The Students’ Perception of Their Soft Skills – Based on Research Results From Hungary and Serbia

Abstract

In the 21th century the talented employees and their knowledge and skills are the most important assets of the organizations. In relation to graduated students of economics and management studies employers often value soft skills more than technical and professional skills. Therefore, higher education institutions have a significant role in the advancement of the employability of their students – developing not only their knowledge and professional-technical skills, but soft skills, too. The aim of this paper is to introduce the results of a few international research concerning the role of university-level study programs in the development of the students' soft skills. Besides, the paper presents the results of a questionnaire-based research on the students' perception of the importance and development of soft skills in Hungary and Serbia. Based on the data obtained in 2023 from students of Budapest Business University and Faculty of Economics in Subotica, University of Novi Sad we will show the students' perception of the most important soft skills, their opinion on where the soft skills may be developed, how important is university in developing soft skills and what soft skills may a teacher help to develop. The research hypothesis is that students from Hungary and Serbia have similar perception on the importance and development of soft skills.  The IBM SPSS Statistics 26 program is used for statistical analysis. The obtained results may be a useful input for the evolution of university level study programs for students' soft skills development both in Hungary and Serbia.