Higher Education & Industry are Responsible for Career Readiness, and why my time in both changed how I see the work.

By Eric Lloyd, Senior Manager of Growth & Operations, and Consultant at The Career Leadership Collective

There remains a prominent sentiment in the market, across industries and company leaders, that a skills and career-readiness gap persists among college graduates. There is also plenty of evidence that highlights the disconnect between what employers say they want and what college graduates bring to the workforce each day (Cenage 2025, NACE 2025, and Hult 2025, to name a few). I still remember the first meeting back in 2014 where I realized higher education and industry were not speaking the same language.

I was sitting with industry leaders as part of a ‘whirlwind’ tour to see what skills they desired from future graduates. I was leading the MBA Program at Otterbein University at the time. They were deeply concerned about the graduates they were hiring. They talked about gaps in communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and even professionalism. A familiar question: “Why isn’t higher education preparing students better?”

Not long after, I found myself in a room with my peers in higher education who were just as concerned. They talked about unrealistic employer expectations, limited resources, and the impossibility of predicting the shifting workforce needs. Their refrain sounded different, but the sentiment was the same: “Why doesn’t industry understand what we’re actually here to do?”

I had lived on both sides of that table. And what struck me wasn’t who was right; it was how often they were talking past each other.

That experience, repeated in various forums, fundamentally reshaped how I think about career readiness and why I believe higher education and industry are far more valuable to each other than either one fully realizes.

What Higher Education Understands That Industry Often Misses

Higher education is designed to educate people and teach them how to think, not just produce talent and narrow skillsets.

Institutions understand that development takes time; that identity, confidence, purpose, and capability are formed over years, not simply during onboarding cycles. Faculty and staff see students in moments of growth, uncertainty, failure, and transformation. They understand learning as iterative and contextual, not merely transactional.

This perspective deeply impacts career readiness. Because readiness is not just about skills, it’s about adaptability, judgment, resilience, and the ability to continuously learn.

Higher education also operates within a mission-driven framework. The development of the whole student, access to education for everyone, development of curiosity skills, and long-term societal impact are not side projects; they are core to the mission. That view helps to ensure that career readiness is not reserved for a select few; it establishes a desire to search for answers, but it’s also understood as a responsibility to all students.

Industry often underestimates how valuable this developmental and mission-oriented perspective is, especially in a labor market that is increasingly demanding human capabilities and soft skills alongside technical ones.

What Industry Sees That Higher Education Can't Afford to Ignore

At the same time, industry brings clarity that higher education cannot replicate on its own.

Employers live with the consequences of readiness gaps in real time. They see where theory breaks down in practical application. They understand performance expectations, shifting markets, accountability, and the realities of the workday in ways that academic environments often can’t fully simulate or adapt to, given the rapid changes in industry around the world.

Industry also operates with faster feedback loops. When something isn’t working, it becomes immediately visible in productivity, in customer experience, and ultimately in the bottom line. That visibility can be uncomfortable for new young talent, but it’s also incredibly instructive.

Where higher education excels at long-term development, industry excels at pragmatic and contextual relevance. Career readiness without that relevance risks becoming conceptual. And conceptual, however well-intentioned, doesn’t serve students entering a complex and real-time workplace.

The Real Problem: Career Readiness Has No Single Owner

The disconnect between higher education and industry isn’t rooted in apathy or incompetence. It’s structural.

Higher education and industry operate on different timelines, incentives, and definitions of success. One thinks in semesters and learning outcomes; the other thinks in quarters and performance metrics. University and Career Services leaders are often asked to bridge that gap alone, without the authority, resources, or shared ownership required to do so effectively. 

Not to mention, career readiness is sometimes treated as a handoff: higher education prepares students until graduation, then industry takes over. But that model no longer reflects reality, if it ever did. Career readiness doesn’t live neatly inside a department, a curriculum, or a job description. It emerges at the intersection of learning, experience, reflection, and translation, across multiple stakeholders, over time.

In other words, career readiness is a broad workforce ecosystem challenge, not a single-institution solution.

Why Perspective Matters More Than Programs

In recent years, we’ve seen no shortage of tools, platforms, and “solutions” aimed at fixing career readiness. Many are well-designed. But too often, they’re layered onto systems and processes that haven’t aligned around shared understanding. What’s missing isn’t always new innovation; it’s greater interpretation and ecosystem thinking.

Higher education doesn’t need to be disrupted by industry logic, nor does industry benefit when academic values are dismissed as outdated. Progress happens when leaders understand both worlds well enough to translate between them, honoring the academic mission while engaging with market realities.

This is why university, academic, and career leaders who understand and tackle the “in and out” of higher education and industry are uniquely positioned to see where assumptions break down, where incentives misalign, and where collaboration can actually make a difference.

Why This Work Sits at the Center of The Career Leadership Collective

At The Career Leadership Collective, we understand that career outcomes are a shared responsibility.

Our work is grounded in the understanding that an optional career center alone cannot transform career readiness. It must be approached collaboratively across academic affairs, student affairs, advancement, employers, and senior leadership.

We focus on helping institutions move beyond fragmented approaches toward career ecosystems where strategy, structure, and culture align around student success, even post-graduation, not just enrollment or degree completion. That perspective exists because we understand the intersection of higher education and industry. We see the friction and challenges, but we also see the long-term opportunity when both sides collaborate and start designing an ecosystem together.

Living In & Out, and Why It Gives Me Hope

Working in both higher education and industry hasn’t made me cynical; it’s made me optimistic.

Looking back to my time at Otterbein and Denison University, for example, I’ve seen institutions willing to rethink long-standing academic practices to develop highly integrated ecosystems where industry-focused coursework and majors are directly tied to the specific needs of partnering companies; project management, AI, design thinking, change management, etc. As a result, I’ve also seen employers eager to engage more deeply when the partnership is meaningful rather than transactional; career pathways tied to hiring practices, integrated in-class projects solving real problems, and even company technology embedded into coursework. In short, I’ve seen what’s possible when career readiness is framed not as a problem to fix, but as an ecosystem to build.

Higher education and industry don’t need to become more like each other. They need to understand each other better. Career readiness lives in the space between them, and the future belongs to leaders willing to stand in the gap and create an ecosystem that benefits both.

Eric Lloyd

Senior Manager of Growth & Operations, and Consultant

Eric spent 10 years in higher education at both Otterbein University, where he was Director of the MBA program, and Denison University, where he helped launch and lead Denison Edge - a first-of-its-kind learning & development innovation hub for students, alumni, and professionals, located in downtown Columbus, OH.

Prior to that, he held roles in engineering, consulting, and marketing across various industries. Most recently, Eric was VP of Global Marketing & Business Development for a manufacturing company in central Ohio, where he helped to expand the global reach of 4 individual brands under one parent brand.

Having spent 10 years in higher education, Eric loves the opportunity to be a thought-partner alongside colleges and universities to build capacity and growth in their career ecosystem. He says that “Building ecosystems that increase capacity, foster innovation, and enhance collaboration - i.e., career education across campuses - is energizing, and a priority."

Eric received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ohio University and his Master's in Business Administration from Otterbein University. He lives in Granville, Ohio, with his wife and two boys, where he spends countless (and extremely enjoyable) hours attending the boys' sporting events: swimming, basketball, and baseball. He also enjoys outdoor adventures like snow skiing, camping, and hiking, as well as vacationing to as many new and exciting destinations as possible.