Greg Hart, President and CEO of Coursera
Coursera
As entry-level jobs decline as employers continue to deploy AI, Coursera’s CEO shared his top tips for graduates to stay competitive in the job market and stand out in interviews.
Greg Hart, former technical advisor to Jeff Bezos at Amazon, became president and CEO of online learning platform Coursera in February 2025. He told CNBC Make It that in the age of AI, it is important for young people to pursue additional education alongside a degree.
“The advice I give to my sons… is one of the best things you can do is supplement your college degree with micro-credentials specifically,” he said in the interview.
Micro-credentials are short courses that provide certification for a specific skill or knowledge and take less time to complete than a traditional degree. It has become increasingly important to supplement degrees with additional certifications because graduates’ jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI, Hart said.
Major companies have laid off staff this year and cited AI as one reason, from Amazon laying off 14,000 workers betting on AI to Salesforce cutting 4,000 customer support positions claiming AI can do 40% of the company’s tasks.
“Let’s say you’re currently a young college student, you’ll typically be hired for your first job based primarily on the characteristics they see in you.”
Greg Hart
President and CEO of Coursera
Meanwhile, 62% of UK employers expect junior, clerical, management and administration roles to will be most likely to be lost to AIaccording to a recent survey of 2,019 senior HR professionals and decision-makers conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Additionally, the UK’s Institute for Student Employers found in its annual student recruitment survey that 1.2 million applications were submitted for just 17,000 graduate positions, highlighting the intense competition and limited positions available to young people.
“They [micro credentials] demonstrate to employers that not only have you earned the college degree you’re studying, but you’ve supplemented it with something that’s typically much more workforce-focused,” added Coursera’s Hart.
As AI dominates, many workers are seeking upskilling opportunities with LinkedIn. Rising Skills Reportfound earlier this year that AI proficiency was the most popular skill people were adding to their profiles.
“Hire you for your qualities”
Hart explained that new graduates going for job interviews should highlight their personality and traits as well as their experience.
“Let’s say you’re currently a young college student, you’ll typically be hired for your first job based primarily on the qualities they see in you,” Hart said.
“They’re going to evaluate your mindset and your characteristics as a human being more than your experience, because by definition you really don’t have a lot of experience and so they’re not really hiring you for your experience, they’re hiring you for your…personality traits.”
Hart emphasized that “one of the most important characteristics” that employers want to hire for is “proactive, hard-working, initiative-taking people who are willing to learn.”
The best way to show these traits is to have micro-credentials alongside your degree, especially ones that are tailored to your field. For example, Hart encouraged his son, who is studying finance, to take an additional course on AI for finance.
In fact, experts previously told CNBC Make It that workers who have been laid off because of AI should train themselves in new skills, including increasing their AI knowledge through short courses, rather than pursuing a new degree, which would be more expensive and time-consuming.
Having the drive to pursue additional education demonstrates that you will also bring these qualities to work, they told CNBC.
