Giving Compass' Take:

• Two new parallel surveys of business executives and hiring managers found that new college graduates lack the skills needed to advance in today's workforce. How can we better prepare them?

• Association of American Colleges and Universities president Lynn Pasquerella discusses the importance of having career services faculty on campuses and making sure that equity is embedded in all initiatives.

• How can funders help? Here's a comprehensive workforce development guide.

Recent grads are prepared for the entry-level jobs they take up after college, but they're less able to advance up the ladder from there.

That's according to a report released recently from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) based on two parallel online surveys of roughly 500 business executives and 500 hiring managers and others involved with hiring at private sector and nonprofit organizations.

Both groups rated skills such as oral communication, critical thinking, effective teamwork, self-motivation and written communication as important. But they found new graduates lagging in critical areas.

For example, fewer than half of executives (40%) and hiring managers (47%) perceive colleges graduates to have strong ("well prepared") oral communication skills. And just one-third of executives (33%) and a slightly larger share of hiring managers (39%) said recent graduates are "very well prepared" to apply knowledge and skills gained in college to real-world settings.

Read the full article about connecting curriculum to careers by Hallie Busta at Education Dive.