Abstract:

Graduate employability is a well-covered topic. While there are several studies around employability, few exist in the field of technology. There are even fewer studies that talk about the importance of soft skills in relation to the employability of technical graduates. Then there are others that indicate a disagreement within the academic community around the consideration of soft skills as actual ‘skills’. Despite of this disagreement, the industry places a greater stock in the value of soft skills. Industry perceptions clearly indicate the need for more of soft skills development at the university level.

Soft skills are gaining widespread acceptance in the technology sector, more and more job ads are explicit about them. In this paper we present results of our study of 20 (3 female and 17 male) Computer Science and Information Technology academics’ perspectives of employability and associated skills-related discussion. While some academics agreed that soft skills can be taught, others did not. Some were confused around the set of particular soft skills needed for technology graduates, others talked about higher order thinking skills. Findings highlighted a wide spectrum of opinions around the teaching of soft skills in a course curriculum. Data revealed that the majority of academics were not clear about the implementation of soft skills in their teaching. Limitations of the study and implications for future research will be discussed.

Keywords:

Employability, Computer Science Graduates, Soft Skills.