Importance of Soft Skills for Education and Career Success

1 International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE), Special Issue Volume 2 Issue 2, 2012. Importance of Soft Skills for Education and Career Success Shaheen Majid, Zhang Liming, Shen Tong, Siti Raihana Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Abstract Basically, soft Skills refer to personalities, attributes, qualities and personal behaviour of Appropriate soft Skills play an important role in individuals. Soft Skills include certain abilities such a successful Career as well as during social as communication, problem-solving, self-motivation, interactions in the society.

2 These Skills are also decision-making, and time management Skills [3]. A. highly sought after by employers recruiting fresh study by Hodges and Burchell [4] investigated the graduates. The main purpose of this study was to perceptions of business employers of the Importance investigate students' perceptions of the Importance of of different Skills . It was reported that eight out of soft Skills for their Education and employment. A top ten Skills were soft Skills which included the questionnaire was used for data collection and 188 ability and willingness to learn, teamwork and undergraduate business management students from cooperation, interpersonal communication, energy four universities in Singapore participated in this and passion, and problem-solving Skills .

3 A study study. It was found that a majority of the respondents covering over 52 different professions with more than felt that soft Skills were useful for social interaction 8,000 managers in the United States identified soft as well as for Career advancement . However, they did Skills of employees as the major competency in not think that these Skills contribute considerably to nearly all the professions, even in the technical their academic performance. The top five important environments [5]. soft Skills identified by the students were: teamwork While it is now a well-established fact that and collaboration, decision-making, problem-solving, employers are increasingly putting more emphasis on time management and critical thinking Skills .

4 This soft Skills , it is equally important that students should paper suggests certain measures for improving soft also adequately appreciate the value of such Skills Skills of students which may also help improve their and make deliberate efforts to acquire them. Porter employment perspectives. [6] reported that many business students do not put much value to developing soft Skills . Probably that is why, as suggested by Rynes et al [7], the business students' attitude towards behavioural courses, with 1. Introduction substantial coverage given to soft Skills development, Due to a variety of factors, today's business is usually negative together with their reluctance to environment is becoming more complex, uncertain register for such courses.

5 As a result, there is an and competitive. All types of organizations consider awareness gap resulting in deficiency of soft Skills human resources as their key asset, which plays a among business graduates entering the work force. critical role in organizational performance and Consequently, there is now more pressure on Success . Most employers are likely to hire, retain and academic institutions to enhance soft Skills of their promote persons who are dependable, resourceful, students. Kumara and Sahasranam [8] used a core ethical, having effective communication, self soft Skills inventory test to investigate soft Skills of directed, willing to work and learn, and having engineering students in India.

6 They reported that, positive attitude [1]. Employers usually prefer to see with well-planned training programs, it is possible to a fine blend of competencies in their staff and, in tune, shape and develop creativity and soft Skills addition to discipline-based knowledge and Skills , among all students. Addams et al [9] believed the adequate levels of soft Skills are considered desirable communication Skills of business students, for moving forward in the Career [2]. They feel particularly for writing persuasive business letters, professional and technical Skills alone cannot help can be improved by designing assignments using achieve organizational goals and objectives.

7 It is real-life organizations and scenarios. Alshare, Lane because their staff will also be involved in different and Miller [10] studied perceptions of students and levels of leadership and decision-making activities. faculty of the adequacy of soft Skills in information Employees also need to communicate effectively systems curricula in different universities in the USA. within the organization, with their customers and It was reported that generally students were more other stakeholders. satisfied than faculty about the coverage of soft Skills . Realizing the Importance of soft Skills , several studies Copyright 2012, Infonomics Society 1036.

8 International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE), Special Issue Volume 2 Issue 2, 2012. have also emphasised the point that these Skills should be embedded in the curriculum, thus making it Respondents' profile easier for students to acquire them [11, 12]. The literature review suggests that a majority of A comparable number of participants from the the studies on this topic have been done from four universities participated in this study: SIM (51), employers' perspective and only a limited number of NTU (50), SMU (49), and NUS (44). Six respondents studies have focused on the perceptions and attitudes did not fully complete the questionnaire; therefore, of students towards soft Skills .

9 In addition, a higher the data analysis is based on 188 completely filled-in percentage of such studies were conducted in North survey forms. The percentage of Singaporean and America and Europe with different learning overseas students was and respectively. environment and work culture then in many Asian The overseas students were mainly from China, countries. It is, therefore, worth exploring students' India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand and the perceptions of soft Skills from a new angle and Philippines. In terms of gender, more female context. The main objective of this study was to respondents took part ( ) than their male investigate the perceptions of business management counterparts ( ).

10 As for the year of study, there students of the Importance of soft Skills for their were 72 respondents ( ) in their second year of Education and employment. Some areas covered by study and it was the largest group, while 41 ( ). this study were: students' perceptions of the value of were in first year, 52 ( ) in third year and only soft Skills , self-efficacy of the level of Skills 18 ( ) were in their fourth year of study. Five possessed by them, Skills needing further students did not indicate their year of study. improvement, participation in skill development programs, and the role of academic institutions in Awareness of soft Skills developing soft Skills .