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Proceedings of the 9 Symposium on Applied Science, Business & Industrial Research – 2017
ISSN 2279-1558, ISBN 978-955-7442-09-9

Employers’ Vs Graduates’ Perception on Employability Skills Possession of
the Graduates: A Case Study of Applied Sciences Graduates

Jothirathne PAAU, Deegahawature MMDR
Department of Industrial Management, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka
anoja@wyb.ac.lk
ABSTRACT

This study is aiming to compare the employers’ perception and graduates’
perception on the possession of employability skills of the graduates. To assess the
employability skills, the researcher has introduced an employability skills model which is
developed based on the existing research on employability skills and personal experience.
The developed employability skills model consists of three principal variables namely,
personal skills, core skills, and process skills. The principal variables in the model were
assessed by 16 sub variables. The study was limited to the final year or exit level
undergraduates of Faculty of Applied Sciences in Wayamba University and employers of
reputed business organizations that recruit undergraduates for internship training. Size of
the sample was 60 exit level undergraduates and 55 employers. The study adopted a survey
method and data were collected through two sets of questionnaire with the aim of gauging
undergraduates’ and employers’ perceptions on the possession of employability skills by
Applied Sciences graduates. The results of this study disclosed the difference between
employers’ and undergraduates’ perception for all 16 employability skills, where
employers rated graduates much lower than that of exit level undergraduates. Hence, it can
conclude that exit level undergraduates rated their employability skills possession as being
relatively high and there is a mismatch of employers and graduates perceptions. If
employer could communicate their needs by having multilateral cooperation with both
higher education institutions and government, this gap could be reduced and universities
would be able to produced work-ready graduates.
KEYWORDS: Employability skills, Employers’ perception, Graduates’ perception

gaining initial employment, maintaining
1 INTRODUCTION
employment, and obtaining new
Graduates unemployment is one of the employment if required (Hillage & Pollard,
major problems in Sri Lanka since the 1998). Today, particularly the private sector
country fails to get the contribution of the complains that the graduates are lacking the
highly qualified labor force for its economic employability skills although they are
development. Due to the graduate’s thorough in subject knowledge.
unemployment, the government investment
on higher education ends up with low return. Further they claim that even though
On the other hand, graduates are responsible there are many vacancies, there are no
to strengthen their soft skills, apart from suitably qualified applicants to fill those
academic achievement. A degree alone vacancies. The benefits of the education
would not sufficient in getting a perfect job system can only be reaped if education
or rather their dream job. Highly services are aimed at fulfilling the
competitive job market does not allow requirements of the labor market. Thus, it is
graduates to easily fill vacancies in both essential to realign the education system to
move away from an examination centric,
public and private sectors. Employability is
the capability to move self-sufficiently content based curriculum towards a
competency based curriculum, helping to
within the labor market to realize potential gain life skills and to encourage independent
through sustainable employment. i.e.

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