The Hidden Curriculum: Where the Soft Skills Gap Is Coming From and How to Fix It

College teaches what can be graded. Work rewards what is rarely taught. The gap lives in between.

Employers say graduates lack communication, judgment, and collaboration. Graduates say they did everything college asked of them. Both are right. The disconnect is not students’ effort. It is their exposure. Much of what it takes to succeed at work exists outside formal coursework, and access to that learning has narrowed.

That missing layer is the hidden curriculum: the skills people develop through proximity to real work. It does not live in classrooms. It shows up in everyday moments such as scoping ambiguous tasks, communicating progress, incorporating feedback, and making trade-offs when there is no clear answer. These are not abstract “soft skills.” They are operational skills that determine whether someone can function effectively on the job.

When early-career candidates never encounter that hidden curriculum, the breakdown is predictable.

The Trust Gap

EAB research shows a trust gap: 89 percent of HR leaders say they avoid hiring recent graduates, and 86 percent say entry-level hires need extra training to become productive. Yet most employers still plan to maintain or increase college hiring, which suggests demand is holding even as confidence in readiness is slipping.

That tension exposes the core problem. Employers still need early-career talent, but they no longer trust the indicators traditionally used to assess readiness. The consequences are visible across the labor market. The New York Fed reports that 41 percent of recent graduates are underemployed in roles that do not require a degree.

Why the gap keeps widening

The gap between college credentials and workplace readiness is not static. It is growing. Three structural shifts explain why.

First, internships are no longer a reliable bridge. Access is uneven and competition is intense, which causes students to graduate without meaningful workplace exposure. While colleges promote experiential learning, the opportunities that once transmitted professional norms at scale now reach fewer students, often late in their academic careers.

Second, entry-level roles themselves are changing. Automation has compressed junior work, eliminating many positions that once served as informal training grounds. Fewer early-career roles now allow for observation, gradual responsibility, and low-stakes mistakes—the conditions under which workplace norms were historically learned.

Third, hiring continues to rely on indirect proxies for readiness. In the absence of real work evidence, resumes and interviews stand in. Decisions are made before employers can see how candidates actually operate in realistic conditions.

Together, these shifts reduce exposure to the hidden curriculum while increasing reliance on signals that fail to capture it.

The cost shows up after hiring

The issue is timing. Readiness becomes visible too late to inform early-career hiring decisions. Without real-world context, employers are forced to make high-stakes choices with incomplete information.

That delay carries real cost.

Workforce planning research shows that the most expensive hiring mistakes occur when misalignment is not visible up front. The gaps do not disappear. They surface later as longer onboarding timelines, heavier manager involvement, missed expectations, and early attrition.

By the time readiness problems emerge, teams have already invested time, budget, and credibility in the hire. What should have informed the decision instead undermines it.

What is changing now is not the standard for early-career talent but when that standard is evaluated. Employers are increasingly looking for ways to understand how candidates work before offers are extended, so that gaps can be identitfied earlier—when they can shape decisions rather than undermine them.

Fixing the hidden curriculum without adding friction

The most effective way to address the soft skills gap is to surface evidence of readiness before hiring decisions are made.

Applied, task-based experiences do this by making work expectations visible before decisions are finalized. When candidates engage in realistic scenarios, they reveal how they approach ambiguity, communicate progress, and make decisions in context. That performance provides a clearer signal of readiness than resumes, interviews, or coursework alone.

One way employers are addressing this at scale is through structured job simulations. Employer-branded, day-in-the-life experiences, such as this Area Manager role at Walmart, allow candidates to step into real tasks and be evaluated on how they think and operate before offers are extended.

Forage simulations give employers insight into how candidates actually work while giving students low-risk exposure to real job demands. Across employers using Forage, candidates who complete simulations are twice as likely to receive an interview and four times as likely to receive an offer because they demonstrate readiness through action.

A shift from assumption to evidence

Closing the soft skills gap does not require lowering standards or redefining expectations. It requires aligning hiring decisions with meaningful evidence.

When readiness is visible earlier, employers reduce hiring risk, institutions expand access to professional learning, and students enter the workforce with clearer expectations. The hidden curriculum stops being invisible and starts being evaluated as any other core capability is evaluated.