Purpose and Problem Statement

The purpose of this study was to determine the critical soft skills that employers want from their employees so that business educators can promote these skills in their curriculum to improve the employability of graduating business seniors.

Method and Procedures

"Students in a junior-level business communication class were each required to interview two executives each semester for their final project. After the interview, the student gave the executive a "thank you" letter and an evaluation survey from the course professor, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. The evaluation survey asked the business executive to comment on the performance of the student during the interviewing process. Additionally, the survey asked about topics that the business executives deemed important for business graduates to study. During the spring semester 2011, the executives were also asked to list the 10 most important soft skills they wanted new employees to possess when hired for a position within their organization.

Forty-five students were enrolled in the two business communication courses during spring semester 2011, so 90 executives received the survey. Of those 90 business executives, 49 (54%) responded by returning the questionnaire in the self-addressed, stamped envelope. A list of 517 soft skills (with repetition) was created. Some executives listed more than 10 soft skills; therefore, more than 490 items were gathered. After the skills were coded with like terms and themes, 26 soft skills emerged. The 10 soft skills that were listed most often by the executives were then included in a questionnaire to be rated by importance. Some examples of the "like" terms that were categorized as one of the 10 most mentioned soft skill attributes are listed

1. communication

2. Courtesy

3. Flexibility

4. Integrity

5. Interpersonal Skills

6. Positive Attitude

7. Professionalism

8. Teamwork

9. Responsibility

10. Work Ethic

After the top 10 soft skills attributes were determined, a 5-point Likert-type scale was created that would measure the strength of importance of each attribute. During the fall semester 2011 and spring semester 2012, the questionnaire was distributed to the business executives (along with the "thank you" and evaluation survey) by the students after they conducted the interviews for their field report. There were 91 students in three classes over those two semesters, so the survey was sent to 182 executives. A response was received from 57 (62.6%) executives."

Data Findings and Analysis

Executives overwhelmingly indicated that integrity and communication were the top two soft skills needed by employees in today's workplace. All 57 (100%) of the executives indicated that integrity and communication were very important or extremely important. Over three fourths of the respondents (84.2%) indicated that courtesy was an extremely important skill, and over half (71.9% and 61.4%, respectively) reported that responsibility and interpersonal skills were extremely important. The frequency of each response and the percentages that indicated the level of importance of each soft skill attribute as perceived by business executives can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Perceived Level of Importance of Each Soft Skill Attribute in Today's Workplace (N = 57)

The mean score and standard deviation of each of the soft skill attributes related to its perceived level of importance is shown in Table 2. Each of the soft skill attributes had a mean score of 4.12 based on a 5.0 scale, where 5 = extremely important, 4 = very important, 3 = somewhat important, 2 = not very important, and 1 = not important. None of the soft skills attributes received a not important ranking. Teamwork skills and Flexibility each received one response for not very important (by different executives).

Table 2. Mean and Standard Deviation of Each Soft Skill Attribute Relative to Perceived Level of Importance (N = 57)

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