An Exploratory Analysis of Required Soft Skills Towards Chinese Workplace Today

Abstract

© 2020 IEEE. With the expansion of college enrollment year by year in China, the number of college graduates has increased sharply, which causes the employment problem among graduates to become more and more challenging. Therefore, society and employers put forward higher requirements for the graduates, not only in academic talent, but also in other compound abilities. Appropriate soft skills play an important role in successful careers as well as social interactions. More and more organizations recognize how soft skills in the workplace differentiate great employees from good ones, so these skills are highly valued by employers looking for new graduates. The objective of this paper is to investigate and identify the common soft skills that occupationally required in the Chinese job market and academically fostered for graduates in Thailand. In this paper, the Chinese top 20 well-paid occupations are chosen as a research sample. An interview was carried out to know the soft skills enhancement requirement among Chinese students, content analysis based on O∗Net Content Model and National Qualification Framework (TQF) for Higher Education in Thailand were used in this process. Then the five-star scale questionnaire was used to define the most important soft skill. The findings are intended to make education institutes in Thailand better cultivate Chinese talent personnel to meet the needs of the Chinese job market.