Global competencies for higher education graduates : priorities and opportunities for the labour market

Abstract

Internationalization of Higher Education (HE) has direct implications on adapting the curricula and providing the skills and abilities needed by graduates on the labour market. In this regard, in recent years, universities and researchers have undertaken studies in order to identify the skills that their graduates need in order to be competitive on the labour market. Literature recognizes a range of skills and abilities that are gathered under the term of global competences and are needed by the young graduates both in the recruitment process and in their future career. Also, studies have shown that the graduates with high skills and abilities have mobility on the labor market and are able to work in a variety of cultural contexts. Thus, for universities, it is of interest to identify which are the global competences needed by their students. This paper will present an analysis of students’ demand for global competences in the fields of economy and social sciences. To this end, we selected 140 students from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies - Faculty of International Business and Economics and 170 students from the National University of Political Sciences and Public Administration - Faculty of Communication and Public Relations, and we administered an online survey regarding the global competences that students believe are valuable for their future workplace and in the recruitment process.