Essential skills for graduates in 2024: Preparing for tomorrow’s job market

The Bangladeshi job market, like many other job markets across the world, is very dynamic in nature. People often say that this particular job market is unstable or that there is a lack of opportunities here. However, while there may be some truth to this, it may not be the case entirely. In fact, similar descriptions are also applicable to job markets in other parts of the world.

That being said, there are still many who manage to secure jobs right after graduating. Some even have decent-paying jobs on their hands before they graduate. So, how are these individuals managing to land jobs in a market that is 'unstable' and has 'a lack of opportunities'? The answer to this is simple – they outmatch other job seekers and candidates in terms of skills.

There are still many who manage to secure jobs right after graduating. Some even have decent-paying jobs on their hands before they graduate. So, how are these individuals managing to land jobs in a market that is 'unstable' and has 'a lack of opportunities'? The answer to this is simple – they outmatch other job seekers and candidates in terms of skills.

As the nation advances in technology and globalisation, the demand for a varied skill set becomes paramount. From digital literacy and adaptability to cultural awareness and ethical decision-making, all these competencies bridge academic knowledge with practical success, and today's employers want all these skills, aside from other technical skills, in their employees.

Customer management is crucial, as employees often interact with clients, requiring the ability to understand and address their needs effectively. Team building and management skills will always be in demand, given the collaborative nature of many tasks within the sector. Stakeholder management also remains a key aspect, emphasising the importance of cultivating relationships with various entities in the financial landscape.

"Recruiters are placing a significant emphasis on certain soft skills when evaluating graduates or potential recruits," says Rifah Nanjiba, a business development team lead of a globally renowned IT company. "Among these, effective communication, a positive attitude, critical thinking, and strong work ethics stand out as pivotal attributes. To ensure candidates possess these essential skills, we've incorporated a dedicated interview stage dedicated to assessing these qualities. On top of that, our recruitment process includes an aptitude test that evaluates candidates' verbal, logical, and quantitative abilities. These key skills are also integral for preparing graduates to thrive in the dynamic job market of tomorrow."

"In my opinion, the ideal employee in 2024 possesses a combination of crucial qualities," continues Rifah. "Strong communication skills remain a cornerstone, given the collaborative nature of today's workplaces. Dedication to their work, coupled with unwavering integrity, is paramount. An ideal employee embraces constructive feedback, using it as a catalyst for continuous improvement and professional development. Furthermore, recognising the value of team bonding is essential. In essence, a holistic approach that encompasses effective communication, dedication, integrity, receptiveness to feedback, and a team-centric mindset defines the ideal employee in the dynamic landscape of 2024."

Certain job sectors tend to be more demanding in terms of certain skills than others. Take the banking and finance sector as an example. Abdullah, who is a management trainee at a reputed private bank in Bangladesh, shares his thoughts regarding this. He says, "Graduates aspiring to excel in the banking or finance sector should focus on honing specific technical skills. A solid foundation in accounting is fundamental, providing the basis for understanding financial transactions and reporting. Familiarity with a diverse array of financial products is also crucial here as it enables professionals to navigate and advise on various investment and banking options. "

Graduates do not necessarily need to learn how AI works or how to build AI tools. However, they do need to master the art of getting the most out of these tools. To ensure efficient usage of generative AI, advanced knowledge of prompt engineering is a must. Prompt engineering is a process that allows you to guide generative AI tools to generate desired outputs. The more accurate, detailed, and instructive the prompts, the better the outputs or results.

Soft skills are equally necessary in these sectors and for good reason.

"Customer management is crucial, as employees often interact with clients, requiring the ability to understand and address their needs effectively. Team building and management skills will always be in demand, given the collaborative nature of many tasks within the sector. Stakeholder management also remains a key aspect, emphasising the importance of cultivating relationships with various entities in the financial landscape," says Abdullah.

In addition to formal educational qualifications, strong analytical and quantitative skills, computer skills, and proficiency in English and Bangla may strengthen your chances of landing a banking job. At present, banks are especially interested in graduates with good computing skills.

Bank and corporate jobs aside, tech jobs, specifically those in the software industry, have always been in demand for almost the last decade or so.

This trend will continue well into 2024 and beyond.  Those eager to work in this industry constantly need to develop their skills, especially in programming. To do so, they need to constantly keep up with the programming languages that tech and software companies utilise in their application and software development process.

"For several tech companies around the world, JavaScript and its extension TypeScript have become very popular recently, thanks to the availability of reliable libraries such as MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js, Angular JS, says Afia Fahmida Rahman, a software engineer at Optimizely. "Ruby has become popular in the tech scene lately too, thanks to its Rails framework – Ruby on Rails (RoR). RoR is easy to grasp, especially if you understand what the MVC pattern seeks to achieve. It's a full-stack framework which helps you build an entire web application in one go."

Apart from these, programming languages like Python and Java are also widely used in software and tech companies. Python frameworks like Django and Flask are used in the industry to develop projects. Popular Java frameworks currently used in the industry include Spring, Spring Boot, Grails, and Struts.

"I would also strongly encourage enthusiasts to start digging deeper into testing libraries on their own since independent findings will be the only constant for you in your professional lives," adds Afia. "At the same time, it is always ideal to have a competitive programming portfolio or several indie projects pushed to your GitHub profile. Your sense of software architecture would reflect on your projects too, even if you are not too aware of it."

However, perhaps the most important skill that graduates and job-seekers need to have in 2024 is the ability to make the most of generative AI. Generative AI is a category of artificial intelligence that can create everything from new text and images to video, audio, and even code. This AI-based technology allows users to quickly generate new content based on a variety of inputs. According to a Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) report, the influx of consumer generative AI programs, including ChatGPT and Google's Bard, the generative AI market is set to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2032 from a market size of just $40 billion in 2022. McKinsey goes as far as calling generative AI the "next productivity frontier". According to McKinsey, "About 75 percent of the value that generative AI use cases could deliver falls across four areas – customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D."

In addition to formal educational qualifications, strong analytical and quantitative skills, computer skills, and proficiency in English and Bangla may strengthen your chances of landing a banking job. At present, banks are especially interested in graduates with good computing skills.

Graduates do not necessarily need to learn how AI works or how to build AI tools. However, they do need to master the art of getting the most out of these tools. To ensure efficient usage of generative AI, advanced knowledge of prompt engineering is a must. Prompt engineering is a process that allows you to guide generative AI tools to generate desired outputs. The more accurate, detailed, and instructive the prompts, the better the outputs or results. Graduates will have to approach the job markets with the notion that at some point, for some piece of work, no matter how minuscule it may be, they will have to use generative AI, and for that, they need to hone their prompt engineering skills.

Programming languages like Python and Java are also widely used in software and tech companies. Python frameworks like Django and Flask are used in the industry to develop projects.

Skill development is a continuous process, especially given how rapidly the job sector is growing and evolving. As we continue our journey through 2024, some skills will become obsolete while many new ones will pop up and gain traction. Graduates, therefore, cannot limit themselves to being satisfied with whatever skills they have acquired during their university lives. They need to be prepared to learn new ones and continue working on them for as long as the said skills are in demand and necessary for their work.

Faisal Bin Iqbal is a sub-editor at Campus.