Graduates into sales – employer, student and university perspectives

Murray, Sharon; Robinson, Harry M.

doi:10.1108/eum0000000005459

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…These reasons are (a) acceleration of poor quality deterioration (b) quality deterioration in key skill areas (c) production of poor quality graduates by poor quality staff. Similar findings have been identified by Harvey L. [5] and [4] -research done in Birmingham, Duoc and Metzger [3] -research conducted on quality of business graduates in Vietnamese institutions, Murray and Robinson [13], Nabi and Bagley [14] -research covered the graduates in the UK. All these research concluded that graduates should develop a range of soft skills including business skills, general and transferable skills, self and personal skills, attitudes, in order to increase their employability in the potential labour market as well as to meet the employer expectations.…”

Section: Literature Reviwesupporting

confidence: 84%

Labour Market Prospects for Business Graduates in SriLanka

H.M.T.S¹,

Ranasinghe²

2011

IJSSH

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The employment of graduates to raise an organization's intellectual capital is not a new phenomenon. But it is clear that there is a less demand for graduates all over the world. It is basically due to the miss-match between graduates' competencies and employers' expectations and also due to the weak relationship between university and the business sector. As a developing country under sever conflict situations in political, social and cultural Sri Lanka is not exceptional pertaining to this issue. This paper attempts to investigate into the assessment of private sector employers towards recruiting business graduates in Sri Lanka. The study investigated 65 of private sector business firms who are the possible employers of providing job opportunities for potential employees in Sri Lanka.Findings of the study showed that among the other state university graduates but except engineers and doctors, business graduates have more or less the necessary skills and qualities needed to work in private sector work places. But those skills and qualities are not up to the standard expected by the private sector employers. Among those skills Sri Lankan business graduates especially lack with ICT skills, English language proficiency and the applicability of practical knowledge. Hence the business graduates of Sri Lanka should improve the essential skills, attitudes and qualities in order to create a good demand for them in the available job market and to complete with other professionally qualified personnel.

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Section: Literature Reviwesupporting

confidence: 84%

Labour Market Prospects for Business Graduates in SriLanka

H.M.T.S¹,

Ranasinghe²

2011

IJSSH

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“…In relation to the skills examined, Mihail (2006) used 22 areas of skills from Murray and Robinson (2001) to investigate the most important benefits attained by students from the industrial training at Greek universities. These areas of skills were extracted from the three main categories of skills which are academic, enterprise and personal development skills.…”

Section: Skills Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Students’ Knowledge and Soft Skills Competency in the Industrial Training Programme: The Employers’ Perspective

Chiu¹,

Mahat²,

Rashid³

et al. 2016

RES

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The importance of developing soft skills competency among students should be the priority of all the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in order to ensure their graduates are marketable. Therefore, it is essential for HEIs to distinguish the knowledge and soft skill levels of their students so that strategies and intervention could be implemented to rectify their capabilities. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and soft skills competency from the employer's viewpoints on the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) students participating in the industrial training programme. A total of 438 employers from different industrial backgrounds had participated in this study. A questionnaire consisting of five dimensions of soft skills which are basic knowledge, communication skills, practical skills, leadership, and attitude was utilized to collect data. The results of this study indicate that the employers were satisfied with the knowledge and soft skills competency portrayed by UUM students in preparing themselves for the real work environment. The employers from the service sectors were satisfied with students' performance in all dimensions of soft skills measured. However, employers from the factory and commerce sector perceived as moderate satisfaction for all dimensions of soft skills. Additionally, the employers of the factory and commerce sector assessed by giving the lowest satisfaction score for "hands-on" skills, but generally they satisfied with the students' communication skills. The information gathered can provide important insights from the perspective of organizations which is valuable in improving the overall hard and soft skills competency for future professionals and managers.

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“…Since a large percentage of marketing students will start their professional careers after graduation in sales positions (Murray & Robinson, 2001), it is possible to influence or at least identify these students as they make their way through a marketing/sales major or minor.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes, Opinions, and Characteristics: Creating a Profile of Sales Students

Baalbaki¹,

Black²,

Lee³

et al. 2014

AJBM

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This study was conducted with the objective of identifying and assessing factors that influence students to have a disposition toward a sales career as well as positive attitudes toward salespeople. Two studies were conducted to measure the impact of different treatments. Data were collected from 263 undergraduate students in marketing and/or sales-related classes, in order to empirically test two experiments. The results of ordinary least-squares regression analysis indicate that students enrolled in sales-related classes are much more likely to have a disposition toward a sales career and to have a positive attitude toward salespeople, while simply reading a passage describing the sales profession and how it is likely for many college graduates to have a career in sales had little impact. The implications include the development of a sales students' profile, which describes students who are likely to pursue sales as a career and to have a positive attitude toward salespeople. This profile can be important in identifying potentially successful members of professional sales forces while they are still in our universities and by doing so, enable sales educators to properly prepare them for their careers.

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Graduates into sales – employer, student and university perspectives

Cited by 25 publications

References 2 publications

Labour Market Prospects for Business Graduates in SriLanka

Labour Market Prospects for Business Graduates in SriLanka

Assessing Students’ Knowledge and Soft Skills Competency in the Industrial Training Programme: The Employers’ Perspective

Attitudes, Opinions, and Characteristics: Creating a Profile of Sales Students

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