Factors Affecting Employability of Private University Graduates in the Private Job Sectors of Bangladesh: A Gap between Expectation and Reality

Abstract Graduate employability has become a crucial issue among employers in many places around the world. There are several studies where it is found that some factors are very significant in enhancing graduate employability. Several studies have been conducted considering the situation in Bangladesh also where a large number of students graduate from public and private institutions every year. This study attempts to find the important factors of employability of private university graduates in the private job sectors in Bangladesh. Study has been conducted from both employers’ point of view and graduates’ point of view. This paper also tries to find the gap between expectation and reality where employers’ perception is considered as expectation, as it reveals the demand of the organization, and graduates’ perception is considered as the reality. Data has been collected through stratified sampling technique using self-administrated questionnaire from a sample of 384 fresh graduates from different private universities who are preparing themselves for job interviews and 100 employers from different private organizations in Bangladesh. Paired sample t-test has been done to find if there exists significant difference between employers’ perception and graduates’ perception. Result shows that both group of respondents strongly agreed on the importance of some factors like academic performance, IT Skills, job experience, communication skills. But most of the cases there exist noticeable gap between the perception of employers and graduates. From the gap it is summarized that graduates should more focus on factors like general knowledge, emotional intelligence, leadership skill, smart CV, technical skill, critical thinking and problem solving skill, personality, adaptability, job hunting etc. Through a Radar Diagram the gap between expectation and reality is shown at the end of the study. Finally it is recommended that by minimizing the gap between expectation and reality the employability of graduates will get higher and unemployment problem will be gradually solved. KEYWORDS: Employability, private university graduates, private job sector, expectation, reality.