Skills Required of Business Graduates: Evidence from Undergraduate Alumni and Employers

Abstract

The results presented in this paper are the responses from 163 undergraduate business alumni of a target school and 45 New Jersey employers to questions to identify the writing, quantitative, and computer skills required at work. The questions were adapted from Western Carolina University’s Business Alumni survey. The results of the survey showed strong correlations with the writing tasks (r=0.989), quantitative tasks (r=0.942), and computer software (r=0.972) identified by both the alumni and the employers as being tasks required at work. E-mail, business letters, and memos were the most common written communication required at work. Budgeting, financial accounting, project management, and forecasting were most common quantitative skills required Word processing, spreadsheets, email, and world wide web were most common computer applications used. Based on these results the target school should consider modifying courses within the curriculum so that graduates have these competencies in the writing tasks, quantitative skills, and computer software identified as being required at work by the majority of alumni and employers surveyed.

Keywords: AASCB accreditation, accountability in higher education, skills, business graduates