Key Employability Skills

Abstract

There are suggestions that employers are usually dissatisfied with the lower levels of skills graduates have before starting employment. There also appears to be a debate among different stakeholders about how teaching and learning institutions prepare graduates. The aim of this paper is to identify what employers perceive employability to mean and what are appropriate work skills that correspond with it. Empirical analysis done by famous researchers was analyzed and the results indicate that while employability skills could be identified, there was no clear what universities need to provide in order for graduates to gain important employment.The findings suggest that while the stakeholders are concerned that graduates starting employment may lack certain employment skills, they still base their hiring decisions to take on graduates upon an historical perspectives of employment skills developed overtime, without taking into account the future requirements of ‘employment’, the possible challenges of an increasingly competitive economy and other possible labor changes which could be considerable and as yet, very much unknown. This study tries to make a contribution to research on employability by recognizing the gaps that may exist between employers and graduates and any incongruence in understanding of what ‘employability’ means and which employability skills might take significance.