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University graduates may face challenges when solving actual business problems because of their lack of soft skills, which are often inferior to their hard skills. Their knowledge (hard skills) may be at a good level, but they often lack developed universal competencies (soft skills). The paper discusses the methodology for assessing the meta-professional competencies of university students based on the results of the pilot year of the project “Assessment and development of managerial competencies in Russian educational institutions”. The research developed psychometric methods and applied as assessment tools: a universal personality questionnaire, a vitality questionnaire, tests for the analysis of numerical and verbal information. The paper provides descriptions and justifications for the validity and tests reliability used to diagnose universal competencies, as well as the procedure for creating a composite construct. The authors propose a method for creating a composite score to combine the results of assessment using a battery of tests and questionnaires. The resulting composite score makes it possible to consider the links between the evaluated constructs and simplify the interpretation of the evaluation results.

The paper reviews historical and modern understanding of meritocracy and meritocratic approaches and practices in the application to the selection of political leaders and governmental officials. A theoretical framework of analyzing meritocracy in the modern science is also considered from the stand-point of various disciplines such as economics, political science, sociology, and as applied to the quality of human capital. Meritocratic principles of selecting candidates for positions in public service in the Western countries differ a lot from the ones used in China and Singapore. China partly revitalizes its ancient traditions of meritocracy, and partly adopts the experience of Singapore where meritocratic principles form the basis of state governance, and where the system of education is oriented at selection and training of the most capable candidates. However, in both countries meritocracy has not yet helped to solve many existing problems, and even more — it creates new concerns and challenges. Therefore, it becomes essential to discuss whether Singapore meritocratic approach is transferable to other countries.