How to Prepare Gen Z Students for the World of Work

NSHSS is an academic honors society that recognizes and supports highest-achieving student scholars with over 2 million members across 170 countries. As program manager at the organization, Margot is responsible for administering an intern readiness program that helps students from all backgrounds and from across the world learn, discover and excel. 

With technology rapidly changing the way we interact and communicate with one another, Margot—an amazing D2L Champion—sat down with us to share her thoughts on how educators can make it easier for students today to transition from school and college into the workplace.  

What challenges do students face when transitioning into the workforce? 

Kids today—and I am talking Gen Z and younger—have grown up with technology being very prominent in their lives and in their parents’ lives. Because of this, many young people are incredibly competent at using new technologies, whether they’re coding, creating video and audio content, or building a following on social media. However, the shift of focus toward technical proficiency has come at the cost of other important strengths, such as communication, critical thinking, relationship management, leadership and adaptability.  

In our discussions with parents, educators, employers and industry leaders, including former industry giants like Greg Goff (a current ExxonMobil board member) and the Kosh brothers, the consensus was that a lack of professional development skills is making it harder for young people to succeed in the workplace. 

What goals and motivations do high school and college-aged individuals have toward starting their careers? 

We run a biennial Career Interest Survey with over 10,000 Gen Z students to provide valuable insights into their expectations and career aspirations.  

When asked what is the most important to you about the work experience when considering potential employers, the No. 1 priority is gaining skills to advance their careers, jumping from 67% of respondents in the 2022 survey to 86% of respondents in the 2024 survey. 

The 2022 Career Interest Survey also revealed that more than four out of five (82%) respondents expect to participate in an internship. And in our most recent survey, we saw that number increase to more than nine out of 10 (92%). When asked what they would most like to gain from it, it was still skill development and training.  

How has this current landscape changed priorities for NSHSS? 

Our slogan is “Be Honored. Be More.” And for the past 22 years, we’ve been doing the honor part really well, and now we are focusing on how we can provide more opportunities to help students lean into the “Be More” part of the slogan. 

Our goal is to help students develop the skills that they need to get the most out of their internships and starting careers, and we created the Intern Readiness Certificate Program (IRCP) to do just that.  

IRCP is an immersive 10-module program with weekly interactive lessons led by Fabian J. De Rozario, CEO of GlobalConnect Consulting & Training LP, and two live virtual panels with diverse industry experts.  

We designed the program to be relevant to the current workforce, applicable to real-world scenarios and provide a supportive space to network and grow. 

How is technology enabling that goal? 

We have been running the program since 2022 with incredibly positive student feedback on the course’s relevance and impact. But we ran into a few headaches with the learning management system (LMS) that we were using, in order to encourage growth of the program, we needed better support.  

One of our main challenges is the admin workflow and student experience when operating three separate systems: an LMS, a payment platform and our custom-built Customer Management System.  

We were deep into interviewing other companies for an alternative LMS and—funnily enough—learned about D2L through an episode of Jeopardy that my manager was watching. The question was on the University of Phoenix’s LMS. Knowing that one of the biggest online schools is using Brightspace gave us the confidence to investigate D2L. And it was a perfect fit from there, whether it was the product solution or the genuine people we’ve interacted with. 

How are you measuring the success of your program? 

We use a number of statistics to measure success, program registration rates, certification rates, engagement rates, we also gauge student participation, quiz results, and discussion board engagement.  We are seeing a 27% year-over-year increase in registration and incredible feedback from students on increased employability and relevant skills development. We are working hard to find ways to better track whether the students successfully land in an internship, if they are performing better than their peers who haven’t taken the course, and how their personal growth in the course improved their career opportunities moving forward. 

Students who have taken the course report feeling more confident and prepared to enter the world of work. And when our students combine this confidence with their impressive tech skills, they transform into very strong candidates for internships and employment. 

What is one tip you would give to other organizations looking to uplift their program offering? 

Always review the content as the end user. I always think about people inside and outside of our target demographics. So, we send some students through it, we send some parents through it and then we also send our staff through it to really flesh it out. 

We also benefited from the course audit from D2L’s Learning Services team who came in with an instructional design lens. Gen Z spends a lot of time online and have their own expectations of how things should look and work. So, having someone who can review the content as a learning expert is really beneficial. 

What future challenges, opportunities and trends do you foresee? 

Advances in technology always present opportunities and challenges, with AI being a huge topic especially. But I think the good thing about a course like IRCP is that it requires you to be self-reflective to find your strengths and positioning. You can’t ask a bot to define what your values are. 

We’ve put a huge effort into future-proofing the IRCP program, making sure the skills developed are not only relevant but also applicable to professionals at any stage of their career. 

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