"The problem of unemployed graduates has been widely discussed in recent times. One of the major causes identified is the lack of soft skills among graduates, which makes them unable to compete in the current competitive job market....
more"The problem of unemployed graduates has been widely discussed in recent times. One of the major causes identified is the lack of soft skills among graduates, which makes them unable to compete in the current competitive job market. Some of areas of soft skills, which seem to be lacking include critical thinking, communications, presentations, leadership, teamwork, interpersonal skills, management skills, time management and problem solving skills. This paper will discuss a collaborative approach between university and industry as one way to overcome the problems of lack of soft skills among graduates. Initial soft skills tests indicated some areas of soft skills that need to be improved. The idea is to get the industry to develop the soft skills among the students during their studies at university, as part of the industry’s corporate social responsibility. The industry player, who will be one of future employers of those graduates, can deliver the soft skills training according to the industry’s requirements. Apart from satisfying their corporate social responsibility, the industry will benefit in terms of more soft skills competent graduates made available as their future employees. For the university, the benefits would include having graduates with good soft skills to compete in the job market and to produce graduates that will fulfil industry’s requirements. Hence, the outcome of this university-industry collaboration is a win-win-win situation for university-industry-graduates.
Key-Words: Industry Ready Graduates, Soft skills Development, University-Industry Collaborations. "
