Personal and Interpersonal Competencies of University Students Entering the Workforce: Validation of a Scale

Abstract

The big changes that take place in a social and productive context demand putting a set of competencies into action that relate to the same equation of training, orientation and employment are demanded. Faced with this growing commitment of employability, the aim of this paper is to describe the construction of a scale of competencies for university students on entering the workforce and analyze the validity of construct of said scale. 931 final year undergraduate students from the University of Murcia and the University of Granada participated. For the collection of information and analysis of the data, a mixed methodology was applied which allows, on the one hand, to design the scale of competencies from a thorough bibliographical review and content analysis, and, on the other hand, to obtain evidence centered on internal consistency and reliability of the scale with the use of structural equations model. The main results indicated the reliability and validity of the proposed competency scale, as well as its adequacy to the proposed theoretical model that claims that relevance and active presence of personal (individual) and interpersonal (social) competencies are the most influential competencies for an optimal entry into the job market today. Universities must manage employability through a group of actions directed to encourage these kinds of competencies and promote better cooperative training with the objective to improve the university-workforce relationship, to access job opportunities and professional internships, and to form a long-term career goal.