Font Size: 

This presentation and paper describe a Work Force Readiness research project at Holy Family University.  The project was designed to assess the hard and soft skills sought by Philadelphia-area employers, with the intention of incorporation of the results into curriculum design.

 

The paper reviews prior skills surveys at the national and regional levels and highlights some unique aspects of the final Holy Family University survey, such as division of skills into three categories (soft skills, function skills, and technical skills).  The primary contribution of the research is asking the respondents for comparison of importance of a skill and the presence of the skills in hires of recent college graduates, as most surveys ask only for one aspect of a skill or the other.  The findings of the survey are examined at the category level and by skill level, for soft, technical, and functional skills, including details of the statistical study. The paper concludes with some recommendations for teaching and curriculum development, along with areas for further research.

 

Conference attendees will benefit from this session by learning the process used by the researchers and how to implement change at their institutions.  In the short run, attendees immediately learn some important considerations regarding skills that their institutions graduates need to be marketable in the business realm.

critical thinking; workforce readiness, problem solving, hard skills, soft skills