Graduate Attributes, Workplace Readiness and Students’ Employability: Inputs in Developing Career Development Plan

The world of work is constantly changing due to significant digital innovations that require current and future workers to evaluate their skills that would match the constantly evolving demand of the industry. Several studies emphasized the need to assess and address the skills gaps of future workers in terms of employability, job readiness, and graduate skills aligned with industry requirement. This study was conducted to assess the graduate attributes, workplace readiness, and students’ employability as the basis in conceptualizing a career development plan. A descriptive method of research was applied using questionnaires as a source for data gathering. A total of 391 graduating students participated in this study. The questionnaire consisted of three parts that centers on the assessment of graduate attributes, workplace readiness, and employability of the

graduating students. Weighted Mean and Ranking, Shapiro-Wilk Test, and Spearman’s rho were used for

statistical analysis. The results revealed that the graduating students perceived to have strong graduate attributes in terms of competency, commitment, credibility, collaboration and caring. The perceived credibility of the graduating students was the strong indicator in the high level of graduate attributes. Moreover, the graduating students demonstrated a strong workplace readiness wherein their overall personality was a strong indicator of being job-ready individuals. The perceived employability of the graduating students presents a strongly agreeable result in this study. The labor market knowledge and expectation were the highest contributor in the high level of employability. There is a significant relationship between the graduate attributes and workplace readiness and vice versa. Therefore, the higher is the level of graduate attributes, the higher is the level of workplace readiness. Moreover, this study proved that a significant relationship exists between workplace readiness and employability. Thus, the higher is the level of workplace readiness, the higher is the level of students’ employability. It was also confirmed that graduate attributes were significantly related to the employability of the graduating students. Hence, the higher is the level of graduate attributes, the higher is the level of students’ employability. The researcher proposed a career development plan for the college students based on the results of the study.

 Keywords – Graduate Attributes, Workplace Readiness, Students’ Employability