Perspectives of Asian Employers on Graduates' Soft Skills: A Systematic Review

Abstract

At present, the situation of the economic world is very challenging. As such employers are looking for versatile graduates, who will be able to drive the organisations so that they can compete successfully in the market place. Graduates nowadays are expected by the employers to not only obtain good degrees and excel in their academics, but also to equip themselves with soft skills. Globalisation means increasing integration of various sectors in today's world and leads to a demand for higher level graduates' soft skills. By adopting a systematic literature review approach, the current study attempts to present an exploration of the employers' perspectives on the soft skills needed by graduates to be developed to get them ready for the job place. The review was guided by the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses). A systematic literature search was undertaken from two main journal databases-Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). All papers reviewed from articles published from 2010 to 2019. Based on the search results, the literature was synthesised, and the varied soft skills were classified into 11 major domains. The contribution of the current study can be seen as the classification of the varied graduates' soft skills. It can provide insightful information to the stakeholders of higher education institutions. To produce job-ready graduates, higher education institutions need to re-evaluate their teaching and learning approaches to develop the necessary graduates' soft skills as needed by the job market.

Evaluate the Vocational School Graduate's Work-readiness in Indonesia from the Perspectives of Soft skills, Roles of Teacher, and Roles of Employer

“…To improve the understanding of graduates' needs, industry does not convey the importance of soft skills development to academia (Hanim Md Pazil & Che Razak, 2019). They should play an active role in developing the soft skills to build stronger partnerships and ensure their readiness to work.…”

“…Many researchers have reviewed soft skills. In this research, it processed the soft skill indicators from Debnath et al (2012) and soft skills needed by the industry (Di Gregorio et al, 2019;Hanim Md Pazil & Che Razak, 2019;Robles, 2012) as a reference. Meanwhile, nine indicators of soft skills in creativity, information gathering, public speaking, problem-solving, self-confidence, character, critical thinking, communication, and cooperation were obtained.…”

The Effectiveness of Soft Skills in Generating Dynamic Capabilities in ICT companies

“…The systematic literature quest was embarked on from two foremost journal databases -Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. These two databases were selected for their robustness, high impact factors, citations, peer-review, and broad coverage (Hanim Md Pazil & Che Razak, 2019).…”

The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2023 Official Conference Proceedings

“…A summary of current research shows that employers value a variety of 21st-century skills in the workplace, placing a high importance on soft skills in particular (Pazil & Razak, 2019;Stewart et al, 2016). However, on the whole, employers perceive a significant performance expectation gap between their needs and graduate abilities Pazil & Razak, 2019).…”