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This research explores the education – employment equation in the management education sector which is continuously evolving and as many consider that a business qualification itself can enhance employability. This paper attempts to identify the prime individual and business related employability skills and competencies required from the graduates by the employers. Employers too have indicated that the students are not well prepared for the contemporary workplace and are expecting the graduates to be work ready. Today, Universities and business schools are revamping their programmes to develop employable and competent graduates. It is also of paramount importance to determine the extent to which graduates themselves feel prepared for work. This paper aims to explore the employability competencies demanded in the management graduates, assess graduates’ competence level and identify the existing gap that needs to be addressed. This study will focus on the Coimbatore industry professionals’ expectation from the fresh MBA graduates. The data were analysed with the help of SPSS v.19.Purposive sampling was used and to test the internal consistency and reliability, Cronbach alpha was used. This employability model used for this study has 8 generic skills and 42 skill descriptors. The findings indicate that 3 skill sets out of the 8 were ranked lower by the employers than that by the students. The gap in the perceived level of competency between the students and the employers contribute towards lowering the employability chances of the graduates. The findings of the paper have implication for curriculum developers, graduates and also the industrialists. Active involvement of industry in curriculum development, specified level of competence demanded fort each skill descriptions for different levels, getting graduates know about the industry requirement of the level of competence might minimise the gap.
Competencies, Education –Employment equation, Generic Skill, Management Education, Skill descriptors
