Employability skills of graduates: The perceived assessment

The employment market today is an energetic, vibrant, demanding, challenging and tough place for young individuals graduating from different schools, universities or any educational institutions. Employers expect the graduates they employ to hold specific skills such as logical thinking, quick learning, communication skills, flexibility, ambition, high levels of motivation, creativity, critical thinking, initiative, teamwork and time management (Lester, 2013: 1). Various industries, companies and businesses mainly depend on the output of graduates from the universities, colleges and other higher education institutions who are equipped with the necessary employable skills. This study was therefore conducted to conduct survey and explore the students’ perception on the employability skills needed to be competitive in the market and business world. This study was conducted at the College of Business, Entrepreneurship and Accountancy of Cagayan State University-Andrews Campus, Tuguegarao City where the respondents were the second batch of the Bachelor of Science in Accounting Technology. The respondents of this study were the 113 4th year BSAT students for the School Year 2017–2018. Total enumeration was used by the researcher in obtaining the results. The survey questionnaire used was patterned from the employability skills profile developed by members of The Conference Board of Canada's Employability Skills Forum and the Business and Education Forum on Science, Technology, and Mathematics. The data gathered were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted using the descriptive statistics like rank and weighted mean. Descriptive method was used to come up with a good result of the study. Result of the study revealed that under the fundamental skills, managing information and working with tools and technology got the highest category mean of 4.14, followed by communicating with a category mean of 4.09 and thinking and problem solving with a category mean of 3.99. With regard to personal management skills, learning continuously got the highest mean of 4.28 followed by self-management and being adaptable, next is demonstrating positive attitudes and behaviours and finally initiative and enterprise with a category mean of 4.13, 4.12 and 3.92 respectively. While under the teamwork skills participating in projects and tasks got 4.08 and working with others got 4.05 category mean. From the results generated it is therefore recommended that the college should design authentic assessment activities, aligned with industry practices, standards and approaches and that employers should work together with schools to provide learning experiences that will promote students’ development of employability skills.