The employability skills of graduates and employers’ options in Portugal: An explorative study of anticipative and remedial strategies
ISSN: 0040-0912
Article publication date: 4 October 2018
Issue publication date: 8 October 2018
Abstract
Purpose
Available literature overlooks the factors that affect employers’ opinions of the skills graduates bring to the labour market. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the perception of graduates’ skills and the employers’ anticipative and remedial strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative multiple case study is used and data were gathered from interviews with human resource managers in ten firms in Portugal. The data set includes information on perceptions of graduates’ skills, solutions for the acquisition of skills, hiring and training policies, and practices associated with university–industry linkages.
Findings
Almost all the employers sampled are unsatisfied with graduates’ preparation in soft skills and other personal traits. Some report skill shortages and gaps in technical skills that result in training costs. The perception of technical skills varies according to anticipative and remedial strategies.
Research limitations/implications
This is an explorative study with a very small sample of firms. However, it is a first step towards further research into whether the perception of graduates’ skills is affected by anticipative and remedial strategies implemented by firms within a particular human resource development system.
Practical implications
It is argued that the responsibility for graduates’ employability should be shared. Practitioners should learn how to interact with higher education, researchers should profit from insights into typologies of employers’ strategies on skill formation, and policy makers should understand that employers are heterogeneous and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Social implications
Universities, employers and policy makers should understand that the employability of graduates presupposes shared responsibility.
Originality/value
The relationship between the strategies employers adopt to access skills and their perception of graduates’ skills is a quite underexplored topic.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to sincerely thank the human resource managers who generously shared their time and materials for the purpose of this research. The authors acknowledge the comments from participants at the VI Conferência em Investigação e Intervenção em Recursos Humanos, Estratégias de Desenvolvimento e Práticas de Gestão de Recursos Humanos, ESCE/IPS – Setúbal, Portugal, 17–18 February 2016. Financial support from Foundation of Science and Technology to the project BRIGHET – “Bringing together Higher Education, Training, and Job Quality”, PTDC/SOC-SOC/30016/2017 is gratefully acknowledged.
Citation
Suleman, F. and Laranjeiro, A.M.C. (2018), "The employability skills of graduates and employers’ options in Portugal: An explorative study of anticipative and remedial strategies", Education + Training, Vol. 60 No. 9, pp. 1097-1111. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-10-2017-0158
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited