Annotated Bibliography on “Are Business Students Work-Ready”

            This article puts its focus on the fact that if undergraduates coming from educational institutes are good enough to work in real world situations, and do they have good enough employability skills. It has been observed by the industry that employability skills shown by majority graduates are not good enough to meet the standards of the industry. So, authors did this primary research to know the real facts. So, 1008 number of business graduates was selected for an online survey to get their views on their employability skills and competence to work in the business industry. The multiple regression techniques were used to analyze the data, and results were taken. It was found that all the stakeholders are responsible for lack of employability skills off business graduates, and they must all work together to enhance the skill set of these business graduates. It was also found out that skill development is the most important thing needed in this regard. So, overall, the article is a good one for all stakeholders to understand current situation, and work collaboratively for making improvements in the future so that business graduates are better in their skill set.

Wilton, Nick. "Do Employability Skills Really Matter in the UK Graduate Labour Market? The Case of Business and Management Graduates." Work Employment & Society 25, no. 1 (2011): 85-100.

            The author focused on the fact in this article that in graduate labour market of UK; is there any importance for the employability skills of the employees. The business as well as management graduates were kept in view for this particular study. To check the hypothesis of the research, the author selected survey research methodology for this study. One of the surveys was conducted by a team of University of Warwick and University of the West of England, and this article used the data of that survey for the discussion. The results of the study were quite interesting as it was found that reported skills development of business graduates have not only been inconsistent, but it has also showed that in terms of rewarding work with appropriate opportunities, there was too much variation for business & management graduates. The study also found that there was the presence of unequal labour market opportunities for UK business & management graduates, and things were far from its panacea. The article throws light on some important aspects that even business graduates may come up with good employability skills, but they still face issues of inequality in the labor market of UK.

JACKSON, DENISE. "Business graduate employability – where are we." Higher Education Research and Development 32, no. 5 (2013): 776-790.

            The focus of this research article is on the employability of business graduates that what the current situation is; so that future path can be decided accordingly. The article reveals the fact that business graduates have shown gaps for various non-technical skills, which means that global competitiveness and organizational performance is has been impacted a lot. It is true that business schools are making viable efforts in this regard, but still stakeholders don’t test these skills to measure outcomes before graduates work in the business organizations. The author believes that stakeholders mistakenly think that skills will automatically be transferred in these graduates and they will show it at the workplace, but it cannot be done without proper mechanism of training and learning to measure outcomes. This article has given proposal for a model of employability, which would come up with the appropriate process. The proposed model in this article has identified the need for attitudinal change as well as role of continued progress to be made in measuring non-technical skills of graduates in university as well as workplace so that required changes can be made in the strategy.

McArthur, Ellen, Krzysztof Kubacki, Bo Pang, and Celeste Alcaraz. "The Employers’ View of “Work-Ready” Graduates: A Study of Advertisements for Marketing Jobs in Australia." Journal of Marketing Education 39, no. 2 (2017): 82-93.

            These authors have shifted their focus from researchers to employers that what they think about the work-ready graduates and how marketing jobs in Australia are marketed in this regard. It is true that earlier the researchers have always tried to dig out facts and get their views and conclusions on the issue of work-ready graduates, but this article has focused on views of employers rather researchers, which is good to get an idea from the real business world. So, 359 ads of marketing jobs were taken for this research and content analysis was done over the period of 6 months in two parts. The results from the content analysis of these ads showed that there were few most demanded and required attributes by employers from potential work-ready employees, and some of these attributes were digital marketing experience, communication skills, time management, and motivation etc. These attributes have certainly raised questions that if only these aspects are needed by work-ready graduates, then why they should complete graduate degree, because all of these are kind of non-technical skills. The article also shows the need for more research in Australia for the topic of underdeveloped employability.

Masole, Lindiwe, and Gideon van Dyk. "Factors influencing work readiness of graduates: An exploratory study." Journal of Psychology in Africa 26, no. 1 (2016): 70-73 .

            In this particular research study, the researchers have focused their attention on the fact that which factors play their part in work readiness of graduates as well as post graduate students of social sciences. The study was based on empirical research so it was important to collect data from students, so researchers chosen students of Makerere University from Uganda and University of Venda from South Africa, and 183 students were selected for this particular study. The students were asked to fill Orientation to Life Questionnaire as well as Psychological Capital Questionnaire based on Genos Emotional Intelligence (EI) Inventory. So, to predict the work-readiness of these graduates through this collected data, regression analysis was used. After analyzing the data, the study suggested that psychological capital (PsyCap) and emotional intelligence (EI) are the two important factors to predict about work-readiness of graduates. It was also found that predictions made by SOC (manageability, meaning) and PsyCap (optimism, hope, efficacy) were modest in nature. The overall results from the research have been good enough to predict and analyze the work-readiness of graduates.