The fourth industrial revolution and the recent pandemic have changed the status-quo of the job market in an unusual way. The nature of work, the required skill set for the future workforce, now has an entirely new definition and perception. According to a report by World Economic Forum (WEF), 50% of subject knowledge gained during the first year of a technical degree program gets outdated by the time students graduate. This hints that the skillset owned by the new management students and hence the future professionals will be substantially different from the past students, thereby implying that the skillset will keep on changing at a brisk pace in the future.

Missing out on the right skillset can dilute the employability pathway for the students. The skills add to a crucial personal advantage, strengthen an individual’s morale that eventually plays a key role in transitioning job applicants to value creators. These skills are dependent on the context of the market they are applied in. And as the criterion of the job market is changing rapidly, so is the required skillset. When it comes to organizations, if the employees are under-equipped, it can affect the overall performance of the organization.

Teachers, academicians, research scholars, and business administrators have been outspoken about the skill gaps in the management aspirants and the industry. Hence, narrowing this growing skill gap calls for provisioning management aspirants with the pre-requisite employability skills desired by the organizations in the post covid era. There are multiple reasons for attuning future aspirants with these skills.

One of the main reasons is the fast pace of new-age technology entering across all business domains. This has rattled the jobs landscape and ultimately diluted the importance of the current skillset. Additionally, the upsetting disciplinary borders expect management aspirants to be flexible learners as it requires an intricate and blended set of skills like critical thinking, creative thinking, decision making, problem-solving, emotional intellect, and rational thinking. The recent pandemic has further augmented the need for reskilling future managers. The immediate shift to work remotely has compelled the organizations to follow new business methods, modern ways of working, and the task of matching employees’ skills to the new and amended roles, and liabilities in the post-covid era. It is believed that this integrated model of working (online and offline) will stay for a longer duration. Hence, reskilling of future managers with the new skillset is all the way more crucial by higher education institutes, there are several colleges in India and top mba colleges in madhya pradesh that provides the level of education that matches the industry and prepares to make the smooth transition between different modes of working.

Remote working has altered the way new hires are appointed, groomed, and supervised. At the same time, it has changed the dynamics for head-hunters, offered multiple opportunities for economic and individual growth.

To recognize these opportunities and make the aspirants job-ready obligates the higher education institutes to take an enterprising approach and shift focus from an old-school modus operandi where knowledge transfer is the basis of a curriculum to a practical approach that lays emphasis on the overall development of the learner. In short, higher education institutes must work towards creating a modern competencies-based syllabus that helps to vest management aspirants with creative and critical thinking and digital skills to flourish in the ever-growing digital economy.

Institutes also need to develop a learning and interdisciplinary attitude amongst students to help them progress with time and continue to be relevant in the future. Inculcating the new skillset will reduce the gap between the stakeholder expectations and management aspirant's skillset that will help make the students industry ready in the post covid times.