Employability Skills for Workforce Relevance

Abstract

For higher education (HE) institutions, preparing students to be job-ready upon graduation in the 21st century is no easy feat, but critical for future growth in business. Technology, globalization, and the knowledge economy have increased employer demands for new skills and investment in human capital. Yet employers still argue that graduates remain unprepared to succeed in the workforce. The global economic shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic also heighten the need to continue exploring and identifying employable skills. Narrowing the gap between the skills employers seek and the skills applicants possess remains a challenge for businesses, higher education, students and government. Against this background, this dissertation – through two interconnected studies – aims to identify the skills that higher education institutions should prioritize to cultivate employability.Study One is a qualitative, systematic literature analysis of 191 scholarly articles which were collected to identify, catalog, and synthesize essential employability skills. The study yielded eight critical employable skills with sub-themes associated with each recognized skill. The resulting integrated skills framework brings together the perspectives of different stakeholders and gauges which perspectives are more present in the literature. The research found some alignment among critical stakeholders regarding employable skills. However, the employer's voice is under-represented in the literature compared to the student perspective. Study Two further examines the employer perspective to identify what skills employers are looking for from applicants. A novel methodology is applied to determine the association between the employable skills identified in Study One and the skills employers have sought out in job postings. NVivo software was used to conduct an exploratory flexible pattern matching analysis. A representative sample of 198 job postings from Indeed.com was analyzed by comparing the employable skills that emerged from the analytical framework created in Study One (theoretical patterns) to the skill requirements identified in the job postings (observed patterns). Although exploratory, the results from pattern matching indicate a contrast between what past research has identified as employable skills and the skills employers mention in job postings. Although these results are not generalizable due to the study's exploratory nature, they provide theoretical patterns to be explored by future research. The comprehensive literature review and the analysis of the skills gap from an employer’s perspective provide multiple actionable insights for academic researchers, employers, policymakers and institutions of higher education.