Grooming Your Marketing Students to Match the Employer's Ideal Job Candidate

Abstract

Employers select job candidates based upon a matching of the employer's needs and the student's qualifications. It is important for students to have an accurate perception of what selection attributes are given the highest and lowest priority by employers. This research surveyed employers to ascertain their priorities and students to identify their perceptions of how employers would prioritize selected at tributes. Results indicate that students may be either misinformed or have miscon ceptions about the relative priority employers are placing on various job selection at tributes. The implication to marketing educators is that many of the key attributes sought out by employers can and should be given greater emphasis in the teaching of marketing courses. The result of emphasizing the high priority attributes should be students who are better targeted for the job market with a higher probability of suc cess.