WHAT KIND OF SKILLS DO EMPLOYERS REQUEST NOWADAYS TO GRADUATES ALL AROUND THE WORLD?

If we make a quick search on the Internet and look for the meaning of the word “employability skills” we will find how it might be quite varied. Under this category we may find from ICT and engineering skills to soft and transversal skills.

With the word “employability skills” we would like to refer, in this article, to the so called soft skills or transversal skills, so to those skills related to the human attitude towards relationship, communication, collaboration, problem solving..”

Nowadays however also the so called ICT skills (i.e. programming, coding, data analysis etc.) are comprised in the definition of employability skills since these are competencies strongly and often requested by employers due to the high demand in the market of professionals able to develop technologies.

We have currently identified 7 key employability skills as the result of a documentary analysis done on reports, articles and papers published both at national and international level. However the 7 skills we have identified are also the results of a more detailed exploration of recurrent needs that both employers and institutions, especially Higher Education Institutions, frequently expressed when talking with them. These 7 skills are: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem solving, leadership, interculturalism and learning.

If we explore deeply the request of skills made by employers in Italy today, they are actually looking for the skills listed above among our graduates with the addition of: resiliency, organizational skills, openness to the new, and relational skills (D’Amato, Mazzara, Tosca, 2018).

However among all the skills listed above, those owning a special power are usually the leadership and the emotional intelligence ones. The latter, called also empathy, is considered as the capacity to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to understand them.

In addition, we consider the leadership skill as one of the key here not only because it is required to any worker to be a “small leader” in his/her own workplace context whatever professional role this may involve, but also because this skill is well connected with few others such as: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and problem solving for example.

A good leader today should be able to manage the team in such a way that every talent is valued and that members of this team can contribute to the success of the organization and so can have a “say” in the decision making process. In the same way, other than being a good communicator, a leader should be also a good negotiator; this will help him/her to achieve the institutional objectives without imposing them to the team members but while negotiating with them the way forward.

Another aspect of the leader is to be able to make the motivation at the basis of the team members’ action. In addition, a leader is the one who owns an attitude to solve organizational problems rather than creating new ones and in this process the leader needs strong critical thinking skills through which making the right choice, possibly an informed one, for everyone.

However going a bit deeper into the employability skills sector, what companies in Italy say about new graduates seeking for a job is that:

“One of the key reasons why at the end of a placement, the student is not offered a job, is mainly due to the behavioural difficulties that the student has showed during placement itself” (Tosca, 2018, in D’Amato et. al. 2018)

From the international PISA report published by OECD, Italian students are placed at 27 place on a list of 34 countries, in relation to their collaboration and problem solving skills. (OECD, 2018).

Italian companies report that students lack of presentation and self-presentation skills, they have too high workplace expectations, a low level of motivation, low degree of initiative and resiliency and a low degree of practical skills.

We have asked to a group of graduates if this was actually the case and several of them disagreed especially with the first twos above statements, since after several years of study in the university environment, they expect to have a dignitous compensation for a good job when entering the marketplace.

However if we move to consider the view of employers both in Europe and in US, the situation is not so different from the Italian one, especially because Managers reported that students overvalue themselves in terms of skills and competencies required by the marketplace and that they think to have mastered after 3 or 5 years of university studies.

“87% of students who access the marketplace state to be ready to fullfill their professional role requests, while only 50% of managers say that students are truly ready to accomplish their professional duties” (PayScale, 2016).

We are investigating the same topic in Europe through the Catch21 Erasmus + European funded project, and the situation is not so much different. In addition, the project that just started the 1st of September this year, identified two additional employability skills required to graduates by the marketplace in Europe today, namely: the capacity to create “national and international connections” and the ability “to use technology as a tool for learning”.

Hence, we argue that not only a big shift is actually needed in Higher Education both in Italy and all over the world in relation to how better prepare students for the workplace, but also a stronger partnership between institutions, employers and key players in the market is recommended. In this way the educational institutions are helped to achieve an old and strong request made by the market that cannot be postponed anymore.

Nowadays the increasing development of technology in any field and area, is creating a big epocal shift and change. If we do not want to find ourselves in the future in a world where the human reasoning is determined by machines, we have today a main big duty to start taking control over the technology we are creating and train youngsters in a way that they can fully play their “human power” over machines of the future.