Shifting career path: GenZ, millennials ditch degrees for on-the-job skills, shows Deloitte survey

Mint

21-05-2025

India's youngsters are increasingly prioritizing on-the-job learning and upskilling to grow their careers, as employment opportunities shrink, and college degrees steadily lose relevance due to their outdated curriculums.
According to the Deloitte Global 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, shared by the consulting firm exclusively with Mint, 94% of Gen Zs and 97% of millennials surveyed in India prefer picking up relevant skills while working, valuing skill-building and growth opportunities over designations and hierarchy.
'Given the fast-paced change in technology and the related skills, companies these days hire for attitude and aptitude, and focus on imparting the required skills to employees. Hence, the academic curriculums-based skills may not be the key. A candidate may be good at certain skills but there is a need for employers to invest in upskilling of employees," said Saraswathi Kasturirangan, partner, Deloitte India.
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There is a time lag between a skill becoming relevant and it being introduced in formal curriculum in universities. Thus, the skillsets of the students are often not in sync with what the industry requires. She said that companies can bridge this gap through on-demand, on-the-job learning, and training these young workers before deploying them on projects.
'The trend is that they hire adaptable candidates and train them for the job role, equipping them with adequate skills rather than relying on their pre-existing knowledge," she added.
Still, some experts believe that formal higher education can't be jettisoned yet.
'In field jobs, on-the-job experiences matter more than academic education, but otherwise you need educational qualification/certifications/professional accreditation. As the job market evolves, though it is difficult to skip the higher education infrastructure altogether, we can expect a shift towards specialized skill-based trainings and courses that enhance performance in these roles," said Upasana Agarwal, partner for professional and financial services at talent advisory firm ABC Consultants.
The survey included inputs from 809 Indian youth, of which 505 were Gen Zs and the rest millennials. It found that 11% Gen Zs and 9% millennials in India are actually skipping formal higher education altogether and directly joining the workforce, as they can't finance their education. When it comes to the global picture, 98% Gen Zs and 89% millennials say they prefer on-the-job training. Moreover, 31% of global Gen Zs and 32% of their millennial counterparts picked working over pursuing higher education to grow in their careers.
'The young workforce has a desire of learning with flexibility and on their own terms. This, coupled with financial constraints and the challenge that curriculum-based learning may not be job-relevant, are the reasons why some are skipping higher education for working directly," said Kasturirangan.
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The survey included inputs from 23,482 youngsters from across 44 countries between October and December 2024.
At the same time, 85% of this young workforce is upskilling on a weekly basis to advance their careers. 'The expectation today from the employees is to look at constantly upskilling themselves. This is an area of focus for the corporates without being prescriptive about it. They provide internal training programmes, finances and work flexibility to incorporate courses for employees. The growth of online and distance learning programs also adds to this trend," Kasturirangan said. Organizations specializing in providing training courses are also ensuring that their programs are relevant to the organization's needs, she said.
The survey's findings come at a time when not enough jobs are available, giving the candidates with better skillsets and practical experience an edge over those with college degrees limited to theoretical knowledge.
GenAI adoption
Another notable trend has been the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in their day-to-day work, with 85% respondents reporting it. In India, while 44% of millennials have already completed their training in GenAI, GenZs are catching up with 32% respondents completing the task.
'With the availability of GenAI training programs in corporates, millennials are more exposed to them than Gen Zs who are relatively new or yet to join the workplaces. With time, the gap between the two generations honing their GenAI skills will narrow," Kasturirangan highlighted.
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As per the report, some use cases of GenAI technology include building strategy, customer support, training, software development, project management, data analysis, content creation, and design and creativity.
As Mint reported earlier, the latest season of campus hirings in institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management showed that candidates who understand AI technologies and are adaptable to latest advancements in it were preferred, and the assessments were designed accordingly.
'Today, the most relevant skillsets from a tech perspective are cybersecurity, cloud, data science and analytics, IoT, DevOps, full-stack software development and GenAI. However, these are dynamic," Kasturirangan highlighted.
IoT, or the Internet of things, refers to devices embedded with software for exchange of data. DevOps refers to development operations, a software development approach to create a more collaborative and efficient workflow. Full-stack developers work on the user interface (front end) and the underlying server logic and databases (back end) of an application or website.