Personal Transferable Skills and the Job Demands on Graduates

The research reported here attempts to identify the personal skills which are important in the early years of graduate employment. The results are based on responses from over 250 business and law graduates in the UK. When discussing the results a number of practical considerations for employers are highlighted. These include the importance of defining precise skill requirements and their relationship with attitudinal and knowledge‐based competences. The results suggest that some differences in skill requirements exist between employment sectors, and this may have implications for attempts to identify general managerial competences.