Career anchors and value orientations as tools for evaluating soft skills of technical university students in the context of digital socialization

Abstract

The world system has recently been transformed into a completely new socio-cultural phenomenon called the VUCA world. The abbreviation VUCA can be deciphered as follows: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. To survive in the VUCA world, a person needs such personal qualities as speed, dynamism, the ability to constantly change, the ability to adapt, the desire to constantly acquire new knowledge. It remains to be understood how it is possible to determine whether a particular representative of the younger generation has the same soft skills that can help him to survive in the VUCA world in conditions of digital socialization, and how exactly these soft skills are related to the self-determination of this person regarding his future profession. Using ANOVA, it was found that soft skills - “training and education”, “creativity”, “active social contacts” and “self-development” - are able to positively influence the career preferences of technical university students, significantly facilitating their career self-determination in the VUCA world in conditions of digital socialization. We recommend that university teachers develop value motivation areas for students that correspond to the soft skills mentioned above, as vital for the successful existence of young people in the VUCA world in conditions of digital socialization.