TITLE:
Providing Built Environment Students with the Necessary Skills for Employment: Finding the Required Soft Skills
AUTHORS:
Pat Crawford, Robert Dalton
KEYWORDS:
Soft Skills, Education, Employability Skills
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.4 No.1,
March
30,
2016
ABSTRACT: As the costs of education, class sizes, and competition in a post-recession work force grow, universities
will explore the ways in which students may graduate with high opportunities for employment
in their chosen field. Students in the Built Environment (B.E.) are graduating from accredited
programs, but what skills beyond technical understanding do employers wish to have in their entry
level employees? A survey of 8124 respondents of employers, alum, faculty and students allowed
these stakeholders to rank order seven soft skills and seven characteristics within each soft
skill. This study explores the ways in which the B.E. field ranks the skills and characteristics in
comparison to seven other professional fields. The B.E. respondents rank order the soft skills as:
communication, decision-making, self-management, experiences, teamwork, professionalism, and
leadership. Utilizing ordinal regression, it was found that B.E. respondents rank creative solutions,
applying technology, cross disciplinary and international experiences as more important than
other fields. Many of the differences are attributed to the need for those in the built environment
to think creatively and work collaboratively. The findings can inform educational curriculum to
match soft skill training with the professional path of their students.