Károly ZERÉNYI & Zsuzsa MÁTRAI
In the labour market, there is a simultaneous educational match corresponding to the level of higher education qualification and/or the field of specialization of the degree, and a mismatch differing from it in one or both respects. While employers often consider general competences (transferable skills) more important, higher education institutions basically prioritize professional (job-specific) skills (Vincze, 2013; Derényi & Vámos, 2015). However, when looking at the labour market placement of students leaving higher education, we see a tendency toward a weaker connection between degree and job requirements (Mátrai, 2016). With this in mind, we think that in higher education institutions, in addition to job-specific skills, more emphasis should be placed on the development of transferable skills. The aim of this research is to identify the factors influencing the educational mismatch of employed graduates, especially the role of transferable skills, in a field (tourism and catering) where the proportion of those employed in a mismatch form is higher than average.
The employer's demand and the employee's supply often do not coincide, leading to a typical imbalance in the labour market (Zimmer, 2012). While previously this mainly resulted in unemployment, it has now been a labour shortage for a long time. In the latter case, the demand for employees permanently exceeds the supply of employees willing to work at a specific place and time, for a given wage, and under the given working conditions (Barnow, Trutko & Piatak, 2013). If demand and supply are in balance at the aggregate level, but employers cannot find adequately qualified employees in a given segment of the labour market, then we are talking about a qualitative or structural labour shortage or skill mismatch (Reymen, Gerard, De Beer, Lutz, Paskov, Di Stasio, Donlevy, Atkinson, Makulec, Famira-Mühlberger & Meierkord, 2015; Nagy & Konya, 2017; Eurofound, 2021). Students graduating from higher education are not necessarily placed in a (match/congruent) job that matches their level of education and/or their field of specialization, meaning that they also have both match/congruent and mismatch/incongruent employment.
Regarding the relationship between degree and job requirements, we can distinguish between vertical and horizontal matching. When a person is employed in a job that matches their level of education, it is vertical; when a person is employed in a job that matches their professional qualifications, it is horizontal, and when both are met, it is both vertical and horizontal matching (Fehse & Kerst, 2007; Koepernik & Wolter, 2010). A lack of any type of matching, however, means mismatching. Similar to educational matching, there are basically two types of mismatching (Leuze & Strauß, 2008; Cedefop, 2010; McGuinness, Pouliakas & Redmond, 2017; Salas-Valesco, 2021; Cabrera & Mariel, 2024). Vertical mismatch occurs when an employed person's level of education does not correspond to job requirements due to overeducation or undereducation (Senarath & Patabendige, 2014; Morgado, Sequeira, Santos, Lopes & Reis, 2014; Mahuteau, Mavromaras, Sloane & Wei, 2014). A horizontal mismatch occurs when a person performs an occupation or job that is different from his or her professional qualifications.
In the changed labour market environment, employers often cannot find adequately qualified employees; therefore, among the expectations, greater emphasis is placed on those competencies and knowledge elements that can be transferred from one area to another. However, there is no generally accepted definition of transferable skills (Molnár, 2002; Albalawi, Zalat, El-Akkad, Deghash, & Ramadan, 2011; Joynes, Rossignoli, & Amonoo-Kuofi, 2019; Andersson, 2023). If transferable skills are interpreted from the perspective of knowledge concepts, we can capture them in pairings such as objective–subjective, situational–non-situational, contextualized–decontextualized knowledge, which can also represent the endpoints of a scale (Csapó, 2001). The concept pair of job-specific and transferable skills can also be included in this scheme, which can serve as a compass for research from a particular perspective. Job-specific skills combine situational and context-specific knowledge, while transferable skills are knowledge that can be applied in new situations and is independent of context. All of this is also confirmed by the interpretations that we can speak of transferable skills when knowledge/skills acquired in one context can be used in another (Molnár, 2002; Albalawi et al., 2011; Setiawan, Kuntadi & Bukit, 2018). At the same time, Bruner (1968) had already drawn attention to the importance of transfer, emphasizing that the emphasis should be placed on teaching and on recognizing structure in the teaching-learning process. In the case of transferable skills, we are talking about general competencies such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and working in a team, which can be used in the world of work and in many other areas of life, i.e., they have a transferable character.
In view of the research objective mentioned in the introduction, the following research questions were defined:
Based on the evaluation of graduates, which learning and teaching methods are most and which are least suitable for acquiring transferable skills elements?
How does the usability of job-specific and transferable skills change among graduates depending on whether it is educational match/mismatch?
When selecting the target group, as mentioned in the introduction, the choice was made for a field where educational mismatch occurs to a greater extent than average among graduates. Based on the research results of the Integration of Administrative Databases (IAD) and the Graduate Career Tracking System1, the majority of students graduating in the tourism and catering undergraduate programme in 2014/2015 were still in matching/congruent jobs, while the majority of students graduating in 2020/2021 (52%) were in non-degree work, i.e. were employed in a mismatching (an incongruent) way2.
On the employee side, we asked students who graduated from tourism and catering3 and/or tourism management programme, whom we tried to reach through the alumni and career offices of the selected institutions (although we did not completely succeed). Graduates from the higher education institutions included in the research were able to complete the online questionnaire in the second semester of 2022, in which the questions were organized into thematic groups.
Figure 1 shows that when compiling the questionnaire, I also used questions from other research in two thematic question groups, which were included in the 2009 HEGESCO research4 and in several Hungarian Graduate Career Tracking System (GCTS) surveys. Research results can be compared along partially or fully identical questions, taking into account possible methodological differences.
The reason for GDPR regulations5, the higher education institutions involved in this research were only able to share the online questionnaire with limited access among graduates, and students encounter relatively much empirical research, so in the end, a total of 110 people from 9 higher education institutions6 completed the questionnaire, the vast majority of whom were bachelor or college-level graduates. Based on the population data, we weighted the sample in order to expand the scope of validity and improve the generalizability of the results. The number of graduates from the examined bachelor's and master's programs between 2008 and 2020, broken down by institution and gender, can be calculated from the higher education statistical data published by the Educational Authority. Accordingly, it was possible to weight two variables (institutional background and gender) in the sample.
For the processing of the data from the questionnaire and for the mathematical-statistical analyses, we used the IBM SPSS and CogStat7 as well as ROP-R software8. The first two software complement each other, as the former is well applicable for managing and weighting the data set and variables, while statistical analyses can be performed faster and in fewer steps with the latter.
The answers in the questionnaire survey can be examined not only within the given question group, but also among themselves according to specific criteria, and can be compared with the answers given to questions taken without changes or modified from methodologically relevant Hungarian and international surveys. In the following, we analysed the responses from the labour market and higher education aspects, from the perspective of connecting the two, and also taking into account job changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following the recovery from the 2008 global economic crisis, demand for labour increasingly exceeded supply, leading to labour shortages in both the European and Hungarian labour markets. Labour shortages have appeared in almost every sector of the national economy, including tourism. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought unemployment back, and labour shortages have once again become a defining phenomenon as the economy restarts. The students participating in the questionnaire survey considered the labour shortage an opportunity rather than a determinant in their job choices and changes. The interestingness of the work, career development, or higher income was more important.
To examine the educational match/mismatch of the surveyed students, we also utilized indirect questions9 found in both Hungarian and international research for our own questionnaire survey. Based on the questions related to the job, vertical and horizontal match, and the answers given on education, the proportion of educational match/mismatch among the respondents can be determined.
Figure 2 shows that the relative majority of students involved in the research who graduated in the field of tourism and catering were employed in matching/congruent jobs both vertically (based on their level of education) and horizontally (based on their field of study). The proportion of those employed in a match and mismatch manner is the same in both types, and the vast majority of those affected by vertical mismatch are overeducated. If we examine the results by gender, the majority of men work in horizontally incongruent/mismatch jobs that differ from their field of education.
Based on the sample size, two of the three higher education institutions highlighted, BGE and KJE, had a higher proportion of graduates who were employed in congruent/matching work corresponding to their level of education. However, unlike the other two institutions, the majority of graduates from Edutus University were placed in incongruent/mismatching jobs that did not align with their level of education or field of specialization.
Higher education institutions typically place greater emphasis on job-specific (professional) skills, while the previous tables show that a significant portion of graduates, and in some fields of study, the majority, are placed in horizontally incongruent/mismatching jobs that do not correspond to their field of study.
Based on evaluations of graduates, the presence of transferable skills elements in the programme varies from institution to institution, and any differences were analysed using both the raw and weighted samples, reflecting the proportions in the population.
Based on the median values in Figure 4, there is essentially no considerable difference in the appearance of elements of transferable skills at the vast majority of institutions, with the exception of one (METU). Regarding the results of the raw sample, based on the Kruskal–Wallis-test [χ2(9, N = 110) = 9.33, p =0.407] there is no significant difference between the institutions. In the case of the weighted sample, however, the difference is already significant [χ2= 21.693; p =0.006].
In higher education, many teaching and learning methods/forms are used to convey knowledge, some of which can also be used to develop transferable skills. Accordingly, the following relationship can be demonstrated between the methods/forms applied during programme (question 16) and the appearance of transferable skills elements (question 13).
According to the graduates involved in the research, the teacher's lecture played the greatest role in the programme, but it had the least impact on transferable skills, with no significant relationship between the two (rs=0.001; p=0.988).
Following the transition to Bachelor system, the duration of professional internship in the tourism and catering programme was reduced from two to one semester11, and in the tourism management master's program, there is no internship at all. Partly for this reason, graduates did not consider professional internship to be sufficiently emphasized in the programme, so its impact is minimal in terms of transferable skills; similarly to teacher presentations, there is no significant relationship between the two variables (rs=0.143; p=0.136). A weaker than average or moderately significant relationship can be demonstrated for all other methods that help transfer skills and transferable skills elements. The two strongest relationships were between the appearance of transferable skills elements and problem-based as well as inquiry-based learning (rs=0.455; rs=0.393). The two methods are relatively close to each other, which can greatly contribute to the development of problem-solving and collaboration skills. In addition, the role of teamwork and project-based learning is increasingly valued in programme.
The HEGESCO (2009) research examined the relationship between specific and general competencies by interviewing representatives of Hungarian higher education institutions. Based on the interviews (in their opinion of only three interviewees) both competencies were considered equally important in Hungary. All this is basically consistent with the evaluation of students in the field of tourism and catering in this research, the narrow majority of whom (51%) considered the level of transferable skills acquired during their studies to be the same as job-specific skills. However, a still quite significant proportion of graduates (44%) believe that the level of transferable skills is weaker than job-specific skills.
In addition to job-specific skills, the appearance of transferable (general) skills in programme also raises the question of its usability in work. Half of the graduates involved in the research were able to utilize their job-specific skills to a small or medium, while the majority were able to utilize their transferable skills to a large or very large extent in their work. If we examine the relationship between the variables, a weaker than average (rs=0.328), significant (p<0.001; [0.146; 0.489]) relationship can be demonstrated between the appearance of transferable skills and the utilization of job-specific skills. In the case of the utilization of transferable skills, the relationship between the two is already of medium strength (rs=0.494) and is also significant (p<0.001; [0.334; 0.627]).
Figure 6 shows that the utilization of job-specific (professional) and transferable (general) skills is different among those who are employed in matching (congruent) and mismatching (incongruent) ways. The utilization of job-specific skills is lower in both the vertically incongruent and horizontally incongruent groups than among those employed in a congruent manner, however, the difference between the horizontally incongruent and congruent groups is significant (p<0.001) based on the Mann-Whitney test. This is understandable, as horizontal mismatch means that the job title and the graduates’ professional qualifications are separated. The utilization of transferable skills was rated highly by respondents regardless of the type of match/mismatch (vertical, horizontal), and there was no significant difference between the congruent and incongruent groups (p=0.756); (p=0.162). Consequently, transferable skills can be utilized well in both educational match and mismatch, but its role is especially enhanced in the case of horizontal mismatch due to the lower level of utilization of job-specific skills.
In the international research (HEGESCO, 2009) conducted with the participation of Hungarian graduates, the utilization of knowledge/skills was examined in addition to educational mismatch. Based on the results, about a third (29%) of graduates were unable to properly utilize their knowledge in their work. In this research, the utilization of knowledge appeared from the perspective of job-specific (professional) skills on the one hand, and transferable (general competencies) skills on the other. In the case of the former, nearly half of the graduates (46%) were not able to utilize their job-specific skills at work at all or only to a small extent. For the latter, this ratio was only 17%. The result of the international research examining the utilization of knowledge together is therefore between the two, that is, it can be interpreted as its average value.
Some of the respondents in the research worked in a different job before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic (March 2020) than at the time of the survey. In terms of educational match/mismatch, we compared graduates who had jobs in both periods but worked in different jobs.
About a third (31 persons) of the graduates (105 persons) who had jobs at the time of the survey were working in other jobs before the pandemic. Before the pandemic, the majority of graduates worked in jobs that were not appropriate to their level of education (typically lower than their level of education), while after the pandemic, the ratio of those working in vertically matched/congruent and mismatched/incongruent jobs became more balanced. In comparison, the proportion of graduates working in jobs outside their field of education (horizontally mismatched/incongruent) has increased slightly since the pandemic. After the pandemic, those employed in mismatched/incongruent roles were placed in jobs in sales, administration, HR, and IT, among others.
The use of job-specific (professional) and transferable (general) skills can also be examined among graduates who worked in other jobs before the Covid-19 pandemic, depending on whether they were employed in a match/congruent or a mismatch/incongruent manner.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, those employed in a different job and vertically mismatched/incongruent were less able to use professional (job-specific) skills in their work than the matching/congruent group. This difference is not significant according to the Mann-Whitney test (p=0.146), but it is significant for the horizontally matching/congruent and mismatching/incongruent groups (p=0.013). In the utilization of transferable skills, the difference is reversed, i.e., graduates who were placed in an incongruent manner were able to utilize the general competencies acquired during their programme to a greater extent; however, the difference between the two groups is not significant either vertically (p=0.541) or horizontally (p=0.498).
If we compare the evaluations of graduates working in different jobs before the pandemic and those employed at the time of the study, the results are very similar. In both cases, transferable skills can be utilized in work, regardless of congruent or incongruent employment, especially when the usefulness of professional (job-specific) skills is less evident in incongruent employment.
The labour shortage, which has become a general phenomenon over the last decade, and the growing trend of educational mismatch, pose a serious challenge to both higher education institutions and employers. In addition to job-specific (professional) skills, transferable (general) skills also play an increasingly important role in graduate employment. Based on the research results, it can be stated that, on the one hand, the use of certain learning methods is more conducive to the acquisition of transferable skills elements, while others are less effective, and on the other hand, transferable skills can be utilized very well not only in incongruent but also in congruent employment.
The results of this research can contribute to rethinking the balance between job-specific and transferable skills in higher education institutions to better align with labour-market needs. A higher proportion of transferable skills could also improve graduates' employability in some fields of tourism, particularly in accommodation services and travel management. In addition, the application of educational methods related to work-integrated learning – in particular inquiry- and problem-based learning, as well as project-based learning – in higher education can further facilitate the acquisition of transferable skills (e.g., problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, self-management).
Compared to traditional questionnaires, which we also conducted, online data sources offer an alternative or complementary analytical option for examining educational match/mismatch. Both employers and employees are present on various job portals. Employers publish job advertisements, which include qualification expectations and competency requirements (job-specific and transferable skills). The CV-s uploaded by potential employees also contain useful information. In addition, the employer's expectations published on social media and the available employee profiles can also be investigated. However, access to data from such sources is often limited, and the sample is typically not representative. The latter problem can be treated with weighting.
The match between the degree and the job requirements can be examined not only in terms of the employee's level of education but also their skills. This is the so-called skill mismatch, which does not necessarily coincide with educational mismatch. All of this can occur even with the over- or under-qualification that we examined; therefore, in later research, the match/mismatch in education and ability can be examined together, with special emphasis on the usability of job-specific and transferable skills.
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The population (number of graduates) consists of those who graduated between the academic years 2014/2015 and 2020/2021. The data reflect the labour market status in December 2022.↩︎
It has to be noted that compared to the total proportion of students graduating in the field of economics, which includes the undergraduate degree in tourism and catering, the proportion of educational mismatch was higher regardless of the year of graduation, as was the case with graduates of the related tourism management master's programme.↩︎
Including catering and hotel, as well as tourism and hotel management programme launched before the Bologna process.↩︎
"Higher Education as a Generator of Strategic Competences" international research with the participation of Hungary, in which the connection between degree and occupation was investigated (HEGESCO, 2009).↩︎
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Regulation (Eu) 2016/679 of The European Parliament and of The Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data↩︎
Higher education institutions involved in the sample: BCE-GTK, BGE-KVIK, METU-ÜKT, DE-GTK, Edutus University, KJE, NYE, PE-GTK, PTE-KTK↩︎
CogStat is a free, open-source statistical program that automatically checks the prerequisites for statistical analysis based on the scale setting of the variables, and also selects the appropriate procedure based on the professional questions (Krajcsi, 2021).↩︎
ROP-R is a free, multivariate statistical software that enables comprehensive statistical analyses in three areas: regression analysis, principal component and factor analysis, and cluster analysis (Vargha, 2023).↩︎
The indirect questions examining vertical and horizontal match/mismatch come from the questionnaire used in the research related to the HEGESCO (Higher Education as a Generator of Strategic Competences) project. These are questions 23–25 and 32–34 in the questionnaire.↩︎
The table includes average values in addition to medians, because this allows any differences between the ratings given by congruent and incongruent groups to be better displayed and compared.↩︎
Two-thirds of the graduates in the sample had already continued their undergraduate studies in the multi-cycle programme, which required a semester-long internship. The research was not affected, but from 2020 the internship period in the tourism and catering undergraduate programme increased to two semesters.↩︎