Employers as stakeholders in postgraduate employability skills development

Meeting Real World Demands of the Global Economy: An Employer's Perspective

“…Of the skills new STEM graduates are lacking, communication is listed as the most important one (Appleby et al, 2012;Maxwell et al, 2010), followed by leadership skills (Hartmann & Jahren, 2015;Maxwell et al, 2010), problem-solving skills (Blom & Saeki, 2012;Dyke-Ford & Teare, 2006;Maxwell et al, 2010), and, finally, team-working skills (Appleby et al, 2012;Hartmann & Jahren, 2015;Maxwell et al, 2010). Young STEM employees' gaps lie in the higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing, evaluating, creating (Barnett, 2012;Blom & Saeki, 2012;Charette, n.d.;Maxwell et al, 2010), and effectively communicating their findings to different stakeholders, including colleagues, clients, or management (Millar, 2014).…”

“…Young STEM employees' gaps lie in the higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing, evaluating, creating (Barnett, 2012;Blom & Saeki, 2012;Charette, n.d.;Maxwell et al, 2010), and effectively communicating their findings to different stakeholders, including colleagues, clients, or management (Millar, 2014).…”

“…While young STEM graduates are expected to enter the workplace with higher-level communication skills, employers are prepared to teach skills such as leadership, strategy, and decision-making on the job (Maxwell et al, 2010). Higher-level communication skills include communication at different levels of the organizational structure using different channels and respecting purpose, audience, and medium (Barnett, 2012;Dyke-Ford & Teare, 2006;Maxwell et al, 2010).…”

“…team players' proactive, problem solving, decision making ability (Appleby et al, 2012;Hartmann & Jahren, 2015;Maxwell et al, 2010;McGunagle, 2016)-this study will apply these skills to STEM students in the Airline, Aerospace and Defense (A&D) workplace and design a model of job skills that will ensure success of the new STEM workforce. Universities could adopt this model to design more effective STEM programs that will prepare future leaders in innovation, productivity, and social change to work within a global economy.…”

Employer demands from business graduates

“…It also indicated that the largest gaps between importance and performance were: customer service orientation, order quality and accuracy, interpersonal communication, and problem solving. Similarly, Maxwell et al (2010) found communication and problem-solving skills to be highly ranked by employers and urged their involvement in curricula design.…”