Abstract:

It is common practice in High Technology Construction Companies in Nigeria to seek out the best practice procedures for their organizational abilities and competencies. As a result, they hire fresh graduates on a yearly basis in order to fill the dynamic vacuum that technology opens from time to time. The Universities are the training fields for these young minds and on a regular basis update their curriculum towards competing in the ever changing global market of opportunities and competition. Work and employability are often mixed use concepts because training is different from being employable. This paper investigated the characteristics of the Ind-CADETS (Industry Cadets) workforce of students of construction related disciplines of Covenant University and some selected high technology construction companies in Lagos Nigeria. This was done to get feedback from these construction companies on the types of skill set they require from fresh graduates from the universities towards making the graduates better suited for their work experiences after graduation. This was done by administering a well structured questionnaire and interviews for proper conclusion on the subject matter from a cross section of students from final year in Architecture, Building, and Estate Management of the 2016-2017 academic year and also from some selected high technology construction companies in Lagos. The data collected was statistically analysed with SPSS software and it showed that there was a gap in communication between the construction companies and the Universities on the types of skills set required for making the graduates fit effectively into the working environment. Software incompatibility and personality traits were seen as hindrances towards achieving this synergy. It was further discovered that University curriculum were missing the goal of achieving basic educational foundations for industry compatibility and employability.