Development and Validation of a Global Competency Framework for Preparing New Graduates for Early Career Professional Roles

Abstract

Objectives: The current objectives include the development of a global competency model applicable across a wide range of jobs, industries, and geographies for university graduates entering the workplace. Method: The competency model was developed utilizing a global panel of subject matter experts and a validation survey of over 25,000 students, faculty, staff, and employers across more than 30 countries. Results: The results showed substantial consistency for the importance and criticality ratings of the competencies, with Achieving Objectives, Analyzing and Solving Problems, Adapting to Change, Communicating Orally, Learning and Self-Development, Making Decisions, Planning and Organizing, and Working Well with Others as the highest-rated competencies across regions, roles, and industries. Conclusions: The most important competencies for students entering the workforce were consistent across different jobs, different industries, and different countries. The diversity and varied experience levels of the sample provide greater generalizability than most competency modeling projects that are often idiosyncratic to specific roles, industries, subjects, or levels. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: University faculty and staff can use the results of the validation study to develop curricula and programs that will be better able to foster important competencies to ensure that their students are better prepared to enter the workplace. Although some organizations emphasize leadership as important for all professional employees, Managing the Work of Others, Leading Others, and Influencing Others were consistently rated lower in importance by employers across all roles and regions and may not be appropriate as the primary focus of skill development for new graduates.

Teaching Professional Use of Social Media Through a Service-Learning Business Communication Project

“…S-L pedagogy has enabled the students to contribute meaningfully to the community through their service; to learn, practice, and experience various skill sets related to SMC channels, and to play several professional roles related to SMC. Numerous studies that have researched 21st-century skills for professionals, such as Rios et al (2020), Strong et al (2020), and Tight (2020), highlighted the importance of social media skills among the 21st-century skills. The results of the survey questionnaire show that the project has been successful in creating a positive perception in the students about the use of SMC in a professional context.…”

Graduate Employability of Business Students

“…The study used mean scores to capture which skills are perceived by graduating students as given priorities by employers when recruiting new business graduates. Other research has used mean scores to rank the relative importance of skills (i.e., Abbasi et al 2018;Konig and Ribaric 2019;Strong et al 2020;Lim et al 2016;Succi and Canovi 2020).…”

“…Graduating business students ranked communication skills, learning skills, positive attitudes and behaviours, and problem-solving skills as the top four most important employability skills that employers seek when recruiting new graduates for entry-level positions. Except for 'learning skills', the other three skills tend to be cited among the top demanded employability skills in the literature (Abbasi et al 2018;Hossain et al 2020;Osmani et al 2019;Strong et al 2020). Learning skills are very important for 21st century careers.…”

“…Some studies suggest that employers do not emphasise these skills when recruiting new graduates. Most graduates are not expected to assume leadership positions immediately after graduation (Succi and Canovi 2020;Strong et al 2020). Resilience is increasing in importance, as the workplace becomes more complex with the use of advanced technology, becomes more demanding, faces rapid change, and experiences more competitive pressures.…”

Explorando habilidades requeridas para la industria 4.0: Un enfoque orientado al trabajador

“…Over the last decade, there has been a growing interest about the skills in the industry 4.0 as can be noted from recent literature reviews on research in this topic (e.g., Chaka, 2020;Maisiri, Darwish, & van Dyk, 2020;Prifti, Knigge, Kienegger, & Krcmar, 2017). For instance, considerable efforts from psychological research have been made to identify and assess the required skills in the digital age, thus providing valuable information on how relevant are some skills for university students and employees from traditional work settings (e.g., Herde, Lievens, Solberg, Strong, & Burkholder, 2019;Strong et al, 2020). However, the latter poses the need to seek more empirical evidence on skills required by those employees who are already experiencing organizational changes as a result of the use of cutting-edge technologies (Kanfer & Blivin, 2019).…”