SOFT SKILLS AND GRADUATES’EMPLOYABILITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY FROM EMPLOYERS’ PERSPECTIVES: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Abstract

Enhancing one's employability or upgrading one's skills is a significant purpose of Human Resource Development. Personal circumstances, individual variables, and environmental influences all play a role in the employability construct. The purpose of this paper is to investigate soft skills and employability from employers’ perspectives. Organizations consider human capital critical to their success and usually make efforts to hire the best possible individuals. They usually prefer recruiting employees who possess a fine-quality combination soft skill; highly required by employers. Employers nowadays are seeking graduates who have both academic qualifications and are highly skilled. It is also important to mention that employers are placing a high value on soft skills. Thus, there is an increasing need for a better understanding of the importance of graduates’ soft skills required with the increasing demands from employers. Higher education institutions must understand what employers want from their graduates. Hence, employers’ perspective towards soft skills is important. Soft skills must be acquired and developed during students’ life for them to do effectively in both their academic and have qualities that improve future employability. This paper is based on information collected from different published papers, internet sources and newspapers, it represents a review of the literature in an attempt to answer several questions about the relationship between soft skills and employability in the 21st century. In concludes that soft skills is a strong predictor to enhance employability among graduates in today’s dynamic demanding global work environment.

Keywords: Employability, Soft skills, Employment skills, Employment, Graduate employment, Employers