Student Skills and Employability: A Study from Students’ Perspective

Abstract

This study is aimed at evaluating the relationship among students’ skills and their employability based on surveying students using 5 point Likert scale. The survey includes 490 students whose major are foreign languages and the results show that there are differences in the level of awareness between first year students, third year students and last year students. Thanks to the data analysis, it is revealed that most students believe that the university reputation has an important role in their employability (Mean= 3.80), they can do any kinds of work provided that work matches their skills and experience (Mean=3.05); therefore, students need to have some other skills in order to become successful in finding their jobs. Among the skills mentioned in the survey, the skills for working in group, skills for adaptability, skills for listening to others, skills for risk acceptability, skills for public speaking and skills for critical thinking are more effectively contributing factors to employability in comparison with other skills.
 Keywords
 Students, employability, skills, attitude, influence
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The Personal Resources Influence on Malaysian Graduates’ Career Adaptability via Mentoring as a Mediator

“…Recent studies show that career competencies and self-perceived competencies have a relationship with career adaptability (Akkermans et al, 2018;Dumulescu et al, 2015;Monteiro et al, 2020). In terms of employability, the previous study has shown career competencies are the predictor of preparing tertiary students' employability (Faizah, 2007;Hock & Mandrinos, 2020;Hung & Phuong, 2019;Kaur et al, 2008). Despite, the relationship, graduates' establishment on career adaptability through the acquisition of self-perceived competencies could increase graduates' employability and success in their future careers.…”