Companies, Competences and Graduates’ Selection Processes: an Attempt to Quantify

Summary

The assessment of the employment potential of University graduates represents a direct evolution of the quality evaluation of higher education systems. This paper aims to identify competences that companies, which subscribed the Vulcano-database, require when selecting graduates for employment. Our analysis consists of two parts: one in which a quantitative score is associated through Rasch analysis to the companies’ interest with respect to four classes of characteristics and competences they take into consideration when selecting candidates. In the second part, we apply a segmentation analysis to check whether there is correspondence between companies that prefer certain university degrees and the interest levels towards the characteristics and competences so quantified.

In this joint work, M. Civardi was responsible for the final editing of Sections 3, whereas E. Zavarrone was responsible for the other Sections.