Practical skills: The biggest barrier for students when entering the market

40.44% hope to have jobs with the school

The Hanoi Employment Service Center has just issued a November " Job picture for students in Hanoi". The newsletter is built based on survey data from more than 3,000 students in the third quarter of 2025.

Regarding advantages: 56.95% of students believe that practical experience is the most important factor for employers; 67.16% of students value skills, 75.06% value soft skills; 84% of students realize the importance of the Labor Law; 79.79% of students value work attitude.

Students also think more realistically when 65% no longer have too much confidence in the "grade" of top schools, new capacity is important; 79.2% have an expectation of starting salary of less than 15 million VND/month - quite close to the actual situation.

Regarding the limitations, up to 54.89% of students have never participated in an official internship; 71.47% self-assess their skills in using specialized tools/sources at an average level or less; 70% have never participated in scientific research, science and technology competitions or startup projects. Therefore, students lack a real learning environment. The gap between theory and practice is too large, causing difficulties when starting work.

Up to 92.57% of students have difficulty writing a CV expressing their ability; 51.09% do not know or know very little about interviews on behaviors - techniques that employers often use to assess actual capacity; 91.02% of students do not use or use the internet less to find a job on Linkedln; 40.44% hope to have a job connection from their school, depend on the school; 63.11% are not confident in office IT skills, email skills, slide presentation, working on Google Drive...

There are changes but the "bottleneck" has not been cleared

According to Mr. Vu Quang Thanh - Deputy Director of Hanoi Employment Service Center, the figures from the Newsletter " Job picture for students in Hanoi" show a remarkable change in students' professional thinking. The fact that more than 56% of students identify practical experience as the most important factor, along with a high rate of appreciation for soft skills, working attitude and understanding labor law shows that learners no longer look at the labor market with the ideal lens.

In particular, the fact that 65% of students no longer have too much confidence in the "grade" of top schools, instead promoting personal capacity, is considered by experts to be a positive signal. This reflects the change in the career approach of the current generation of students, when they clearly realize that businesses that recruit people can work, not just hire for degrees.

In addition, the expected starting salary of nearly 80% of students is expected to be under 15 million VND/month, which is quite close to the reality of the labor market in Hanoi, showing that students have a more alert look, avoiding falling into a state of "disillusionment" when stepping out of the classroom.

However, Mr. Thanh also pointed out that the biggest gap today is not in awareness but in practical capacity. The fact that more than half of students have never participated in an official internship, nearly 72% self-assess their skills in using specialized tools and software at an average level or lower shows that core professional skills are still a "bottleneck".

More worryingly, the very high rate of students who have never participated in scientific research, startup projects or professional competitions reflects the lack of a real-life collaboration environment. The gap between theory and practice is therefore widening, causing difficulties for students right from the first days of work.

From the recruitment perspective, Mr. Phung Quang Binh - Human Resources Director of Tan Binh Minh Group (Cua Nam Ward, Hanoi) commented that the fact that more than 90% of students have difficulty writing CVs to demonstrate their abilities and more than half do not clearly understand interviews and behavior shows that students are not fully equipped with the skills to "entering the labor market". These are not academic skills, but they directly determine the ability to be recruited.

More than 90% of students do not use or use LinkedIn less, and the mentality of waiting for schools to connect jobs reflects the lack of initiative in building professional personal brands. In the context of an increasingly competitive labor market, too much dependence on schools can cause students to miss many suitable job opportunities, Mr. Binh assessed.

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