A Survey of Employers’ Needs for Technical and Soft Skills Among New Graduates

Abstract

Motivated by concern about the ability of graduates to succeed in the workforce, universities frequently conduct surveys of local and regional employers, to understand those companies’ expectations. These can uncover specific needs not being addressed. Following a similar line of inquiry, prior research at Oregon State University interviewed employers, with the aim of identifying skills of concern. The current paper takes this research another step further by presenting a survey-based study aimed at quantifying the prevalence and level of employers’ desire for workers who have these identified skills. Although all skills were rated as moderately useful or better, most soft skills scored higher than most technical skills. Nonetheless, three technical skills (source code versioning, testing and agile methods) scored approximately as well as the soft skills; these three technical skills, like soft skills, were cross-cutting and applicable to more than one software development context. Further survey questions revealed that employers preferred that, to the extent that students focus on building technical skill, these learning experiences ideally should involve creating software that students can use as evidence of their qualifications.