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The purpose of this paper is to explore graduate students’ perception of how soft skills are developed at a transnational university in Vietnam, and how these soft skills contribute to their perceived employability.

This study utilized a qualitative case study method. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 graduate students at Vietnamese–German University.

Findings suggest that faculty utilized classroom-based practices to provide students the opportunity to enhance soft skills that are perceived to contribute to employability, such as skills related to independent work, interpersonal relationships and the ability to work in global contexts. In addition, interacting with international faculty played a large part in providing students the opportunity to develop their independent skills, critical thinking, communication and cultural competence.

Implications include multiple approaches, including faculty training, curriculum development and learner preparation. Institutions must consider how their curriculum contributes to the development of soft skills and how international faculty are prepared to engage meaningfully with students, particularly within specific global and political contexts. In addition, graduate students must also be prepared to engage in a classroom that promotes group work, class presentations and independent work.

This study provides insight on how a transnational institution can foster soft skills for employability in graduate students in Vietnam. Considering the growth of collaborative transnational institutions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, findings and implications from this study provide recommendations on how to better prepare graduates for employability within a global economy.

The purpose of this paper is to study the self-perceptions of university information professionals about continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities regarding their soft skills.

A qualitative design using in-depth interviews was used. The population was all the information professionals working in the public sector universities of Pakistan, but the geographic range of the population, to reduce travelling expenses and to complete the study in time, the interviews were restricted to the universities of the capital city Islamabad and provincial capital Peshawar. A total of 21 interviews were conducted using a snowball sampling technique to select information professionals.

The findings revealed that only three information professionals attended CPD opportunities in soft skills. More than half of the information professionals stated that CPD programmes have an overall “good” impact on the development of their soft skills. Similarly, more than half of the participants stated that CPD training opportunities on soft skills are very limited. The majority of the participants held professional associations responsible for the development of information professionals’ soft skills. It was also found that communication and persuasion skills, self-management skills and interpersonal skills were the top three soft skill categories for which they urged CPD programmes.

During interviews, most of the Assistant Librarians were not expressive and comfortable. This might be because of a lack of their soft skills knowledge, poor communication skills and interview anxiety.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in Pakistan that dealt with the CPD opportunities regarding soft skills of university information professionals using a qualitative research design.

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 study is to evaluate the soft skill gap of graduate employees, as well as the factors influencing the skill gaps of real estate graduates in the employment of real estate firms in Nigeria.

Primary data were employed for the study. Close-ended questionnaire served on real estate employers in the two major property markets of Nigeria: Lagos and Abuja. From a total of 343 questionnaires administered, 172 (59.7%) questionnaires were retrieved. While data from the graduate employees were obtained via a web-based survey sent out to a total of 558 graduates, 119 (21.33%) responses were received. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were employed in the data analysis.

The findings showed that employers had high expectations for soft skillsets relating to responsibility, administrative, listening and communication skills. These have respective mean scores of 6.38, 6.33, 6.31 and 6.31 on a seven point scale. However, the results revealed significant skill gaps with skills such as logical thinking, business negotiation, responsibility and marketing. Further, the analysis revealed that factors influencing the skill gap, in decreasing order of influence, are training/professional mentors/remuneration, personal preferences/industry characteristics and curriculum/faculties.

Real estate graduate soft skills are investigated to uncover areas of emphasis and skill gaps. These outcomes could serve as important feedbacks for stakeholders towards improving real estate teaching and curriculum. The findings could also assist real estate graduates to know employers areas of emphasis in relation to graduate employability skills.

Extant studies have reiterated and evaluated the soft skills gaps based on the perceptions of employers, faculties and institutions of higher learning. However, there is the need to investigate the perception of graduate employees, being the recipient and major stakeholders in the training process.

The purpose of the study is to identify the soft skills and abilities that are crucial to success in the fields of operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM), using the O*NET database and the classification of a set of professional figures integrating values for task skills and abilities needed to operate successfully in these professions.

The study used the O*NET database to identify the soft skills and abilities required for success in OM and SCM industries. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the tasks required for the job roles and their characteristics in terms of abilities and soft skills. ANOVA analysis was used to validate the findings. The study aims to help companies define specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the job position.

As a result of the work, a set of soft skills and abilities was defined that allow, through correlation analysis, to explain a large number of activities required to work in the operations and SCM (OSCM) environment.

The work is inherently affected by the database used for the professional figures mapped and the scores that are attributed within O*NET to the analyzed elements.

The information resulting from this study can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for the roles of OM and SCM to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. The study aims to address the need to identify soft skills in the human sphere and determine which of them have the most significant impact on the OM and SCM professions.

The originality of this study lies in its approach to identify the set of soft skills and abilities that determine success in the OM and SCM industries. The study used the O*NET database to correlate the tasks required for specific job roles with their corresponding soft skills and abilities. Furthermore, the study used ANOVA analysis to validate the findings in other sectors mapped by the same database. The identified soft skills and abilities can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. In addressing the necessity for enhanced clarity in the domain of human factor, this study contributes to identifying key success factors. Subsequent research can further investigate their practical application within companies to formulate targeted growth strategies and make appropriate resource selections for vacant positions.

Transfer motivation has been identified as a pivotal factor influencing transfer of training. However, the role of training content has often been overlooked as explanatory variable for the rate of transfer motivation. This study aims to examine to what extent experiences in transfer motivation and its personal and contextual antecedents depend on whether the training content is soft or hard skill. To this end, this study used the perspective of the unified model of task-specific motivation.

A total of 1,122 trainees (462 soft skill and 660 hard skill) filled out a questionnaire representing the components of transfer motivation and its personal- and contextual antecedents. Data were analyzed by means of multi group structural equation modeling.

The results showed mean differences between soft- and hard-skill trainings in personal- and contextual antecedents of transfer motivation and for different types of transfer motivation. However, no differences in transfer intention were found.

The outcomes provide insight as to what practitioners and trainers could do in training design and work environments to raise personal and contextual antecedents and to what extent a differentiation should be made between soft- and hard-skill trainings. This can eventually help them in raising transfer motivation among trainees.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that examines whether experiences in personal and contextual antecedents of transfer motivation, transfer motivation and transfer intention differ for trainings consisting of different characteristics.

In today's ever-evolving digital job market, soft skills are increasingly important for university students to succeed in their future careers. This study identifies the soft skills that universities should prioritize the most due to their significance in the digital employment market.

Using natural language processing (NLP) techniques, this study analyzed 226 student writings that described their experiences of failure in academic, personal and professional settings. Zero-shot classification was utilized to identify the presence of soft skills and sentiment analysis was used to determine the expressed sentiment toward these skills.

The findings suggest that students are most deficient in social intelligence, stress management and self-intelligence skills, which are essential soft skills for success in academic and professional environments and for the transition to the digital employment market.

The article acknowledges limitations related to the writing proficiency of resumes from a few non-English speaking students and the potential influence of students' emotional states on the content of their writings.

The study provides valuable insights into the soft skills that are mostly lacking among university students and their significance in the digital employment market.

The study highlights the importance of universities in promoting and practicing essential soft skills and sheds light on the issue of soft skill deficiency among university students. Educators can use these insights to develop strategic proposals aimed at promoting the acquisition of key soft skills among students. The study provides valuable insights into the soft skills that are mostly lacking among university students and their significance in the digital employment market.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of soft skills for leadership and offers recommendations for soft skill development training for the next generation of leaders.

An integrated review of current research literature was conducted on management, leadership and soft skills to develop recommendations for integrating the development of soft skills in leadership development training protocol.

A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for soft skills development or measurement. Each soft skill is defined differently and should be assessed based on different behavioral actions. Progress in this area of measurement development will make a great impact on the use of soft skills. The development of assessment tools for the different soft skills across professional disciplines is assumed to enhance other aspects of transformational leadership such as coaching and mentoring.

Current strategies for the assessment and measurement of soft skills present an obstacle for including these skills in current leadership training models.

The paper includes implications for the development of soft skills for the next generation of leaders and offers recommendations for integrating the development of soft skills in leadership training programs.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how soft skills can be measured and assessed. This is important given that specific skills vary across professional disciplines and organizational contexts.

This study aims to investigate whether soft-skills trainers and hard-skills trainers have different perspectives regarding their required instructional knowledge and skills.

An online questionnaire was completed by 129 soft-skills trainers and 61 hard-skills trainers. The authors used 14 items covering relevant instructional knowledge and skills based on the training literature.

An exploratory factor analysis identified the following two factors: managing interactions and instructional activities. A multivariate analysis of variance showed significant differences in the assessments of managing interactions (p = 0.00) and instructional activities (p = 0.01) between soft- and hard-skills trainers. The differences in managing interactions were larger than those in instructional activities. The soft-skills trainers showed higher agreement with all items. Most individual items had medium effect sizes. The differing perspectives of soft- and hard-skills trainers are not an effect of different educational backgrounds.

These findings suggest that differences exist in the required instructional knowledge and skills depending on whether trainers teach soft or hard skills. Further research should consider the training content.

Practitioners can ensure that soft-skills trainers meet the respective requirements.

This study is the first to investigate the differences in soft- and hard-skills trainers’ perceptions of instructional requirements.

literature and research internationally indicate a lack of sufficient facilitation of soft skills development in entry-level internal auditors (internal audit graduates upon entering the workplace), although it is essential for entry-level internal auditors to be able to apply soft skills effectively. The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which these international views and findings on soft skills development are evident in South Africa according to practising internal auditors, students and facilitators. Comparisons are also drawn between the perceptions of practising internal auditors, students and facilitators.

Purposive sampling was used, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire and an interview survey with quantitative analysis.

In general, the results concur with the literature in terms of the lack of sufficient facilitation and the importance of soft skills development in entry-level internal auditors in South Africa for all three groups. Significant differences were also found between some of the perceptions of practising internal auditors, students and facilitators.

This study benefits internal audit employers, students and facilitators because soft skills are an in-demand graduate attribute and the application of alternative teaching–learning activities to develop students' soft skills also promotes deep learning through student engagement.

The identification of the 21 soft skills categories from the literature, which should be developed in entry-level internal auditors, has not been researched before as well as the perspectives of students and facilitators in South Africa on soft skills development.