Frank Buckless, Dean, NC State University Poole College of Management

In an interview with Invest:, Frank Buckless, dean of NC State University Poole College of Management, discussed how artificial intelligence, changing employer expectations, and deeper industry collaboration are reshaping business education and workforce development in Raleigh-Durham. “Knowledge is no longer your differentiator,” Buckless said.

How would you describe the past year for Poole College, and what has it revealed about where business education is heading?

We’ve been in a strong position since I’ve been dean. Demand for our programs continues to grow, and our students are doing well in the marketplace.

It’s a dynamic market right now. We are doing well, but we still need to have our eye focused on what the future is going to be and adapt accordingly. We continue to leverage being an agile business school.

There are two major areas of focus for us. One is career-ready graduates, and not just for your first job, but for your life. We want all of our graduates to have a lifelong, successful career.

The second is that we’re a major research institution. We want our research to reach beyond academia so we can better the world. We want to figure out ways to share our research effectively so we can have a meaningful impact on organizations around the globe.

What changes in the job market are reshaping the skills employers expect from business graduates?

Knowledge is no longer your differentiator. AI is taking control there. You still need depth of knowledge, but you also really need durable skills. You need to be a critical thinker, a problem solver, a communicator, and a collaborator. You also need to be agile and resilient.

Those are the skills that really sustain you. Business schools can no longer just focus on the delivery of knowledge. We have to incorporate the delivery of knowledge with the development of skills. That’s the biggest shift in the market and a big focus of our college.

When you graduate, you’ll have good opportunities for your first job, but you will also be successful for life.

What level of AI fluency are employers now expecting from business graduates?

They want graduates to know how to use the tools, but more importantly, they want graduates to be critical thinkers with the output of those tools.

How are they able to test, validate, and challenge the output? Employers want graduates to use AI, absolutely, and they want them to be faster. But they also want them to challenge the output to make sure that it is giving them the best direction.

What are employers telling you about hiring conditions and changing talent needs?

It’s still strong. The needs are shifting. If you think about when you first went into a job, the level of your tasks didn’t require as much critical thinking, and you didn’t need to be as agile.

That’s not the way it is today. Those entry-level jobs based on basic or repetitive skills are disappearing. You really need your students to go in not as a first-year employee, but as a third-year employee, where they have experience. That’s what we are trying to do through internships and practicums, where our students work on actual projects with companies.

They develop the skill sets that elevate them beyond entry-level. They can also provide leadership and influence in addition to basic skills.

How can universities and businesses collaborate more effectively to prepare students for the workforce?

We created industry advisory boards for all our disciplines. We’ve focused on embedding more and listening to leaders. We have advisory boards for marketing, finance, supply chain operations, accounting, economics, people management, and our other areas.

We also use practicums. One of the best ways we see how our students are doing is through practicums. Unlike with internships, we get to observe how our students are performing in practicums, and we get quicker feedback from the organizations they’re working with. That tells us what we’re doing well and what we’re not doing well.

Our faculty composition is about 60% research faculty and 40% professional faculty. We bring in people who have been industry leaders and have great applied knowledge of their fields. That mix has elevated the experience of our students, but it’s also elevating the impact of our research.

We’ve also created initiatives in areas including enterprise risk management, supply chain, business analytics, business sustainability, and international economics. We’re trying to engage with leaders in those spaces so we can understand the problems and opportunities, have more impactful research, and create better educational programs.

What workforce challenges could constrain the region’s growth, and where can Poole College make the greatest difference?

The challenge is having people with the right skill sets. If I talk to employers, the fundamental things they want haven’t changed.

They want people with curiosity. That’s probably more important today than it was in the past because of the pace of change. You’ve got to keep adapting. They also want people with great attitudes who are good communicators and good collaborators.

What people are going to be doing is changing, so they have to be more agile, more resilient, more curious, and faster.

We’re in a tech-focused region, and biotech is big in our space. We’re trying to make sure our business students have good science backgrounds, including biology, so they can be better leaders in that space.

You still need depth in your field, but you also need to be able to work across disciplines. That’s the type of student we produce at NC State. Because we’re a science and technology university, it gives us an advantage.

Where are you seeing the greatest opportunities to invest in the college’s future?

We’re seeing a lot of interest in the AI space. That’s part of the reason we came out with the Business AI Graduate Certificate. I knew the demand would be strong, but it has surpassed our expectations.

We’re a business school, so we want to teach how you use AI strategically and how you need to think about it strategically. We give students exposure, and we also want them to think about the ethics and the opportunities around it.

We’re also rethinking our curriculum so students can go deeper in their area of study earlier. Traditionally, students have spent their first couple of years focused on general education before really diving into their major. We believe students should get that exposure earlier so they can get better experiences and apply that knowledge in real-world contexts.

Industry has talked to me about the diamond shape. It used to be more of a pyramid shape, with lots of entry-level positions and then fewer positions as you moved up the hierarchy. Now, it’s more of a diamond shape, with few at the entry level, more in the middle level, and then fewer again at the top.

How do we prepare our students to be in that middle level right off the bat? That’s what employers tell me they need.

What will determine whether Raleigh-Durham continues to attract and retain the business talent it needs?

If you look at Raleigh-Durham, it’s a dynamic area. It’s booming. There are three fundamental things for an area to be successful.

One is talent availability, and that has been a big driver. Poole College graduates about 1,650 students a year now, and about 80% stay in North Carolina. It’s attractive to employers to have talent that’s strong.

We have earnings data for our business administration graduates through the U.S. Census Bureau’s Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes. In year one, our students’ starting median salary is 12% higher than the median for UNC System business schools. By year 10, our students’ median salary is 21% higher.

It’s not just our students in Poole College. NC State University overall has strong disciplines in high demand. We are leaders in the sciences, engineering, and agriculture. NC State is providing that talent for the state, and I would argue we’re probably the No. 1 driver for why this area is successful. When I talk to employers, they say the biggest reason they came here was to access the high-quality talent they needed to grow their businesses.

Financial investment is another factor, and then there are resources. Do you have access to power? If you can make sure you’re competitive in those three spaces, you’re going to be pretty dynamic and pretty powerful.