The graduates of Kazakhstani universities through the eyes of employers

Abstract

This article studies the employment of Kazakhstan university graduates in the professional labor market. The problem of matching the needs of employers and the interests and competencies of graduates of higher education institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan is of great importance and yet insufficiently studied. This article aims to analyze the possibility of employment and assessment of professional training of the graduates of Kazakhstan universities from the position of employers. Using the expert survey method, the authors present the main results obtained from Kazakhstan employers on the problems of employing young specialists and defining the requirements to their qualification. 643 employers from all regions of Kazakhstan took part in the survey. The analysis showed that Kazakhstan employers in certain professions look for the graduates of higher degrees (i. e. Masters and Ph.Ds.), but most employers in this study consider the training of students at the undergraduate level sufficient to enter the labor market. The study provides an insight into the main trends in the labor market for Kazakhstani graduates and how these trends affect the skills that graduates should possess; the key characteristics that employers pay attention to when employing higher education graduates; and the skills that graduates should possess in order to be successfully employed. The conclusion is that the institutions of higher education are concerned with developing an institutional narrative that is based on building long-term strategies to enhance the development of competencies for employing graduates. Currently, there is a dual situation in the evaluation of educational programs’ performance, caused by the gap between the goals that educational institutions set and the expectations of employers. This problem remains relevant even in conditions of a sufficiently high level of employment of graduates. In other words, the demand for certain groups of specialties on the labor market does not yet provide young professionals with competitiveness due to the quality of training. Accordingly, the interviewed employers note the need for qualified specialists capable of realizing the organization’s tasks.