SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Assessing University Graduates’ Skills from the Perspectives of

Different Managerial Levels
[1]Tungalagtuya
Myagmarjav, [1]Yondon Altangerel,
[1]tungalagtuya.m@ufe.edu.mn,[1] Yondon.a@ufe.edu.mn,

Abstract:
Developing students’ skills and knowledge is the priority of tertiary educational
institutions to ensure their graduates meet the requirements of the workplace. The aim
of the study is to assess the skills and knowledge of marketing and information
technology graduates from the University of Finance and Economics (UFE), Mongolia
from the employer’s perspective. Employers from business sectors, more specifically,
top-level managers participated in the study. Graduates’ soft skills, IT and language
skills, research and analysis skills as well as professional knowledge were evaluated
through a questionnaire. The result of this study showed that students’ professional
knowledge and skills are assessed differently. Employers of large corporations are fully
satisfied with graduates’ communication skills, adaptability, and teamwork skills while
employers of medium sized-enterprises are satisfied with critical thinking, time
management, and decision making. Overall, directors, founders, and executives are
satisfied with UFE graduates which indicates the skills of graduates are above average
proving the effectiveness of our programs but clarifies our future considerations to
better outcomes and satisfaction.

Index Terms—employers’ perspective, graduate skills, and knowledge

I. INTRODUCTION
Education directly correlates to the development of the country. Educated people
mean a high rate of employment, economic growth, and a lower crime rate, which leads
to positive changes in personnel and society as a whole. Thus, higher educational
institutions’ priority should be educating and equipping students with the required
skills and demands of the labor market, preparing future workers who can fully meet
the requirements of the workplace.
On the other hand, students need to acquire skills and knowledge for successful
employment and a better future. To achieve career advancement, graduates are
required to develop not only their core/hard skills, but also transferable/core skills
(Clarke, 2017). As Clanchy and Ballard (1995) define, "The most effective learners are
those who in fact most quickly recognize the relevance of previously learned skills to
the new contexts and are most readily able to adapt them to those new contexts."
Employability is not just about providing the student with the required attributes and
techniques to get a respected job or to develop a career, it can be described as a set of
achievements and attributes that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and
be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the
community, and the economy. (Yorke, 2006). Due to the rapid change of responsibilities
and qualifications required at the workplace, academic knowledge cannot solely meet

3267
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

the requirements. Brits (2018) argues that higher education institutions should
consider and include critical skills in their curriculum to increase employability. Higher
education institutions are often criticized for not preparing graduates for the real
contexts involved in their professional practice. (Knight & Yorke, 2003).
Soft skills such as communication, time management, and empathy are additionally
required for work. Taking this into consideration, higher education institutions should
set and accurately specify the knowledge and skills obtained by students through the
programs and courses. Graduate attributes may be defined as: ‘…the qualities, skills, and
understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their
time with the university. (Bowden et al. 2002). As Succi (2019) concluded, employers
should cooperate with higher education institutions to promote students' and
graduates' soft skills to ensure employability and job guarantee. On the other hand,
students' or graduates' individual responsibilities in developing their skills and being
adaptable will increase employability. In order to do so, regular satisfaction surveys
should be taken from main stakeholders, including employers, to investigate their
satisfaction levels, and to find out whether graduates meet the requirements of the
workplace. In the process, identify which skills can meet these requirements, and which
do not. From an organization’s perspective, employability refers to ‘work readiness’
(Shafie, 2010). Readiness is defined as the possession of the skills, knowledge, attitudes,
and commercial understanding that will enable new graduates to make productive
contributions to organizational objectives. Aiming to increase their graduates’
employability, many universities take internship programs, work placement, and
international collaboration into account (Clarke, 2017). Bist, Mehta¹, Mehta, and
Meghrajani, (2020) researched employers’ perceptions of students undergoing
internships to investigate their employability skills from employers’ perception.
Similarly, assessing graduates' workplace knowledge and skills from the employers'
perspective is essential in identifying employer satisfaction and determining whether
their graduates fully meet their work requirements in terms of skills and knowledge.
Therefore, there have been various researches on assessing university alumni skills and
employer satisfaction. This study has been designed to identify how the employers
perceive the UFE graduates’ skills and knowledge and how much they are satisfied with
their skills to be effectively qualified for the labor market. Concluding their study Chiu,
Mahat, Rashid, Razak, and Omar (2016) state that employers’ perceptions and
viewpoints should play an important role in conducting comprehensive assessments on
students’ or graduates’ knowledge and skills and should be shared with the university
administration.

II. STUDY OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

This study intends to assess UFE’s graduates’ skills by surveying their employers of
different managerial levels and find out what skills and knowledge are highly evaluated
and what employability skills need to be considered. The questionnaire was designed to
define employers’ perspectives and satisfaction from various managerial levels. This
study also seeks to identify further employers’ suggestions and recommendations for
better graduate outcomes and satisfaction. As a result of the study, we intended to find
out employers’ perspectives on UFE graduates’ skills and attitudes and identify concepts
for further improvement.

3268
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The research questions were as follows:

RQ 1: What knowledge and skills should students acquire from the employers'
perspectives to meet the job requirements?

RQ 2: What are the employers’ expectations at different organizational sizes?

III. DATA COLLECTION

The questionnaire was distributed to a total of 36 directors, executives, and managers

from 27 organizations, the majority of whom are directors (22.2%), executives (16.7%),
and marketing managers (11.1%). Within the scope of this study, qualitative data
collection was used. Employers' evaluations of graduates' skills, management level, and
organization size were thoroughly analyzed. Therefore, this study consisted of two
parts: first, an evaluation of employers' perceptions of UFE students' knowledge and
skills, and second, employers' perspectives at various managerial levels.

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The result reveals that employers’ perspectives on UFE graduates are positive, rating
graduates’ professional knowledge and skills with 3-4 points out of five (around
60-80%). The rating is relatively consistent, mostly 4, from the higher management
level or large organizations and corporations. Moreover, research results also showed
that the employers’ expectations of graduates’ skills differ due to the size of the
organizations.

Table 1 shows the knowledge that UFE students should acquire according to the
employers' perspectives.

Table I. Knowledge that UFE students should acquire

What knowledge and skills should UFE students acquire?

Valid Cumulative
Frequency Percent Percent Percent
Valid Practical knowledge 17 47.2 47.2 47.2
Attitude, 5 13.9 13.9 61.1
communication skills
Research and 1 2.8 2.8 63.9
analytical skills
General knowledge 6 16.7 16.7 80.6
IT skills 3 8.3 8.3 88.9
Nothing more 4 11.1 11.1 100.0
Total 36 100.0 100.0

The majority of the employers highlighted practical knowledge as the priority, followed
by general knowledge and attitude, and communication skills.

3269
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In terms of the skills, attitude and communications skills (38.9 %), research and
analytical skills (16.7), and professional skills were highly recommended as critical
skills that students should be acquired (See Table 2)

Table II. Skills that UFE students should acquire

What skills should UFE students acquire?

Valid Cumulative
Frequency Percent Percent Percent
Valid Practical skills 4 11.1 11.1 11.1
Attitude, communication 14 38.9 38.9 50.0
skills
Research and analytical 6 16.7 16.7 66.7
skills
Professional skills 5 13.9 13.9 80.6
Language skills 2 5.6 5.6 86.1
Nothing more 5 13.9 13.9 100.0
Total 36 100.0 100.0

In accordance with the basic and professional knowledge, the surveyed employers rated
each knowledge as more than 70% and numerically as more than 3.5, indicating that
UFE graduates have above-average basic and professional knowledge.

In terms of assessing general and professional knowledge, employers holding the

positions of general manager, department manager, marketing department manager,
head of the department, and human resource manager graded the graduates with 3-4
points (60-80%). In contrast, the director, founder, branch manager, and executive
director gave more than 4 points (above 80%).

UFE graduates' knowledge was assessed as 74.6% to 89.3% from large organizations,
71.4% to 85.7% from medium-sized organizations, and 64.2% to 82.8% from small
organizations.

A total of 36 employers surveyed rated the graduates of UFE graduates as having the
highest level of general knowledge (44.7%) including critical thinking skills,
professional and theoretical knowledge, and language skills. In terms of communication
skills, 18.1% indicates the graduates’ ability to express themselves, work in a team, and
communicate effectively. Regarding personal development, 27.7 rated it as
self-development, resilience, and willingness to learn.

Table III. Advantages of UFE’s graduates

Responses
N Percent Percent of Cases
Advantages General knowledge 42 44.7% 116.7%
Communication skill 17 18.1% 47.2%

3270
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Personal development 26 27.7% 72.2%

University prestige 2 2.1% 5.6%
Nothing 7 7.4% 19.4%
Total 94 100.0% 261.1%

For the question naming UFE graduates’ disadvantages, the majority of the employers
answered as follows:
- Professional knowledge. This includes the graduates' decision-making,
professional knowledge, initiative, ability to think creatively, and being overly based on
theory.
- Communication skills such as communicating, expressing themselves, and being
open.
- Practical skills
- Lack of emotional management. It indicates that graduates differ in their emotional
management.

Table IV Disadvantages of UFE’s graduates

Responses
N Percent Percent of Cases
Disadvantages Practical skills 14 21.5% 45.2%
Communication skills 16 24.6% 51.6%
Emotional management 6 9.2% 19.4%
Professional skills 25 38.5% 80.6%
Nothing 4 6.2% 12.9%
Total 65 100.0% 209.7%

Table V. Overall evaluation of UFE graduates’ knowledge by different size of

organizations

Corpor Mediu Small-siz

ations m-sized ed
enterpr enterpris
ises es

Responses N N N

Knowledge 4.1333 4.2857 3.9286

on
marketing

3271
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Knowledge 3.9333 4.1429 3.7143

on
developing
a
marketing
plan

Knowledge 4.0000 4.1429 3.7857

on
initiating
and
starting a
campaign

Knowledge 4.0667 4.1429 3.5000

on brand
manageme
nt

Knowledge 4.1333 4.0000 4.0714

on
professiona
l software

Knowledge 3.8000 3.5714 3.8571

on English

Knowledge 4.4667 4.2857 4.1429

on the
application
of
computer

Sales 3.7333 3.8571 3.2143

knowledge

Knowledge 4.2667 4.2857 3.9286

on
customer
communica
tion

Knowledge 3.8000 4.1429 3.6429

3272
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

on
developing
marketing
research
and data

The average score for marketing knowledge in a big corporation was between 3.70 and
4.46. In terms of sales skills, the employer concluded that it is lacking and ought to be
improved in both large and small-sized organizations. In medium-sized enterprises,
English language skill can not meet the requirements at the workplace while in small
companies, computer skill is the highest.

Table VI. Overall evaluation of UFE graduates’ skills and abilities by different sizes of
organizations

Corpor Medium Small-si

ations -sized zed
enterpri enterpri
ses ses

Responses N N N

Communicat 4.6667 4.4286 4.3571

ion skill

Leadership 4.0000 3.8571 3.6429

skill

Decision-ma 3.7333 3.4286 3.5000

king skill

Time 3.7333 3.5714 4.2857

managemen
t skill

Creative 4.0000 3.8571 4.0714

skill

Teamwork 4.3333 4.0000 4.0714

and
empathy

3273
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Problem 3.6000 3.5714 3.4286

solving skill

Analyzing 3.7333 4.1429 3.8571

skill

Workload 4.0000 4.0000 4.2143

managemen
t skill

Documentati 4.0000 4.0000 3.2143

on

Research 4.1333 4.2857 3.5000

skill

Self-expressi 4.2667 4.2857 4.0000

on

Critical 3.4000 3.5714 3.5714

thinking

Emotional 3.8000 3.7143 3.5714

intelligence

Adaptability 4.3333 4.1429 4.2143

Concluding 3.8000 3.8571 3.7857

and
reporting
skill

Word 4.4667 4.1429 4.0000

Excel 4.1333 4.0000 3.8571

PowerPoint 4.4000 4.1429 4.2143

SPSS 4.1333 3.8571 3.6429

3274
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In spite of the organization size, UFE graduates’ communication skill is exceptional from
an employer's perspective. On the other hand, critical thinking, decision-making, and
documentation skills are required in the workplace.

V. CONCLUSION
Thirty-six employers from 27 organizations participated in the questionnaire regarding
UFE graduates’ knowledge and skills. From the employers’ perspective, the knowledge
that students should acquire is practical knowledge, while positive attitudes and
communication skills should be improved. When dividing the participating
organizations into three categories; large, medium, and small, large organizations
assessed graduates’ communication, adaptability, and team working skills as the
highest, but assessed decision-making, analytical and critical thinking as the skills that
should be developed. In contrast, employers from middle-sized organizations identified
communication, research, and self-expression as the most developed skills, whereas
critical thinking, decision making, and time management skills were less improved.
From the employers’ assessment of small businesses, communication and time
management skills were regarded as well-developed, while problem-solving and
documentation skills were considered lower. To conclude, graduates’ knowledge and
skills are assessed differently depending on the organizational size, so higher education
institutions should conduct regular employer surveys from employers to put all the
employability skills into consideration for further consideration.
In addition, a survey should be conducted more regularly to determine not only the
level of employer satisfaction but also the knowledge and skills that demand
development in the workplace. Further research may emphasize more finding out the
differences between employers’ perspectives according to their managerial level.
Middle managers communicate with recent graduates more often, which may reveal
additional skills and knowledge that higher education institutions should prioritize.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the researchers and teachers of UFE’s Department of
Business Management for contributing to conducting the questionnaire and analyzing
data.

VII. REFERENCES

[1] Bist, S. S., Mehta, D., Harshadbhai Mehta, D., & Meghrajani, D. (2020). Employers’
perception regarding employability skills of management students undergoing
internship.
[2] Brits, H. J. (2018). Assessing employer satisfaction: An attempt to enhance graduate
employability at an institution of higher learning. South African Journal of Higher
Education, 32(5). https://doi.org/10.20853/32-5-2571
[3] Bowden, J et al. 2002, Generic capabilities of ATN university graduates
[http://www.clt.uts.edu.au/ATN.grad.cap.project.index.
[4] Chiu, L. K., Mahat, N. I., Rashid, B., Razak, N. A., & Omar, H. (2016). Assessing
students’ knowledge and soft skills competency in the Industrial Training
Programme: The employers’ perspective. Review of European Studies, 8(1), 123.
https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v8n1p123

3275
 SPECIALUSIS UGDYMAS / SPECIAL EDUCATION 2022 1 (43)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[5] Clanchy, J. and Ballard, B. (1995), ' Generic Skills in the context of Higher Education'
Higher Education Research and Development, Vol. 14, No. 2 P 155-166.
[6] Clarke, M. (2017), “Rethinking graduate employability: the role of capital, individual
attributes and context”, Studies in higher education, Vol.43 No. 11, DOI
10.1080/03075079.2017.1294152.
[7] Knight, P.; Yorke, M. Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education;
Psychology Press: Hove, UK, 2003; ISBN 020346527X.
[8] Shafie, L. A. (2010). Employability Awareness among Malaysian Undergraduates.
International Journal of Business and Management
[9] Succi, C. and Wieandt, M. (2 019), Walk the talk: soft skills’ assessment of graduates,
European Journal of Management and Business Economics, Vol.28, No. 2,
pp.114-125, DOI 10.1108/EJMBE-01-2019-0011
[10] Yorke, M. (2006). Employability in Higher Education: What It Is, What It Is Not.
The Higher Education Academy.

3276
Copyright of Special Education is the property of Special Education and its content may not
be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.