More than just good grades - Candidates’ perceptions about skills and attributes employers seek in new graduates

Aug 30, 2026

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Common belief among university students holds that high grades drive hiring because employers target outstanding academic records. This view may not reflect organizational hiring realities, where firms also value personality and other personal qualities. The study uses a case approach to examine the recruitment of recent graduates, applying principal component analysis to identify core skill/attribute categories and econometric methods to classify them by employer size and type, degree, position, and industry. Soft skills emerge as the most required attributes, while good grades mainly matter in the public sector.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Graduate recruitment context and employer emphasis

Methodology

Two-stage approach: principal component analysis and econometric classification

Results

Required attributes by sector, employer size, and applicant characteristics

Conclusion

Key implications for graduate hiring and education policy

MORE THAN JUST GOOD GRADES: CANDIDATES’PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES EMPLOYERS SEEK IN NEW GRADUATES Manuel Salas Velasco Department of Applied Economics, University of Granada, Campus Cartuja, 18071 Granada, Spain [E-mail: msalas@ugr.es](E-mail: msalas@ugr.es) Received 10 February 2011; accepted 19 June 2011 Abstract. There is a common belief among university students that they have to study hard attempting to earn high grades because employers are targeting graduates with outstanding academic records. However, this idea does not seem to capture what is actually happening in organizations, as firms value more aspects related with personality and other personal qualities of young graduates. We present a case study of the hiring process of recent university graduates to test these hypotheses. The methodology used follows a twostage approach. Principal component analysis allows us to identify first key categories of skills and attributes that influence the selection process. Then, using econometric analysis, a matrix classifies them according to employer size and type, degree, position and industry. The results show that soft skills (personality and other qualities) are the most required attributes in the selection process. Good academic records only matter in the public sector. Keywords: principal component analysis, econometrics, recruitment and selection, graduate labor market, university grades, soft skills, human resources, signaling. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Salas Velasco, M. 2012. More than just good grades: candidates’perceptions about the skills and attributes employers seek in new graduates, Journal of Business Economics and Management 13(3): 499–517. JEL Classification: M21, M50, C21, C93 . 1. Introduction Firm specific advantages, which can be defined as those specific resources and capabilities that have been developed and accumulated internally in the firm and largely take the form of the possession of distinctive skills and intangible assets, is one of the most important explanatory variables of business performance (Strandskov 2006) . Consistent with this perspective, human resources and their management play a critical role in the creation and sustaining of competitive advantage for the organization (Kazlauskaitė, Bučiūnienė 2008), and the process of recruiting and selecting the right staff seems tobe the most important (and challenging) function of any human resources department. Employers are interested in attracting and hiring the very best candidates reducing the risk of picking up the ‘wrong’ person. In fact, person-organization (P-O) fit, which can Copyright © 2012 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika [http://www.tandfonline.com/TBEM](http://www.tandfonline.com/TBEM) M. Salas Velasco. More than just good grades: candidates’perceptions about the skills and attributes employers ... be defined as the degree of congruence or match between a person and the organization, is a topic that has attracted the attention of both scholars and managers during the last decades (Kristof 1996); person-organization mismatches lead to low productivity, shirking, absenteeism and quits. Positive and significant effects on labor productivity are found for organizations that utilize more sophisticated human resource planning, recruitment and selection strategies (Koch, McGrath 1996) . In this line, this article focuses on the recruitment of new university graduates. Due to skill-biased technical progress, a highly educated staff can be seen, clearly, as a source of competitiveness (Kravis, Lipsey 1992) . Graduates are thought that are not only smart and able to learn quickly, but are adaptable, responsible, and able to work with others too (Carless 2007). The graduate recruitment process concerns how they are attracted to the organization – through ads, personal networks, and so forth – and the offer process too, which includes decidin

FAQs

What does the paper examine about the hiring process for new graduates?

It investigates how employers emphasize academic grades during graduate recruitment and how this emphasis compares with other personal qualities.

What methods are used to analyze the skills and attributes employers seek?

The study uses a two-stage approach: principal component analysis to identify key attribute categories, followed by econometric analysis to classify them across multiple employer and applicant dimensions.

Which attributes are found to be most required in the selection process?

Soft skills—personality and other personal qualities—are identified as the most required attributes, while good academic records mainly matter in the public sector.

Aug 30, 2026

Upload by Violet