Creating Employable Management Graduates

Business education in India has witnessed a rapid increase in the past two decades in response to the changing world economic scenario. The experience gained in this duration clearly points towards a greater need to focus on the development of graduate ‘employability’ along with the imparting of academic knowledge. In spite of the fact that so many management graduates join the work force every year it is not uncommon to hear about both the shortage of soft skills in managers and the criticism of employers about the work-readiness of graduates. This puts pressure on Management schools to produce employable graduates. The concern about higher education being actually able to adequately prepare graduates for employment must be addressed by first understanding the soft skills that must be developed in order to prepare management students for real world jobs. This article aims to explore both the soft skills developed during Academic Management programmes and those subsequently used in employment, particularly in managerial careers. The idea is to identify the main aspects of employability so that they may be inculcated in the management graduates. Finally, we shall attempt to create a model of key graduate attributes and soft skills that are crucial to lifelong career management and enhanced employability.