ABSTRACT Higher education institutions are increasingly faced with the challenge of producing graduates ready to enter the world of work—a continuously evolving world that can be unceremoniously upended by global events such as Covid-19. Journalism educators share in this dilemma—especially given the upheaval faced by the media industry. Through an exploratory pilot study, this paper aims to provide insight into what knowledge and skills graduates themselves value once they have entered the world of work. Focus groups were conducted with 38 alumni from a South African postgraduate journalism programme to explore their understanding of the ways in which their studies prepared them to adapt to the workplace. The findings indicate alumni are grateful to have been exposed to a variety of practice-orientated applications in which they could later choose to specialise. More importantly, however, alumni were vocal about the fact that they were taught—sometimes implicitly—skills that transcend disciplinary boundaries and that have stood them in good stead in a variety of careers. These skills include being comfortable networking with peers and colleagues; the ability to meet deadlines; knowledge about how to build contacts; an understanding of the need for lifelong learning; the ability to tell a story with any information at hand; time management skills; and related generic life skills such as resilience. The findings of this pilot study seem to suggest journalism educators should be cognisant that they are training students for the workplace, not just for newswork or mediawork, and that soft skills should be prioritised.