Comparison of Importance of Skills and Preparedness of Students in those Skills

Question 5 asked employers to rate how important it is for employees to be well prepared in 16 skills. Question 6 then asked how prepared employers considered UNR graduates in those 16 skills. A comparison of the responses to questions 5 and 6 shows how important Nevada employers consider a particular skill and how well prepared they thought UNR graduates were in those skills.

To determine how important a skill was considered: 1) answers from the whole database were used, and 2) responses of “extremely important” and “very important” to question 5 were combined.

To determine how prepared employers thought UNR graduates were in each skill: 1) answers from only the employers that hired UNR grads were used, and 2) responses of “highly prepared” and “prepared but could be better” to question 6 were combined.

To assess whether there was a difference in importance and preparedness by type of company, subgroups were broken out by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) category. Because SIC categories 1, 2, 3, and 6, had responses from 10 or fewer employers, data may not be representative of the entire industry and are not summarized here. Also, category 12 contains the companies for which a SIC classification was not available and is not summarized here.

The skills employers considered most important were:

Reading Written communication Oral communication Listening

Problem solving Knowing how to learn Responsibility and self-management Integrity and honesty

Important Differences Between Preparedness and Importance of Skill
A difference of 20% or more was considered to be a “red flag” when examining the information reported in questions 5 and 6. Considering the whole database, there was a 20% or more difference in what skills employers considered important and how prepared UNR graduates were in those skills in the following skills:

Written communication Oral communication Listening

Problem solving Knowing how to learn Responsibility and self-management

Example: Service Category Ratings
The breakdown of importance and preparedness by SIC category shows that employers in the service category (SIC category 9), in particular, thought importance was not met by preparedness by 20% or more for the following skills:

Written communication Oral communication Listening Creative thinking

Decision making Problem solving Knowing how to learn Responsibility and self-management

Employers in the whole database considered UNR graduates to be most prepared (compared to importance) in the following skills:

Reading Computer Literacy Math Self-esteem

Sociability Integrity and Honesty Functioning in a multicultural environment

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1994 and 1996 Employer Surveys

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