Differentiation of employers as potential partners of higher educational institutions

Employment of graduates of higher educational institutions (HEIs) is an important task worldwide. The main problems of employment are due to the existing discrepancy between the education re-ceived by graduates and the needs of business environment. The modern world should focus on the formation of graduates’ competencies in accordance with the demands of employers, which will pro-vide greater access to practical skills for students throughout the entire period of university studies. The purpose of the article is the differentiation of employers, analysis of their needs for graduates of economic specialties, readiness for partnership with HEIs. A survey of experts among employers and HEI professors allowed us to reveal the advantages of their social and professional partnerships and possible problems hampering the process of forming partnership relations. Discriminant analysis became the basis for classifying employers by the degree of their readiness to cooperate with HEIs. Three groups were employers are singled out: “business-focused”, “optimists” and “flagships”. Analysis of employers, taking into account their readiness to form partnership relations with HEIs, will contrib-ute to improving the quality of training personnel in business structures and HEIs.