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The accountant's role today has been dramatically expanded, that is, from being the steward of assets and preparer of financial statements to a more challenging one, namely, one who is involved in various areas of management. Hence in response to the changing needs of the business environment, potential employers of accounting graduates now seek additional qualities from the graduates, besides them being technically competent. Some of these qualities include possessing qualitative skills such as being more effective communicators, possessing strong leadership skills and being able to think logically and critically. An attempt is made in this research to determine the current scenario of potential employers of Malaysian accounting graduates, notably with respect to their requirements of qualitative skills. This is determined from an analysis of a sample of 500 classified advertisements from a major local daily, spanning a period of 12 months, namely July 1995 till July 1996. From this research, it was evident that besides seeking academic qualification, computer literacy and relevant working experience, the majority of potential employers required the accounting graduates to possess additional qualities such as leadership, motivation, innovative skills, being independent and able to work under pressure.

As a response to technological changes, globalization, sector reforms and changes in output demand, there is an increased demand for generic skills in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to investigate through perceptions of graduate employees and their employers on the extent to which university education in Nigeria is responding to the increased skills requirements of employers.

Data were collected by the use of two sets of questionnaires and purposive sampling technique was adopted for sample selection. Past surveys of employers on skills requirements in Nigeria were used as a reference in the selection of the 11 generic skills used in the instrument. Data were analysed using simple percentages, descriptive statistics and χ².

All the listed generic skills are regarded as important by graduate employers. The employed university graduates believed that in terms of generic skills, they were not adequately prepared to meet the requirements of their jobs. Moreover, employers believed that their graduate employees would require further training to a large extent to perform satisfactorily in their jobs.

Taking a divergent view, the study has established the perceptions of employed university graduates themselves on the extent to which university education has prepared them in meeting the skills requirements of their jobs. Furthermore, apart from confirming the extent of further training required, the study empirically affirms the relative training needs of graduates from different fields of study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what employers seek when recruiting library and information professionals in the UK and whether professional skills, generic skills or personal qualities are most in demand.

A content analysis of a sample of 180 advertisements requiring a professional library or information qualification from Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professional's Library + Information Gazette over the period May 2006‐2007.

The findings reveal that a multitude of skills and qualities are required in the profession. When the results were compared with Information National Training Organisation and Library and Information Management Employability Skills research, customer service, interpersonal and communication skills, and general computing skills emerged as the requirements most frequently sought by employers. Overall, requirements from the generic skills area were most important to employers, but the research also demonstrates that professional skills are still valued. An unanticipated demand for profession related experience was found: this was the single most frequently sought requirement in the advertisements analysed.

Although the Gazette is the largest source of library and information jobs, it does not provide a complete picture of the employment market.

The paper contributes to debates about the skillsbase of the profession, and raises awareness of the abilities professionals need to cultivate in order to progress through their careers.

The purpose of this paper is to learn more about demand for competences is crucial for revealing the complex relationship between employee selection, different strands of education and training and labor market regulation.

Content analysis and statistics of job advertisements.

Employer skills requirements even for low- and medium-skilled jobs are highly specific. Formal education requirements are higher than they “should” be. No detectable “basic package” of general cognitive skills for low- and medium-skilled jobs was found. Employer demand focusses on non-cognitive skills and specific cognitive skills. Specificity of skill requirement across different sectors or occupation groups differs vastly between different types of low- and medium-skilled jobs and is linked to the interactive nature of the job, not to the qualifications or the experience required.

The analysis can be considered an initial feasibility test for a larger comparative cross-country project that would aim to understand labor demand in different EU countries.

The analysis could be used as input in designing labor market policy and life-long learning programs to integrate low-skilled and unemployed.

The research provides a tool to match disadvantaged workers to jobs for which they possess greater capabilities or to help them develop crucial skills for a given occupation.

This paper contributes to the HRM literature with a more demand-led approach to labor market policy. The authors reveal what role skills and upskilling can play in alleviating the problem of unemployment. The results can be useful for HR specialists and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to inform the preparation of HRD professionals by providing an empirical analysis of the knowledge, skills, and responsibilities employers expect in the workplace.

This study reports a qualitative content analysis of online HRD job postings.

Results of this content analysis indicated that the most recent employer expectations for HRD practitioners as reflected in HRD-related job postings for knowledge and responsibilities were instructional design, training delivery, learning management systems, and learning technologies. The outcomes reinforced that employers specifically expect education technology-based knowledge and skills.

The job postings included in the study were all collected from one source, the Association for Talent Development job site.

Educational programs can use these findings to inform curricular decisions related to knowledge and skills to be taught and practiced during the preparation of L&D practitioners and HRD professionals.

This paper analyzes online HRD job postings to understand what knowledge and skills employers expected from L&D practitioners and HRD professionals.

This paper demonstrates the need to anticipate employers’ future skills requirements, and shows how London Skills Forecasting Unit is addressing this problem. The paper first suggests that employers require advice and labour market intelligence in order to determine their skill requirements effectively, and to ensure their future competitiveness. It then shows that educational and training institutions also need to anticipate employers’ requirements, and so supply side institutions also need to anticipate employers’ skills demand. Finally, some theoretical evidence for skills forecasting is presented together with some practical developments of forecasting techniques undertaken by the Unit.

Most of the studies carried out on human factor in software development concentrate primarily on personality traits. However, soft skills which largely help in determining personality traits have been given comparatively little attention by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether employers' soft skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, within different roles of software development, are similar across different cultures.

The authors review the literature relating to soft skills before describing a study based on 500 job advertisements posted on well‐known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The study makes use of nine defined soft skills to assess the level of demand for each of these skills related to individual job roles within the software industry.

It was found that in the cases of designer, programmer and tester, substantial similarity exists for the requirements of soft skills, whereas only in the case of system analyst is dissimilarity present across different cultures. It was concluded that cultural difference does not have a major impact on the choice of soft skills requirements in hiring new employee in the case of the software development profession.

Specific studies concerning soft skills and software development have been sporadic and often incidental, which highlights the originality of this work. Moreover, no concrete work has been reported in the area of soft skills and their demand as a part of job requirement sets in diverse cultures, which increases the value of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to overcome the problems that skill mismatch cannot be measured directly and that demand side data are lacking. It relates demand and supply side characteristics by aggregating data from jobs ads and jobholders into occupations. For these occupations skill mismatch is investigated by focussing on demand and supply ratios, attained vis-à-vis required skills and vacancies’ skill requirements in relation to the demand-supply ratios.

Vacancy data from the EURES job portal and jobholder data from WageIndicator web-survey were aggregated by ISCO 4-digit occupations and merged in a database with 279 occupations for Czech Republic, being the only European country with disaggregated occupational data, coded educational data, and sufficient numbers of observations.

One fourth of occupations are in excessive demand and one third in excessive supply. The workforce is overeducated compared to the vacancies’ requirements. A high demand correlates with lower educational requirements. At lower occupational skill levels requirements are more condensed, but attainments less so. At higher skill levels, requirements are less condensed, but attainments more so. Educational requirements are lower for high demand occupations.

Using educational levels is a limited proxy for multidimensional skills. Higher educated jobholders are overrepresented.

In Europe labour market mismatches worry policy makers and Public Employment Services alike.

The authors study is the first for Europe to explore such a granulated approach of skill mismatch.

Whilst English remains the language of global commerce, the role and outcomes of English language provision in English-medium higher education institutions in the Arab Gulf countries remains central to any discussion on graduate profile and the employability of graduates in the global marketplace. This paper describes the findings of research into English workplace communication skills amongst a sample of Bahrain employers and students at Bahrain Polytechnic. Using a mixed methods approach, data was gathered through telephone interviews, student workplace simulations and employer focus groups. Findings show that generic employability skills, channelled through English as a second or additional language, are highly valued by Bahrain’s employers. In particular, students need to market themselves as confident, knowledgeable individuals during the recruitment process and after recruitment, continuing to operate successfully in the sociolinguistic culture of their company. Consequently, it is concluded that English language training in higher education programmes needs to move from purely linguistic and degree-related content areas to a broader remit of English for communication purposes that covers both specialised discourse fields and broader generic employability skills and competencies.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research carried out with employers to determine demand for business and management skills in the Scottish workforce.

The research used a questionnaire in which employers were interviewed (either telephone or face to face), completed themselves and returned by e-mail, or completed an online survey. In total, 71 employers took part in the study.

The research found that the factors which are most important to employers when recruiting graduates were; personal attitude, employability skills, relevant work experience and degree result. The most important transferable skills to employers when recruiting graduates were; trustworthiness, reliability, motivation, communication skills and a willingness to learn.

The paper shows the importance of graduates developing excellent job searching skills, high-quality work experience and developing business courses to enhance students’ employability and better meet employers’ wants.

The paper is timely given the introduction of Key Information Sets. The provision of such information will drive HEI to further develop students’ employability to obtain graduate-level jobs.