Diana Messum, Lesly Wilkes, Cath Peters, Debra Jackson (2017). Senior managers' and recent graduates' perceptions of employability skills for health services management. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 18(2), 115-128.
If work-integrated learning (WIL) is intended by universities to meet the demand for work-ready graduates, identification of skill requirements for development on placements is a critical part of the learning process. Health services management specific employability skills perceived to be important by managers and recent graduates working in the field and their perceptions of skills they need to improve are not readily available in the literature. This research acknowledges the context specific nature or employability skills. Senior managers and recent graduates working in health services management were identified from a placement data base used at a NSW university, and were emailed a common questionnaire. A total of 38 senior managers and 42 recent graduates completed emailed surveys, rating importance and skills observed for 44 employability skills items. Items were informed by the literature and content analysis of advertisements for graduate health management positions. There was strong agreement between the two groups on important employability skills, and the top seven items on which they agreed were all generic in nature. Skill gaps were also revealed, many of which recent graduates did not appear to recognize.