The Importance of Soft Skills for University Students in the 21st Century

Abstract

The world of employment has changed enormously together with the rise of globalization causing employability to become one of the main goals for education systems. Today's employers require employees to have soft skills in addition to technical skills. Therefore, this study was conducted to gain clear perceptions of four populations including students, teachers, employees and employers of the importance of soft skills at work. The results revealed that most of the participants emphasized the necessity of good soft skills. According to the employers, it is advisable to possess advanced soft skills in order to work effectively and productively. However, some of them expressed their disappointment to the employees who owned great technical skills but lacking of basic soft skills to adapt to a new working environment and company culture as well as to solve the problems arising at work. This issue is supposed to be closely correlated with the lack of soft skills training at university. Consequently, an obvious implication to universities in general and public universities in particular was grasped. It is important for higher education institutions to be aware of the need for soft skills for today's workplace so that they can provide essential soft skills training courses for their students.