11/01/2026

The AI Literacy Gap in Career Services: Addressing the Future of Work

By Madina Akhmetova

Career centers in higher education institutions are responding to a changing landscape of technological advancement, and AI is genuinely helping students produce stronger application materials faster.  After surveying 448 institutions, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE, 2025) found that 89% of responding career centers are using AI to help students with resume creation, 82% for interview preparation, and 73% for cover letter development. That adoption is meaningful but there is more to the story.

The same data, however, points to an emerging gap: no respondents reported using AI to build the career services professionals' own capacity, labor market understanding, or ability to guide students through structurally shifting careers. Surface-level adoption is well underway. The deeper work remains an open opportunity.

Labor Market Realities
According to the LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute (2026), jobs requiring AI literacy grew 70% year-over-year in the United States. In the past two years, employers created 1.3 million AI-related job opportunities, including data annotators, AI engineers, and forward-deployed engineers. Those roles did not exist five years ago. By 2030, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 60% of new jobs will come from occupations that do not typically require a degree because of shifts in economic demand, automation, and the types of industries experiencing the fastest growth. Many new positions will require vocational training, certifications, and a skills-first approach over degrees (LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute, 2026).

Lightcast (2026) added a further dimension: for the average job in the United States, a third of the skills changed between 2021 and 2024, with the rate of change accelerating. The credential-to-career pipeline that organizes most career advising is not weakening. It is being structurally replaced. This is the labor market students are entering: new-collar jobs, AI literacy and skills, and work alongside AI, which permeates almost every industry. The question is whether career services professionals are prepared to help graduates navigate it.

The Readiness Gap
The answer, according to current data, is largely that they are not as prepared as they could be. NACE (Gatta, 2025) conducted a quick poll in August/September 2025, finding that only 40% of career centers have provided any AI-focused professional development for their own staff. EDUCAUSE (Robert, 2026) found that 80% of institutions are addressing AI upskilling by encouraging staff to develop skills on their own, with no structured curriculum or framework.

Handshake reported that 62% of graduating seniors felt worried about AI’s impact on their career prospects (as cited in IntuitionLabs, 2025). Students are arriving at career appointments with real anxiety and real questions about their futures. Career services professionals deserve the preparation to respond with more than reassurance.

The Deeper Work AI Cannot Do
The AI literacy gap in career services is not a technology adoption problem, but a practitioner readiness problem. Specifically, career services professionals exhibit readiness when they can address the following:

• Understand what the future of work looks like and help students build career strategies based on where the labor market is going, not where it has been.
• Use AI as an intelligence tool, not just a production tool.  Accessing real-time labor market data in student conversations, interpreting skill demand trends, and helping students understand the gap between their current qualifications and what employers actually need right now.
• Address student anxiety with substance, not just support. Career services professionals who can name what is changing, what is not, and what specific capabilities will create clarity and foster trust in students.
• Ask the questions that matter. A student-centered approach begins by acknowledging the challenges they are facing. This involves reading between the lines, applying judgment, understanding the context, and seeing patterns.

How Do I Get There: Three Practical Habits to Address the Future of Work
NCDA’s AI Taskforce provides substantial ethical and conceptual foundation on the NCDA website,  including Maze’s (2025) recommendations for career service professionals on understanding the future of work. The practices below are intended to strengthen the base and build practitioner readiness.

1. Use AI as a weekly update tool. Spend 15 minutes per week prompting AI with specific questions regarding career changes. For example, “What skills are employers looking for in entry-level roles right now?” or “What roles are emerging that did not exist before?” Check those responses with Lightcast, LinkedIn’s Labor Market Insights, or Occupational Outlook Handbook. Prompt an AI to share the sources and cross-check them manually.
2. Build out a living mind map for your most-advised populations. Identify five to eight majors or fields you advise the most and consider gathering one updated resource for each. Professional associations, an industry report, or a labor market platform can serve well. Review them every two to three months to stay updated and include those changes in the mind map. It is nearly impossible to know it all, but this research will inform you on the development of a landscape that in turn will better prepare you to guide students.  
3. Unpack students’ anxieties or wariness around AI. When students express worry or hesitation about AI use or its effect on the job market, address it. Aforementioned habits can help inform a substantive response on what is currently changing, what capabilities (which are behavioral and uniquely human skills) will become more valuable, and how a student’s current profile can be strengthened. It is also important to ask open-ended questions when addressing wariness, such as “What about AI usage scares you?” or “How do you think AI can help you in your future work or current job search?” It is important to respect students’ stance and make sure that the students are aware of the job market changes and AI’s inevitable impact on it.

In summary, it is crucial that career services professionals stay up-to-date on the changing job market trends regarding AI and its impact on the job market, as well as gather resources and tools to refer to when students have questions. It is crucial to add in AI literacy to the competencies that career services professional should develop. It is also important to unpack students’ feelings around AI. Staying informed and knowledgeable can make the career services professional confident and prepared to address the future of work.

References

Gatta, M. (2025, November). Quick poll: Use of AI by career centers to help students is growing. National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/career-development/trends-and-predictions/nace-quick-poll-use-of-ai-by-career-centers-to-help-students-is-growing 

Handshake. (2025). State of the graduate: Class of 2025. https://joinhandshake.com/network-trends/class-of-2025-graduation/ 

Lightcast. (2026). Fault lines: Geopolitics, artificial intelligence, and labor shortages. Lightcast. https://lightcast.io/resources/research/fault-lines 

LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute. (2026, January). Building a future of work that works. https://economicgraph.linkedin.com 

Maze, M. (2025, February). How will AI impact the workplace? What career practitioners need to know. National Career Development Association AI Taskforce. https://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/924307?ver=0 

Robert, J. (2026, January). The impact of AI on work in higher education. EDUCAUSE https://educause.edu/research/2026/the-impact-of-ai-on-work-in-higher-education 

Madina Akhmetova, MS, is Assistant Director for Career Services at the University of the Pacific. She is originally from Kazakhstan and is a former international student. She has presented at NCDA, ACPA, APCDA, and the Interstride Symposium. Madina created Lumos Career to provide an AI-powered strategy for the next generation of professionals. Contact: madinaerd@gmail.com