Graduates’ perceptions and employers’ expectations: Essential skills in Hong Kong workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

Skills in the workplace before the pandemic

There is a wealth of existing research that was conducted prior to the pandemic that focused on the skills that new graduates are expected to have when entering the workforce after university. This literature distinguishes between two different kinds of skills—hard skills and soft skills. The exact classifications of each skill vary across studies, but we draw on Robles’ (2012: 453) definition, wherein she labels hard skills as “the technical expertise and knowledge needed for a job”, and soft skills as “interpersonal qualities, also known as people skills, and personal attributes that one possesses.” A range of different qualities have been defined by scholars as constituting soft skills, including collaboration, communication, and leadership (Munir, 2022; Pang et al., 2019; Robles, 2012; Urciuoli, 2008). That is, hard skills are related to the specific tasks that one must undertake in their industry. Soft skills are harder to delimit, but consensus centers around their status as personality, cognitive, and relational abilities (Munir, 2022; Robles, 2012). New graduates entering the workforce are expected to have strengths in these kinds of skills so they can present and ‘market’ themselves as employable (Urciuoli, 2008). When applying for jobs, new graduates are increasingly required to become “worker-self-as-skills-bundle[s],” whereby they define and promote their skills to employers in order to be recruited (Urciuoli, 2008: 211). Thus, graduates must acquire and demonstrate their hard and soft skills to be successful in the labor market (Suleman and Laranjeiro, 2018; Urciuoli, 2008).

Research has focused on explicating what constitutes each kind of skill and the exact skills that employers want from prospective employees (Kinsella and Waite, 2021; Pang et al., 2019; Robles, 2012). However, a weakness of such studies is that they are often simply definitional. That is, these studies provide taxonomies and lists of the skills that employers want from graduates (Collet et al., 2015; Matsouka and Mihail, 2016; Touloumakos, 2020, 2022). We go beyond such approaches and instead provide insights into employer’s and new graduates’ perceptions and reasoning about why hard and soft skills are important in COVID-19 workplaces and in a post-COVID era.

The research on workplace skills is diverse but demonstrates several recurrent findings, mostly regarding the different attitudes and perceptions of employers and (prospective) employees. For instance, studies have shown that students and graduates often believe that they have strengths in skills in which employers actually view them as being weak (Matsouka and Mihail, 2016; Pang et al., 2019; Stewart et al., 2016). Another robust finding is that employers often require skills that prospective employees do not possess (Arvanitis et al., 2022; Ayodele et al., 2021; Damoah et al., 2021; Suleman and Laranjeiro, 2018). Understanding and ‘closing’ such gaps is crucial for enabling graduates to have a smooth and fruitful entry to the workforce.

Hard skills have become important as society and workplaces have undergone rapid technologization—or the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (Olšanová et al., 2022: 807). Across industries, workplaces are increasingly characterized by a wealth of technologies. However, the extent of technologization will depend on the industry. Soft skills are also arguably increasingly important in the workplace. Some scholars have posuted that soft skills may in fact be more important in contemporary workplaces relative to hard skills (Deming, 2017; Munir, 2022; Urciuoli, 2008). For example, many jobs now require employees to interact with a range of people and across industries, and thus, having good soft skills is necessary for such positions (Munir, 2022).

Soft skills are important for new graduates seeking out their first full-time jobs. A survey of Hong Kong employers (commissioned by the Education Bureau) revealed that they assigned high importance to skills such as attitudes toward work and communication by graduates (MOV Data Collection Center, 2022). Some businesses cite prospective employees’ soft skills as a crucial factor in making decisions about whether to hire them or not (de Lange et al., 2023). Even if employees with weak soft skills are hired, there is disagreement amongst both scholars and the businesses that they have researched about whether such abilities can be adequately trained. Some studies claim that soft skills cannot be ‘trained’ (Robles, 2012), whilst others have noted that these skills can be cultivated (Andreas, 2018; Josten and Lordan, 2021). Studies have also shown a deficiency in prospective employees’ soft skills. Namely, that they—from the perspective of employers—do not have strong interpersonal skills (Andreas, 2018; Arvanitis et al., 2022; Olšanová et al., 2022). A contribution of our study is to explore both graduates’ and employers’ perspectives for why such a deficit in soft skills may be influenced by factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those that are usually developed naturally through physical interaction.

Skills in the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic changed where people worked, the medium through which they worked, and how they communicated with colleagues. These changes may be lasting—as the pandemic ends, hybrid working is arguably becoming more commonplace. We are only just beginning to understand how the pandemic has impacted the skills that are valued by employers and expected of employees during such crises and in a changed working environment. Given the increased reliance on digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers are expected to be proficient in hard skills such as technical expertise and using various forms of technological media (Ferreira et al., 2023; Karaca et al., 2022). Studies have shown that some industries placed a greater emphasis on employees having effective soft skills such as “autonomy and collaboration” (Thompson and Soccio, 2022: 134) during the pandemic. Yet, other studies have claimed that businesses were increasingly expecting strong soft skills from prospective and current employees even before the pandemic started (Ferreira et al., 2023; Josten and Lordan, 2021).

To center soft skills specifically, one reason that they gained importance during the pandemic was because of remote working, which created the requirement that workers had to interact and collaborate with their colleagues ‘at a distance’ (Ferreira et al., 2023; Josten and Lordan, 2021). While some employers and businesses have reported devoting increased resources towards improving their workers’ soft skills, others have claimed that it was difficult to train such abilities during the pandemic (Ferreira et al., 2023). Specifically, as soft skills are often acquired face-to-face in the workplace, work-from-home policies curtailed the possibility for many workers to improve these capabilities (Andreas, 2018; Ferreira et al., 2023). Our work extends these existing findings by exploring why remote learning, in a university context, might be responsible for new graduates’ perceived soft skill deficits.

Aims and objectives

This paper examines the skills viewed as important in the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of both new (and soon-to-be) graduates and employers. In addition, we also explore how these perceptions changed as a result of the pandemic.

Necessity of hard and soft skills

When entering the Hong Kong workforce during the pandemic, graduates felt that they were expected to possess excellent hard and soft skills. Both kinds of skills were viewed as equally important. Of course, we found that the exact skills that were viewed as important differed by industry, as is emphasized below:

The most important ones would be obviously leadership and people who can take an initiative and also obviously teamwork skills because especially in the ((name of industry)) industry, you have to work with the team. So, it’s kind of essential that you then play well with others also. You don’t dominate discussions, you hear everyone out. And also, some general background skills in the business world, like some business acumen and also like some a little bit of technical skill. But I don’t think they place too much emphasis on it, just like Excel (Graduate 52).

This interviewee was about to graduate and was detailing their perspective on the skills that would be needed for a prospective career in their chosen industry. Hard skills that are more technical in nature were also cited as important, with the interviewee highlighting industry-specific skills such as “business acumen”. However, the excerpt also reveals qualities that interviewees cited as constituting soft skills in our study, such as, leadership, collaboration, and a personable communication style. We also found that some more ‘generic’ hard skills were cited as important, such as an ability to work with different computer programs and software.

Employers also placed an emphasis on the necessity for graduates being proficient in hard and soft skills. That is, those who were responsible for helping fresh graduates adjust to their workplaces also highlighted the need for well-rounded new employees. On the one hand, employers expected graduates to have strong soft skills,

But talking about soft skills, I think it is highly related to how they network with people, how to gain help from people, how they ask for help from people. Right. So I think sometimes if they can’t really communicate-the egoistic way is that if that they have really high ego and they can’t collaborate and then it will come up to a lot of failure case during their early careers. That’s how I will put it. (Employer 3)

Across the interviews with employers, soft skills were defined in terms of graduates’ interpersonal and communicative abilities (Touloumakos, 2022; Urciuoli, 2008). In their interviews, employers defined soft skills as intersubjective in nature. In the excerpt above, the employer claims that deficiencies in these abilities are visible in how some graduates are unable to effectively communicate with others and that they are self-centered (“egoistic”). Thus, soft skills are part-and-parcel of how you relate with others in the workplace. In addition, graduates that lack soft skills can encounter problems when entering the workforce, with the employer above stating one consequence, “[they] will come up to a lot of failure case during their early careers.” Such consequences further underscore the necessity for fresh graduates to obtain these requisite skills before, or while, finding full-time work.

There is an expectation from employers that graduates possess some proficiency in using technology,

I think they really have to know the technical skills. But for companies in general these days, even for business students or whatever majors, I think all companies are talking about digital transformations. So, regardless of whether you enter a corporate or you enter a bank, I think all employers are looking for students who at least know how to do digital transformations. At least you know the applications, how to make it happen. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is one of the areas that I think students should equip themselves with these wealth of knowledge or project experience or whatever (Employer 6).

This employer acknowledges that the rapid technologization of work (Olšanová et al., 2022) has resulted in a necessity for new graduates to know how to use digital technologies (“digital transformations […] know the applications”). Notably, this employer attributes the responsibility for acquiring these skills squarely with fresh graduates, “students should equip themselves with these wealth of knowledge” (sic). This attribution underscores a belief that upon leaving tertiary education, new graduates are expected to have honed these skills, or at least have taken steps to develop them themselves.

Drawing together the findings from this theme, one unifying thread is the construction of an ‘ideal worker.’ This hypothetical person needs to be ‘the whole package,’ not just proficient in technical expertise but also personable in engaging with colleagues in the workplace. This construction is similar to Urciuoli's (2008: 211) notion of a “worker-as-self-skills-bundle,” whereby prospective employees are expected to demonstrate their capabilities to employers. Thus, both graduates and employers constructed the ideal worker in this way, as someone who comes from university ‘fully formed’ with all these skills already developed.

Disjuncture between university and the workplace

Graduates need to possess soft and hard skills. However, the skills that graduates may have acquired during their university education do not neatly ‘map onto’ what is expected of them in the workplace. In other words, these skills are not immediately and easily transferable to an employment context. As such, a theme was developed from the data that we labelled a disjuncture between university and the workplace in terms of the skills expected of graduates (see also Zayts-Spence et al., 2023).

This theme was reflected in moments in the interviews where employers were asked about the weaknesses of the interns and graduates that they recruit and employ,

Interviewer: Why are they not so good? What are some of the things that they’re not so good at?

Employers, such as the one above, linked graduates’ weaknesses in communication skills to the different contexts of university and work (“different setup”). In the instance above, this difference lies with the people who graduates worked with in these settings—namely, students and professionals. Specifically, graduates have to adjust their soft skills in line with their environments and “expectations.” Employers provided various reasons about why this disjuncture might exist. In the above excerpt, the employer’s answer implies that some degree of maturity is required. Specifically, graduates will have to deal with people in higher positions of power (“senior executives”), and thus, the communication styles that might have sufficed with fellow students at university are not appropriate with their superiors in the workplace.

Graduates are also keenly aware of this disjuncture. When asked about the skills that would be necessary for them to have in the workplace, one interviewee responded,

I think the ability to communicate and work well in the team, I think that is something-it's not something I struggle with, but it is hard to deal with when you don't necessarily have a good teammate perhaps, or a cooperative group. I feel like that is something that I want to learn more about how to deal with people and how to deal with certain situations and stress or work, especially later on in the workforce. It’s not something like a group project in school where you can change groups or you can pull all-nighters or you can get extensions, for example, or get more assistance. I feel like in the workforce, when you have a group task, if you don’t get this done, then you are going to jeopardize the entire project for everyone else. I feel like that is- So, teamwork and the ability to keep yourself on track so you don’t damage other people’s, you don't waste other people’s time as well (Graduate 32).

This participant’s answer reflects an awareness amongst our interviewees that graduates’ communication skills can be improved upon (“that is something that I want to learn more about”). In stating this improvement, there appeared to be an understanding amongst graduate interviewees that their soft skills may not be up to ‘workplace standards.’ The excerpt above also reveals the difference between universities and workplaces that we found in our data. Namely, that these contexts have unique contingencies, and thus, require different soft skills. In this excerpt, it is evidenced by the university being characterized by flexibility, support, and low stakes. In contrast, the workplace is characterized by higher stakes and collective responsibility.

Our interviewees agreed that graduates could not approach work like they did in university. In responding to a question about their expectations of graduates, an employer stated,

I think it’s all about attitude. Yeah, I think attitude ((inaudible)) I mean, for fresh graduates, of course, we don’t expect he’s like a blank paper. We can train them. Honestly, we were happy to provide trainings. We are happy to provide hands on experience to all these graduates. It doesn’t really matter, but, the key is they really have the right attitude to learn to work with the people. I think this is the most important. If you are very smart and you have a very high GPA ((inaudible)) 4.3, graduate with honours, whatever, but your attitude is not good, we are unable to hire you. And then even [if] we hire you, and then you will leave very soon because we cannot get along with people. So, all in all, I think attitude is most important (Employer 6).

In this excerpt, the employer makes a distinction between the different values of the university and workplace. For graduates in university, intelligence and the resulting good grades are important skills and outcomes. In contrast, in the workplace, soft skills (“attitude” and “get[ing] along with people”) are imperative. Again, this employer’s remarks reflect the wider finding of a disjuncture between skills in the different contexts. In all, what these sorts of perspectives reflect is that the transition from university and into work is not seamless.

A final finding within this theme was that, despite this disjuncture, employers were willing to invest resources to provide training to graduates in developing their skills. This point is evidenced in the above excerpt when the employer states, “we are happy to provide hands on experience to all these graduates.” The willingness of organizations to train graduates in skills is underpinned by a recognition that not doing so may have an adverse impact. For instance, without effective soft skills and technical expertise, graduates may not cope effectively in the workplace and “will leave very soon.”

Strengths in hard skills

Both of the themes explicated so far are not necessarily clearly underpinned by the effects of the pandemic. These themes are likely to some extent determined by university-to-work transitions in Hong Kong more generally. However, the final two themes that we explore in this section are explicitly tied to what occurred during the pandemic and it remains to be seen to what extent they persist in post-COVID-19 workplaces.

The first of these themes is the strengths in hard skills that graduates demonstrated during the pandemic. Indeed, graduates reported self-perceived proficiencies in using different technologies, mainly because they were so accustomed to doing so. As one student who was about to graduate stated, “because of COVID I’m able to use Zoom without any trouble” (Graduate 50). This self-proclaimed proficiency is perhaps unsurprising given that there were extended periods during the pandemic when universities in Hong Kong instituted remote learning policies (Chan et al., 2022; Ho et al., 2021).

Employers also recognized that graduates in Hong Kong demonstrated strong technical skills. In fact, these graduates’ hard skills were sometimes described by employers as providing benefits to the workplace itself:

Frankly speaking, some of the students, some of the graduates because they are very familiar with the technology nowadays some of the time they will recommend some of the new solution[s] to us. (Employer 5).

Graduates and employers explained that these strong hard skills were specifically the result of the wide-ranging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, when we pressed one employer to elaborate upon his opinion of the graduates that they hired having advanced technical skills, he stated:

I think they probably became better if anything because everyone’s remote working, everyone has a laptop, even our secretaries now have a laptop that they can take home. And this all happened because of COVID. (Employer 2).

The pandemic led to fundamental changes in how workplaces and work were organized. In Hong Kong, many companies instituted work-from-home policies which required employees to do their jobs remotely over the computer (Vyas and Butakhieo, 2021). Those people graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic were expected to have strong hard skills for two reasons. First, they were well accustomed to forms of digital technology due to their remote learning experiences at university. Second, when entering a newly “reconfigured workplace” (Willis Towers Watson, 2020: 3) these graduates conducted the vast majority of their work through computer-mediated means. Thus, everything that these graduates did became centered around, and mediated by, forms of technology. In all, our interviewees accounted for graduates’ strong hard skills as a result of them being so accustomed to forms of technology during the pandemic.

Deficit in soft skills

The second theme that our interviewees explicitly linked to being an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was a supposed deficit in soft skills on the part of graduates (see also Zayts-Spence et al., 2023). Yet, graduates and employers constructed this deficit in different ways. Firstly, graduates felt that their soft skills had been negatively impacted by the changes to their university education because of the pandemic. When we asked a student whose graduation was imminent how prepared they felt for the workforce, they answered:

I think I don’t really feel prepared at all because obviously when we transition into the workforce, it won’t always be working from home. So, I feel like the time where we were forced to study online and to really like- COVID really forced us to develop skills where we have to concentrate at a home area, it doesn’t really help with that transition into the workforce. I don’t think I can apply a lot of those skills when I do graduate and get a job because I will have to interact with other people, I will have to learn how to communicate with people in real life rather than through emails and online. (Graduate 32).

As reflected in the above excerpt, Hong Kong graduates’ self-perceived weak soft skills were a result of both the technologization of learning and the move to remote instruction. At university, students were isolated from others, and were only interacting with classmates over email, WhatsApp, or Zoom. The graduates that we interviewed expressed concerns, and sometimes anxiety, over their abilities to successfully communicate with others face-to-face in the workplace.

Similarly, employers expressed their concerns at the weak soft skills demonstrated by graduates,

I think technically, technical skills, the quality remains the same, but soft skills, there has been a huge drop off in the quality of soft skills. I mean, in Hong Kong, students haven’t had the benefit of having events on campus, of going to open evenings. So, their ability to kind of walk up to people and start a, you know, do the small talk, I think has been completely removed because for a lot of people, they’ve just been used to, like listening to Zoom and just kind of sitting back and listening and perhaps not interacting in the way that they would have been expected to do 4 years ago. So, we’ve noticed a huge drop off in terms of just people’s confidence (Employer 1).

Employers described that the graduates that they had either interviewed or recruited during the pandemic had ‘worse’ soft skills than those people who they had dealt with prior to the pandemic. Both of the excerpts above reveal that employers viewed this deficit in soft skills as the result of the social distancing requirements (“no human interaction”; Employer 3) and remote learning (“listening to Zoom”; Employer 1) imposed by universities in Hong Kong. Remote computer-mediated education has supposedly resulted in graduates being passive in their interpersonal relations (“just kind of sitting back”; Employer 1). More importantly, however, is that these dual limitations meant that students have had less opportunity to develop soft skills such as “small talk” and “confidence” that are crucial for workplace success.

Earlier in the analysis, we outlined how employers viewed graduates as responsible for ensuring that they themselves acquired the relevant hard skills before entering the workforce. In contrast, employers positioned graduates as not responsible for their deficits in soft skills. When providing reasoning for graduates’ weak interpersonal skills, one employer stated, “I think that they’ve been affected by COVID the way that they’ve been educated over the last 3 years. It’s, again, no fault of theirs” (Employer 3). One possible implication of this reasoning is that the fault lies with how universities structured ways of learning in response to the pandemic.

The deficiency in soft skills was viewed as having consequences for the workplaces these graduates were entering. Employers were aware that their firms and businesses would need to train their new hires in effective interpersonal skills,

So, I think from our side, we are going to have to increase the amount of training and just mentorship we give people to kind of fill that gap [in soft skills] because obviously there is a gap to be filled (Employer 1).

These trainings would ultimately require firms to invest resources to overcome the deficit in soft skills. It is findings such as these that reveal the widespread and flow on effects of the pandemic on education and the economy in Hong Kong. Mandated restrictions and changes to the mode of learning in universities led to new graduates not having had the opportunity to sufficiently engage in face-to-face interaction. Thus, ‘COVID graduates’ lacked the necessary interpersonal skills to ensure their success in the workplace. This deficit can mean they find it difficult to find and possibly retain a job. Finally, it is also seen as placing a potential economic burden on employers through the need to ‘upskill’ these graduates when they are hired.