Integrated education practice in an accelerated world

Abstract

This practice work in progress presents the perception of employers regarding the skills graduates bring to the labor market and the strategies they implement to cope with soft skill problems. It draws on an original qualitative data gathered from interviews with human resources managers of 20 firms located in the North of Portugal, a region that has been engaged in a public initiative that attempts to solve skill gaps and deficits. The findings show that employers complain about soft skills and blame higher education institutions for their skill problems. The type of soft skills required by employers reveals different strategies. The employers sampled implement remedial strategies and turn to the expertise of consultancy and other specialized services to provide training for their recent graduates. Sometimes, higher education appears as a partner for critical knowledge development. Insisting on the need to strengthening the links between different institutions in Portugal, the text underlines the assumption that a multidisciplinary approach joining social sciences and humanities with technical fields of education should be fostered as one of the solutions to cope with soft skills gaps.