The higher education landscape is evolving and I align it with the goals of the business, government, and education (Ingleby, 2015). The literature on graduate attributes suggests that HEIs have to produce employable graduates to cope with the emerging knowledge economy
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(Whalley et al., 2011). Researchers have found that there are critical elements of learning which all graduates must gain as hard and soft skills to be employable (Kagen, 2017).
5.3.1 Hard and Soft Skills of Graduates
One of the critical issues to emerge from the study is related to how graduates link hard content and business knowledge and skills to soft skills at a higher level. Hard skills are specific, teachable abilities that an individual need to do a particular job, such as the ability to use software programmes (Andrews & Higson, 2008). Soft skills are self-taught and self-developed; they are less tangible and harder to quantify, such as communicating with others, listening, and leadership. Some necessary soft skills employers are looking for, include strong work ethics, professionalism, a positive attitude, time management and willingness to learn and accept responsibility (Elias & Purcell, 2004). My findings point out that the employers’ views about the hard and soft skills required by graduates resonate with that of the literature. In particular, most employers have chosen and preferred eight soft skills as earlier reported by Scaffidi (2018).
Finance Employer1:
“We develop and train them for the eight employability skills: communication, teamwork, problem-solving, self-management, planning and organizing, IT techniques, lifelong learning, and initiative and enterprise skills.”
Also, employers acknowledged that graduates need hard skills for employability as evidenced by the statement of Hotel Employer 6 given below:
“During the interview, our HR Manager makes sure that all future interns own the required hard skills such as a degree or certificate, basic computer skills, data analysis skills, mathematical and numeracy skills, knowing foreign languages, engineering knowledge, and planning skills. The generic qualifications in their field of study are important.”
I consider the hard and soft skills, as suggested by the employers, the proper employability skills.
These are not different from those that the academics responsible for internship programmes articulate.
Indeed, according to Hotel Academic 5,
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“Students aspire to work more in teams, and also, they developed many employability skills. They also learn other technical skills (hard skills) in their internship. Work placement reinforces the employability of students.”
The data also reveal that graduates do concur that they require both hard and soft skills to secure a job. They acknowledge that they learned hard skills at university and soft skills in the work environment and that both hard and soft skills are complementary (in harmony).
Finance Graduate 2:
“So, employability skills gained during the internship and the hard skills in our field of study that enable us, graduates, to have better job opportunities. We could take employment in various organisations.”
Taking from the above evidence, there is agreement amongst all stakeholders regarding the hard and soft skills that graduates need for employability. This agreement further suggests that these hard and soft skills are part of the tacit knowledge for employability. Although it was challenging for the participants to articulate in exact terms; they understand the importance of hard and soft skills. The general awareness of the need for such skills does not mean that they have to be the same across the industry. Instead, there are site-specific techniques that need nuances of hard and soft skills. The nuanced hard and soft skills, therefore, need site-based learning (pointing to internship) rather than course-based learning.
Graduates knew that employers were seeking these eight job-specific skills (employability skills) among others when recruiting employees. These skills had various other names, including key skills, core skills, life skills, essential skills, basic skills, and transferable skills. Still, employers favour the term employability skills. Transferable skills are a unique subset of a more comprehensive set of generic skills. These are the talents and abilities that can go with the graduates when they change to a fresh job or career. Transferable skills include basic skills such as clerical, research and planning, computer and technical skills. This may also include some skills particular to specific occupations.
5.3.2 The Academics’ Viewpoints on Graduates’ Attributes
Graduates’ attributes are the concern of academics because of the graduate’s role in feeding into the labour market in the emerging knowledge economy (Cribb & Gewirtz, 2013). One of the key
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objectives of academics is how to enhance generic capabilities and the disciplinary ability of undergraduate students as evidenced by these statements from the following participants:
Finance Academic 1:
“Graduates' attributes for us are that our graduates should have the knowledge, skills, and values to enable them to cope with dynamic employment opportunities. However, they must also understand, through the benefits and constraints of their disciplinary perspectives, who they are and how they might contribute to the quality of being diverse and not comparable to that which they will meet in their local, regional and global communities.”
Hotel Academic 5:
“We view graduates’ attributes as skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values that distinguished from the disciplinary ability associated more with higher education, but which contribute to the profession.”
ICT Academic 4:
“This hierarchy develops from graduate attributes as specific knowledge, skills, and values, through graduate profiles. Profiles that refer to the summation of attributes at either programme or institutional level. Thus, culminate in the term “graduate outcome,” used to encompass both graduate attributes and graduate profiles.”
An encouraging observation from the above excerpts was that every academic acknowledged being satisfied with their current roles in the academic education of graduate students.
Participants seemed contented with their positions and tried to inculcate knowledge, skills, attitudes, and other technical skills into the interns to transform the graduates’ key characteristics.
Academics are thus seen to be responsible for the students’ training process, and from an academic perspective, they have understood the employers’ needs vis-à-vis the employability of fresh graduates. Academics believed that students went through a complex transformation from school life to the work environment. Graduates had to adapt their behaviour to conform to different work when they took their places in the labour market.
5.3.3 The Employers’ Perspectives on Graduates’ Attributes.
When I asked employers, who had access to the “Job Outlook 2018 Survey” which attributes they most valued in graduates, they unanimously agreed, amongst others, that problem-solving skills, communication and the capability to work in a team were of utmost importance. They
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considered these attributes of equal importance (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2019). The statements given below by the participants show that teamwork and problem-solving skills among graduates are considered very important by the employers:
Finance Employer 1:
“Graduates’ attributes are the qualities that graduates own when they claim for a job. When considering people for roles, employers look for certain key qualities and skills. These include commitment, self-improvement, leadership, problem-solving, teamwork, articulation, trustworthiness, autonomy, politeness and confidence. We look for candidates with a solid foundation of soft skills and trust so we can build the rest upon it.”
Hotel Employer 6:
“Graduate attributes we seek as an employer include problem-solving skills, ability to work in a team, communication skills (written), leadership, a strong work ethic, analytical/quantitative skills, communication skills (verbal), flexibility and adaptability, interpersonal skills, computer skills, planning skills.”
ICT Employer 3:
“For us, problem-solving skills are the most desired attributes and are of equal importance.
Employers also value attributes such as teamwork abilities, written communication skills, leadership and a strong work ethic that they want to see as evidence of one resume. The only other attribute that held its ground with the addition of the new attributes is leadership. It continues to follow the student’s major in terms of influence. I find general work experience and no work experience to be more of a deciding factor than a candidate’s high GPA (3.0 or above), involvement in extracurricular activities, school attended, and volunteer work.”
The data showed that there is agreement amongst employers on attributes they are seeking in graduates which they employ. It is clear from the data that academic skills are not the primary concern of employers; who seem to value soft skills as a critical attribute. Also, there are specific attributes such as communication skills, problem-solving skills and team working which cut across all fields of study. The employers also agreed that owning attributes is one thing, and adaptation to the world of work is another.
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5.3.4 Graduates’ Perspectives on Employability Attributes
Daniels and Brooker (2014) find that there is a need to engage students with the development of their own student identities, graduate attributes, and professional identities so that they act as an agent in the process rather than having their identities constructed for them through integrated systems and implementation. Students develop graduate attributes because these apply to the sense of self, and they know of the skills they have gained during their studies. They can articulate such to employers (Hill, Wallington & France, 2016). Our data suggest that the participant graduates know of the need for developing the graduates’ attributes as part of their studies and during work placement as evidenced by the following statements.
Hotel Graduate 6:
“We can define graduate attributes as qualities, attitudes, and dispositions that graduates should own when they have completed their course of study. Graduates attributes, according to my experience, are the many skills I learned, some at the university, and most of them on the job placement. For example, communication skills, technology skill, negotiation skills, interpersonal skills, initiative skills, enterprise, planning and organising, and teamwork.”
ICT Graduate 4:
“Graduates’ attributes include many skills that a graduate must have on their resume to enter the world of work. I believe the most important ones are communication skills, problem-solving, and teamwork. Employers need these essentials when recruiting employees. Other skills include presentation skills, leadership, adaptability, analytical skills. Also, graduates must have working experiences and have undergone at least an internship. I took part in an internship programme.”
Finance Graduate 2:
“So, employability is the skills gained that empower us, graduates, to have greater job events.
So, having employability skills will help us get a job. It will make us employable and enjoy having the right attitude, and the mentality for work. We will work in a team, communicate adaptability to change, learning, willing to take the risk, and work experience for a job in our field of study.”
The inputs from the excerpts of interviews show that the graduates have a sense of the attributes that employers seek and which they should gain to become employable. Common amongst these attributes are personal attributes, for example, excellent communication skills. Some are related to collaborative attributes: enjoy working within a team and while others relate to environmental
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adaptation, for instance, self-management. Of great significance, these students acknowledged that they learn such graduate skills and attributes on the job. They are outside of the academic learning programme and are self-starters. This is in line with what Daniels and Brooker (2014) argue for – that students should be engaged in developing their own identities. Recognising the need for such soft skills as part of the graduate attributes, academic programmes should, therefore, consider incorporating such learning, integrating the development of such skills into their existing programmes.
5.3.5 Resonance between Graduates’ Attributes and Job-Related Skills
The joint graduate attributes (knowledge, skills, competencies, and values) are essential pre- conditions for a graduate to have achieved employability (Griesel & Parker, 2009). Hence, these attributes must align with the job-related skills that employers are seeking. The data highlight the importance of having someone supervise the graduates during the internship to ensure that they develop the appropriate job-related skills and attributes as evidenced by the following statement from ICT Academic 3.
“Well, within the university, we define an internship as allowing our students to integrate competencies and to engage in what they have learned from academics at the university. An internship programme is in our curriculum. Professionals supervised students. They learn about workplace culture. We have always prioritised graduate to join internship programmes and to work with experts in a proper workshop setting.”
Of significance in this excerpt of an academic’s answer are three things. The first relates to mentoring opportunity by supervisors to integrate competencies into the world of work. The second is that internship is a part of the curriculum design that allows for curriculum space to develop such integration of knowledge and skills into the world of work. Third, I have recognised workplace culture as a crucial component of internship learning. Griesel and Parker (2009) acknowledge supervisors as being a pre-condition for graduates to access the work environment.
We may thus consider an internship as a capstone programme activity that integrates all forms of learning within an authentic work environment.