The New Career Readiness
Employers Want Resilient Graduates. Faculty Can Deliver.
Employers tell us something many of us know but often feel powerless to change:
Students aren’t well prepared for failure.
They need help bouncing back when their best effort isn’t good enough—when they don’t land the job, win over a decision maker, or close the sale.
At first glance, you might think: Resilience is something a student has to learn on their own.
But research shows faculty can accelerate it in small, impactful ways.
Belonging as the Foundation of Resilience
Students who believe their professors care about them, treat them with respect, and help them feel like they belong are much more likely to rate their programs as “excellent.” Those signals of care directly shape students’ confidence and persistence (Gallup & Lumina, State of Higher Education, 2024).
In his book 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, psychologist and researcher David Yeager describes how ages 10–25 are a “sensitive period” for identity formation—when experiences of feedback, criticism, and failure carry heightened weight. When young people feel supported by adults who believe in their potential, setbacks are more likely to be interpreted as learning, not verdicts (Yeager, 2023).
And a large, randomized trial across 22 U.S. institutions found that even brief belonging interventions significantly increased first-year full-time enrollment persistence—especially for historically underrepresented students (Walton et al., 2023).
Send Small Signals, Make a Big Impact
You don’t need to have lengthy in person meetings with students to support students’ resilience. Small interactions can carry the greatest weight.
Wise feedback (Yeager et al., 2014): Pair critiques with belief in a student’s potential. “I’m giving you these comments because I believe you can meet this higher standard.”
Normalize struggle (Walton et al., 2023): Frame difficulty as expected: “If this feels hard at first, that means you’re learning to think like a professional.”
Micro-signals of care (Gallup & Lumina, 2024):
Learn and use names in class.
Reply to emails with respectful, capability-assuming tones.
Open office hours with a permission signal: “I know this can feel intimidating. I’m glad you came—that’s what this time is for.”
These moments may feel minor to us, but to a 19-year-old deciding whether failure means “I don’t belong,” they can change everything.
Employers are telling us resilience is missing. Faculty can help close that gap as a part of the students’ support system – one signal at a time.
References
Lumina Foundation, & Gallup, Inc. (2024). The state of higher education 2024: Today’s students, a valuable but obstructed path to great jobs and lives. Gallup & Lumina Foundation.
Walton, G. M., Murphy, M. C., Logel, C., Yeager, D. S., Fong, C. J., Crum, A. J., Brady, S. T., Paunesku, D., Hanselman, P., Dweck, C. S., & Duckworth, A. L. (2023). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of college students. Science, 380 (6644), 499-505.
Yeager, D. S. (2023). 10 to 25: The science of motivating young people. Crown/Random House.
Yeager, D. S., et al. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804–824.