DETERMINING THE HETEROGENEITY OF STAKEHOLDERS PREFERENCES TOWARDS DESIRABLE KEY COMPETENCES OF JOB APPLICANTS: A CONJOINT ANALYSES APPROACH

Abstract

The competition in the labor market is severe, especially in times of economic crisis when a lot of candidates seeking for appropriate job position. The main question for applicants is how to obtain the position that suits them, or which abilities and skills they need to possess in order to best respond to the specific needs and requirements of HR managers. On the other hand, HR managers are looking for a good staff that will be loyal to the company. In this chain of "needs", teachers play a crucial role by listening to market demands and involving them in curricula developments. So the question is: what are the key competencies of candidates which all stakeholders (HR managers, teachers or students) consider as important. We propose conjoint analysis as an appropriate tool to determine the preferences of all stakeholders. Conjoint analysis is a multivariate technique that can be used to understand how an individual's preferences are developed. In particular, our approach accounts for different importance HR managers, teachers and students attach to various aspects of key competencies. The results show that most of HR managers consider the candidate's work experience as the most important. That means, the candidates should be highly specialized in the subject area or they should have the master degree. It is interesting that the students share the same opinions, while teachers believe that creativity and possess problem solving skills are more important. Understanding which competences of candidates are the most important for employers, allows teachers to make a right focus in designing a curricula, and also candidates to be focused on the development of specific skills and abilities.