That trend extends to the most elite business schools in the country: The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, recently announced major investments in AI.

But even at major schools focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), officials continue to underscore the importance of leadership and communications skills.

In order to be successful, every single one of those students needs to be a good communicator, James Bullard, dean of Purdue University’s Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, previously told BestColleges.

They have to be able to write well. They have to be able to communicate proposals well. They have to be able to explain technology to a group that may not be as well-versed as they are in the technology.

Corporate recruiters reflected that attitude in the recent GMAC survey: They largely said that the three most important skills for current graduate business students as they enter the workforce are problem-solving, communication, and strategic thinking.

It’s these core business skills, like strategy and problem-solving, that are going to be evergreen, Walker said. But employers are also looking for graduates to be able to supplement that with increased understanding of technology, whether that be AI or other types of technology, as well as these human skills.

Roughly 26% of global employers saw AI as currently important for graduates. That figure was higher in Central and South Asia, as well as in the technology sector. It was relatively low, 13%, in the United States.

Employers are much more likely to say AI will be an important skill in the next five years, although employers continue to expect problem-solving, communication, and strategic thinking to be more important.

However, employers who want graduates to have AI skills aren’t necessarily looking for high quantities of rapidly generated content. Of the corporate recruiters who said AI skills are crucial now, most of them said it should be used to learn new skills, develop business strategies, and boost research.

It really is more about using AI as a partner in developing new skills or in development business strategy, Walker said.

Business schools have been at the forefront of embracing new technologies like AI while still prioritizing the traditional skills that employers want to see. That has translated into a high employer confidence in graduate business education.

Employer confidence in graduate management education’s ability to prepare students to be successful in their organizations has grown markedly in recent years, surging from a low of 21% saying they were highly confident in 2020 to 40% in 2024.

Employers’ renewed confidence in GME is corroborated by growth across several related measures, the report reads.

Most employers also say business school graduates tend to outperform their other employees, fast-track to upper-level positions, and earn more than other employees — and the share has grown since the drop seen at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The vast majority — about 65% of employers — said the skills gained through a graduate business degree are important in hybrid and remote work environments.

The GMAC compared those results with a past question from 2021 in which employers were asked whether they agreed with the statement, Skills of graduate management talent are more important in the context of COVID-19. Just 36% of employers agreed with that statement at the time.

Despite the confidence that employers have in business students being prepared for hybrid and remote work, corporate recruiters overall still say in-person programs garner stronger results.

When asked whether fully in-person students are more likely to have strong technical skills than those from an online program, 66% agreed. When asked whether they were more likely to have strong leadership and communications skills, 73% agreed.

Those figures were different in the U.S. Just 44% of U.S. employers agreed that graduates of fully in-person programs were likely to have better technical skills, although 65% said they were more likely to have strong leadership and communication skills.

Online graduate business degrees have been on the rise in recent years, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Those degrees tend to be more affordable than their traditional counterparts, and they have been increasingly valued by employers in recent years.

Walker said business schools may need to do some work to make sure employers understand the value of an online degree program.

There’s an opportunity for business schools to do some outreach and educate employers about how different online programs are than they were 10 years ago, five years ago, Walker said. I think there’s been a change in what’s happening in the online classroom, and employers’ perception of that hasn’t necessarily kept pace.

The report also showed a strong hiring forecast for graduates, particularly from master of business administration (MBA) programs.

Roughly 25% of U.S. employers who responded to the survey indicated that they planned to hire more MBA graduates in 2024 than in 2023. A further 46% said they expected to hire the same as in 2023.

Many U.S. employers in the survey didn’t expect to hire other business degree types like master in management, master of accounting, and master of data analytics graduates, although those hiring expectations were much stronger globally.

While employers globally indicated increased hiring compared to the U.S., Walker cautioned that those differences are reflective of different contexts.

When you are looking at other regions, you are seeing a lot more overlap in organizations that are hiring both MBA talent and business master’s talent, Walker said.

In the U.S., the MBA still features so prominently in the market, you’re just less likely to see that overlap of employers hiring both types of degree types. And so that’s not to say that business master’s talent is not getting hired in the U.S., it’s just that they are a more specialized skill compared to a more generalized MBA that might have a bit more appeal across different types of businesses.

The MBA was the highest-earning degree type in the U.S., with a projected median starting annual salary of $120,000 in 2024. MBA students usually have more work experience and head into more senior roles compared with other graduate business degrees.