Vietnamese Students Employability Skills

This paper attempts to investigate if the International University (IU) students’ core competencies can meet the requirements set by employers, what are the differences in core competencies in final year students (or undergraduates), and how they view themselves compared with ex-students after one or two years in working environment, how differences in levels of competencies which are expected to outperform the job expectations and competencies possessed by ex-students, and any differences in levels of competencies self-rated by undergraduates due to gender. Questionnaires, mean score comparison, independent-samples T-tests, paired-samples T-tests are used to analyze data collected from 120 employers/managers in various companies/organizations in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong province, 105 ex-students, and 102 final year business students. The core competencies are drawn from the behavioral competency dictionary of Organizational Readiness Office, Canada (2007). The research results can provide good suggestions to IU in specific and other foreign invested universities in Vietnam to produce competent students for the ever-changing labor market.