Vitality of Employability Skills for Business Graduates: A ... · attract qu ality talent to the ir w ork force. R ecruiting students directly from m anagement colleges is one of

Vitality of Employability Skills for Business

Graduates: A Study with Reference to

Chennai City 1K. Soundarapandiyan

1Sri Sai Ram Institute of Management Studies,

Sri Sairam Engineering College,

Chennai.

[email protected]

Abstract The dream of every business grads during the study days are to fetch a

lucrative employment or to start a world-class business without imbibing

the necessasity of developing the employable skills. For more than a

decade, reform in management education has been a major topic in regard

with employment opportunity. A majority of these documents identify the

perceptions of employees and the employers differ in terms of

employability skills required for placement at entry – mid level

opporunities. Literatures demonstrate the employers’ perspective and to

some extent there are various researches going on to identify the perception

of management graduates. A model proposed by World Bank (Andreas

Blom, 2011) on employability skills is used in classification of employablity

skills. Two sets of questionnaire were developed to assess the perception of

sill set required by employers and management graduates. The study is

carried out in selected business schools in Chennai city from around 320

students. Anova and discriminant analysis are used prove the significance

of the employability skills. The study reveals that there is significant

difference between the perception of students and their employer and this

disparity makes the students unemployable.

Key Words: Employability skills, management graduates, employers’

perception.

International Journal of Pure and Applied MathematicsVolume 119 No. 12 2018, 14901-14917ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)url: http://www.ijpam.euSpecial Issue ijpam.eu

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1. Introduction

In todays‟ competitive environment sophisticated jobs demand a highly

professional candidate who can increase productivity and thereby increase

the value of an organization (Busse, 1992). Shift from production oriented

management jobs to service oriented management jobs demands professionals

with both sound technical and behavioural skills to attain and retain the job

(Hillage J, 1999). Organizations are using different modes of recruitment to

attract quality talent to their work force. Recruiting students directly from

management colleges is one of the most popular methods (Harvey, 2000).The

perceived notion is that the graduates passing out from the management

colleges will have good subject knowledge (Knight, 2002). A management

graduate with pleasing personality and good communication skills was the best

choice for the organization (Forbes, 2004)

The industry has classified the skills as market/technical skills and soft skills

or generic skills (Employability skills for Australian industry; Literature

review and framework development, 2001) (Robinson.J, 2000). Technical

skills mostly compose of subject knowledge and generic/soft skill composes

of behavioural attributes (Young, 1986). It was perceived that technical skills

were essential and generic skills were desirable for a graduate (Buck L .L,

1987). Later in 1980s the researchers realized that generic skills are also

essential for the management graduates as personal attributes or key skills

are essential for a person to develop his market or professional skills. They

have integrated both the skills and called it as „Employability skills‟

(Forbes, 2004).

In 1980s in UK, in 1990s in Europe and in 2000 in Australia various

models of employability skills models were developed by various scholars.

These models give due importance to both technical as well as personal

attributes. “Employability” doesn‟t merely talk about attaining jobs (Atkins,

1999). It focuses on sustainability where the management professional can

provide solutions to the society through innovation and best practices

(Employability skills for Australian industry; Literature review and

framework development, 2001). The ultimate aim of the management

curriculam is to produce management professionals who can provide

solutions to the societal needs (Hassan B, 2007). The employability skills

focus on those attributes that assist a management graduate to achieve this goal.

Singh and Singh (2008) investigated employers perception about

employability skills needed in Malaysian job market. They found employers

prefer to hire graduates from public universities. They observed that the

Malay employer rated graduates with information Communication

Technology (ICT) and communication skills more favorably than other

groups. They also found the younger the employer the more favorablewas

his/her perception of graduates‟ employability skills. According to Rasul

and Puvanasvaran (2009), the employer in the manufacturing industry in

International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue

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Malaysia view basic skills, thinking skills, sources skills, resources skills,

system and technology skills and personal qualities as being the most important

skills. Similarly, Zaharim et al. (2010) indicated that personal attributes,

personal skills, and knowledge are important to Malaysian employers.

Ismail et al. (2011) compared graduates from different institutes and

observed that University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) graduates are better in

leadership and Malay language proficiency, whereas other local graduates

are better in interpersonal and communication skill, decision making and

problem solving skill and team player.

Singh and Choo (2012) demonstrated that Malaysian manufacturing industry

employers perceive that the graduate employees‟ English language

proficiency skills are still below their expectations. They recommend emphasis

on the importance of English to be in line with globalization and current

workplace demands. Ting and Ying (2012) revealed that practitioners and

academicians have similar perception on the importance of business graduates‟

competencies regarding written skills, oral skills, research skills, knowledge-

acquiring skills, honesty, diligence, resourcefulness, value-improving,

teamwork ability, innovative skills and computer skills. MdSaad et al. (2013)

found that problem- solving, tool handling competency and presentation skills

are highly featured amongst the skills demanded of graduates by employers.

MdSaad et al. added that an employee, who possesses the ability to think

critically, act logically, and evaluate situations to make decisions

and solve problems is a valuable asset to the organization. Rasul et al.

(2013) pointed out that employers place great importance to interpersonal

skills, thinking skills and personal qualities that students need to

emphasize to be employed in the manufacturing sector. They also provided

evidence that employers stress that every position in any size of industry

requires some kind of teamwork.

Scope and Background of the Study

Global ageing of the workforce is the major challenge ahead of most of

developed countries in the world (World population ageing 1950-2050, 2002).

It will affect the economic, technological, educational and social factors and

will rapidly transform the employment trends of developed and developing

countries (World population ageing, 2009). The World Economic Forum has

conducted a study to examine the talent shortage for the next few decades.

The report focuses on the need for better planning of the workforce to meet

future needs (Global talent risk-seven responses, 2011) (Stimulating Economies

through foestering talent mobility, 2010).

The study also focuses on the need for accepting immigrants in the Europe

region to maintain the minimum talent requirement. According to IMF and

World Bank reports, 68 million immigrants will be needed to meet labour

requirements during the period from 2010- 2050. The UN estimates that Japan

would need to admit 647,000 immigrants annually for the next 50 years in


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order to maintain the size of its working population at the 2000 level

(Replacement migration, 2009). Significant labour shortages will develop in

developed countries unless immigration policies are dramatically liberalized

or large numbers of manufacturing and service jobs are shifted overseas.

Most of the developed countries have a negative approach towards

immigration. They are focusing on automation of products and services. It is

immaterial to automate all products and services. Only 13.5% of all service

jobs can be done through automation. Further it generates employment to

highly skilled technical professionals (Digital Automation and the New

Workforce, April 2000).

Employability Skills of Graduates in India

India is one of the emerging markets in the world. India‟s change from an

agrarian economy to Industrialised economy is lagging due to the shortage of

skilled labour (The skill development landscape in India and implementing

quality skill training, August 2010). Although the country has enough

potential to deliver to the needs of the global talent market, the strong

employability challenge of the graduates; especially management graduates

became the bottleneck for India‟s growth perceptive (Talent shortage survey,

2005) (Global talent risk-seven responses, 2011).

There were several studies conducted in India to know the employability

skills of the students. It is found that 75% of the Indian graduates are

unemployable. (Talent shortage survey, 2005).There was an argument that this

study doesn‟t give a clear picture of Indian graduates and it is outdated. But

the recent study conducted by World Bank (2011) points out that 64% of the

employers say they are only somewhat satisfied with the performance of the

management graduates in India (Andreas Blom, 2011). Globally about 34% of

the employers (Talent shortage survey, 2005) find it difficult to fill the talent

gap and in India 67% of the employers find it difficult to find right talent in

India(from both arts and science graduates).These results points out the need

for proper awareness and training among the graduates to enhance their

skills.

2. Focus of Study

This paper is focusing on the Employability

skills of business graduates. To conduct this study the author has used major

models of employability framework developed by countries like Australia

(Hillage J, 1999)Japan (Nguyen Danh Nguyen, 2005) Malaysia (Azami

zaharim, 2009)and the framework developed by World Bank(Andreas

Blom, 2011). The questionnaire for this study is typically developed based

on the factors which influence the employability skills like personal ability,

behavioural skills, knowledge factors and soft skills. This study is carried out

among business graduates with the ideology of them having wide

understanding about the career path and goal of their lives. This brings the


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vitality of this study to understand the level of employability skills the business

graduates possess in order to meet out their career goals.

3. Objectives of the Study

Primary Objective

To understand the importance of employability skills for business

graduates.

Secondary Objective

To evaluate the personal and behavioural skills among business

graduates

To analyze the influence of knowledge factors and soft skill towards

employability.

4. Research Design

It is a descriptive study. The factors

considered for the study has been classified according to the model developed

by World Bank for the study of employability skills of business graduates in

India. (Andreas Blom, 2011). There were 320 students participated in the

survey. All the students were in the final year of their graduate and post

graduate management studies. The Response rate for the graduate students

was 80% (320/400). Unlike previous studies; the current study classifies

students‟ ability into four main categories: Knowledge, soft skills, personal

abilities and behavioural skills. Hence, the questionnaire contained four

sections to reflect these four categories. The participants were asked to

specify the level of importance they assign to the skill set by using 1- 5 likert

scale, where 1 denotes not important at all and 5 denotes very important.

Out of the 400 distributed questionnaires, 320 retuned completed resulting in

80% usable response rate. To assess reliability of the completed

questionnaires, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of reliability was undertaken to

assess internal consistency of the participant‟s answers and appeared to be

0.872. This suggests that the items covered in the questionnaire have a

relatively high internal consistency. A reliability coefficient of 0.70 or more is

considered acceptable in social science research. Descriptive statistics will

be used to identify the most important factors that employers expect a

business graduate to possess.


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5. Results and Discussions

Table No. 5.1 Descriptive Analysis

Factor Dimension Mean Std

Deviation

Rank based on

the mean

Knowledge

Factors

Resourcefulness 2.49 1.597 1

Global awareness 2.2 0.676 3

self-understanding 2.24 0.819 2

Understanding 2.24 0.819 2

workplace

Value improving 2.49 1.597 1

Self-quality control 2.2 0.676 3

Behavioural

Factors

Adoptability 2.55 0.786 2

Leadership skills 2.48 0.803 3

Teamwork ability 2.76 0.942 1

Working with

diversity

2.13 0.818 5

Work ethics 2.21 0.82 4

Soft Skills Oral communication

skills

2.21 0.82 4

Writing

communication

2.13 0.818 5

Presentation skills 2.21 0.82 4

Research skills 2.13 0.818 5

Numerical skills 2.21 0.82 4

Computing skills 2.48 0.803 2

Evaluation skills 2.76 0.942 1

Learning skills 2.13 0.818 5

Analytical skills 2.32 0.937 3

Personal Dependability 2.76 0.942 1


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Abilities

Honesty 2.13 0.818 3

Diligence 2.48 0.803 2

Risk assessment 2.76 0.942 1

Risk management 2.13 0.818 3

Time management 2.48 0.803 2

Decision making 2.48 0.803 2

Career Planning 2.76 0.942 1

Initiative 2.13 0.818 3

Flexibility 2.48 0.803 2

Energetic 2.48 0.803 2

Passionate 2.76 0.942 1

Self confidence 2.13 0.818 3

The ranking of the factors are done based on the mean value for each of the

items with the respective factors. It is evident that in the knowledge factors

there is relatively high level of influence on employability. The table also

reveals that the following skills namely resourcefulness and value improving

are having highest levels of influence on employability and skills namely self

understanding and understanding working place are having moderate level of

influence on employability and skills namely global awareness and self

quality control has the least level of influence on employability.

It is evident that in the Behavioural skill factors there is relatively high level

of influence on employability. The table also reveals that the following skills

namely team work is having highest levels of influence on employability and

skills namely adaptability and leadership skills are having moderate level of

influence on employability and skills namely working with diversity and

work ethics has the least level of influence on employability.

It is evident that in the Soft skill factors there is relatively high level of

influence on employability. The table also reveals that the following skills

namely evaluating skill and computing skills are having highest levels of

influence on employability and skills namely analytical skills, oral

communication, presentation skills and numerical skills are having moderate

level of influence on employability and skills namely written skills, learning

skills and research skills has the least level of influence on employability.

It is evident that in the personal ability factors there is relatively high level

of influence on employability. The table also reveals that the following


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skills namely dependability, risk assessment, career planning, passionate,

diligence, time management, decision making, flexibility and energetic skills

are having highest levels of influence on employability and skills namely

honesty, risk management, initiative and self confidence are having moderate

level of influence on employability.

Table 5.2: ANOVA with Demographic Factors.

H0: There is no significant difference between demographic profile of the

respondents and the factors that influences employability skills necessary

for business graduates.


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Knowledge factors with Demographic variables

Evaluating age with six knowledge factors out of which 4 factors are having

p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that knowledge factor has

with employability whereas namely global awareness and self quality

control has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t

influence employability. Evaluating gender with 6 knowledge factors out of

which 4 factors are having p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that

knowledge factor has with employability whereas namely self understanding

and understanding work place has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not

significant and doesn‟t influence employability.


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Evaluating locality with 6 knowledge factors out of which 4 factors are having

p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that knowledge factor has with

employability whereas namely global awareness and self quality control has

p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t influence

employability.

Evaluating family type with 6 knowledge factors out of which 4 factors are

having p >0.05. This proves significant influence that knowledge factor has

with employability whereas namely global awareness and self quality

control has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t

influence employability.

Behavioral skills with Demographic variables

Evaluating age with five knowledge factors out of which 4 factors are having

p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that behavioural factor has with

employability whereas the factor namely work ethics has p< 0.05 indicates that

they are not significant and doesn‟t influence employability.

Evaluating gender with five knowledge factors out of which 4 factors are

having p >0.05. This proves significant influence that behavioural factor has

with employability whereas the factor namely adaptability has p < 0.05

indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t influence employability.

Evaluating locality with five knowledge factors out of which 3 factors are

having p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that behavioural factor has

with employability whereas the factor namely leadership skill and work

ethics has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t

influence employability.

Evaluating family type with five knowledge factors all factors are having p >

0.05. This proves significant influence that behavioural factor has with

employability.

Soft skills with Demographic variables Evaluating age with nine soft skill

factors out of which 5 factors are having p > 0.05. This proves significant

influence that soft skill has with employability whereas the factor namely

oral communication, presentation skills, numerical skills and analytical

skill has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t

influence employability. Evaluating gender with soft skill factors all factors

are having p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that soft skill has with

employability.

Evaluating locality with nine soft skill factors out of which 5 factors are having

p > This proves significant influence that soft skill has with employability

whereas the factor namely oral communication, presentation skills, numerical

skills and computing skill has p < 0.05 indicates that they are not significant

and doesn‟t influence employability.


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Evaluating family type with soft skill factors all factors are having p > 0.05.

This proves significant influence that soft skill has with employability.

Personal ability with Demographic variables

Evaluating age with thirteen personal ability factors all factors is having p >

0.05. This proves significant influence that personal ability has with

employability.

Evaluating gender with thirteen personal ability factors all factors is having p

> 0.05. This proves significant influence that personal ability has with

employability.

Evaluating locality with thirteen personal ability factors out of which 8 factors

are having p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that personal ability

has with employability whereas the factor namely diligence, time

management, decision making skill, flexibility and energetic has p

< 0.05 indicates that they are not significant and doesn‟t influence

employability. Evaluating family type with thirteen personal ability factors

all factors is having p > 0.05. This proves significant influence that personal

ability has with employability.

6. Conclusion

One is hired as an individual contributor because of that particular person‟s

knowledge and technical/hard skills in a specific field. Thus, this paper

broadly analyzes the skills a business graduate is in need of before he settles

in to his job. The skill sets such as knowledge skills, behavioral skills, Soft

skills and the personal abilities are essential for business graduates. Every

employer and the need of an employee to perform a specific task is always

dynamic nowadays and as such, if a business graduate lacking such skills,

may not be able to sustain a long innings in any employment. This is the

reason why few renowned Business Schools and its graduates find an

excellent placement with the best Companies in the world. Thus it‟s a prime

responsibility of a business graduate to develop such skills so as to meet the

corporate challenges ahead of them.

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Vitality of Employability Skills for Business Graduates: A ... · attract qu ality talent to the ir w ork force. R ecruiting students directly from m anagement colleges is one of