The recruit requirements of recent graduates: approaching the existing mismatch

Abstract

This paper explores quality perception and expectations in higher education considering 30 competences grouped into three standard sets: instrumental, interpersonal, and professional. Based on the SERVQUAL research model, the authors propose a four-gaps model to compare employers’ and graduates’ perceptions of the competences required by the labour market and the level of skills achieved after graduation, and examines the existence of discrepancies between them. Our model analyses the uneasy feeling perceived in the labour market due to the existing mismatch between the skills developed by students at university and those that the labour market demands using a higher learning institution. Data were collected by means of a survey conducted among recent graduates in economics, and from managers in companies where those graduates were working. Our findings reveal that graduates are not being taught the specific knowledge that would apparently be useful for successful integration into the labour market on leaving university (gap A). More importantly, graduates seem to lack self-esteem and confidence in their own abilities and knowledge (gap B). In our opinion, this research offers an important contribution to the understanding of skill gaps and contributes to empirical knowledge by identifying the aspects where the main discrepancies lie.

Keywords:

• perceptions
• gap analysis
• competences
• recent graduates
• recruitment requirements
• SERVQUAL model
• ANOVA test

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The competences used in this study are taken from the Careers and Employability Services of several universities following the Tuning classification widely accepted among academia.

2 The detailed sampling design of the survey is summarized in Alcañiz et al (2013).

3 Tuning Educational Structures in Europe is a project that links the objectives of the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy to the higher educational sector, and seeks to re-design, develop, implement, evaluate, and enhance quality. For more information visit http://www.unideusto.org/tuningeu/

4 Significance levels were set to 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 and variances between the two groups were assumed unequal.

5 See last row of Table 2.

6 Gaps A and B are significant at 1% level globally and for the three sets of skills under analysis. Gap C is significant at 5% level for the instrumental set of competences, at 10% for the interpersonal set and non-significant for the professional group and the aggregate. Finally, gap D presents only statistical significance at 10% for the instrumental abilities set and the total.

7 Those discrepancies are the variables under analysis.

8 Superscripts indicate whether the difference is statistically significant or not.

9 The current level of graduates’ competences is considered as the level acquired at university. Further aspects such as learning by doing, experience in the workplace or life-long learning are not taken into account, since they go beyond the scope of the study.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the financial help obtained from Universitat de Barcelona [grants number REDICE18-2221, REDICE20-2600] through the Institute for Professional Development (IDP-ICE).