The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) developed the Career Readiness Competency Assessment to measure students’ development across eight core competencies that prepare them for successful entry into the workplace. NACE helps students identify their strengths and growth areas while providing educators, internship supervisors, and employers with a validated framework for guiding, evaluating, and supporting career‑readiness skill development. Overall, 437 assessments (baseline and post) were collected and analyzed from two courses focused on agricultural and natural resources communication. Students showed meaningful improvement, with the composite score increasing from 3.09 at Baseline to 3.40 at Post on the 4‑point scale, indicating a moderate effect size and suggesting that the [department] curriculum contributes substantially to student development across multiple skill domains. The most significant gains appeared in competencies tied to communication, leadership, and self‑development. Students reported the largest improvement in Awareness of Strengths and Challenges, which rose by +0.53, suggesting increasing self‑insight and reflection as the semester progressed. Leadership‑related skills also improved: Facilitating Group Dynamics increased by +0.48, and Inspiring, Persuading, & Motivating Others increased by +0.47. These gains point to growing confidence and capability in collaborative and team‑oriented environments. Communication skills strengthened as well, with Oral Communication rising by +0.43, a shift that aligns with the courses’ emphasis on presentations and public‑facing communication. Networking improved by +0.41, indicating that students may be developing greater comfort initiating professional connections, even though this area remained one of the lower‑rated competencies at Post. Although all competencies showed positive gains, Professionalism and Teamwork demonstrated smaller increases. These competencies also had higher Baseline scores, indicating students already felt confident in their dependability, integrity, and ability to work with others. Taken together, the Baseline‑to‑Post comparison reinforces that [the] curriculum effectively strengthens students’ communication, leadership, and self‑awareness—domains essential for workplace readiness.