What kinds of skills are expected by Portuguese and Polish employers?

Abstract

The main objective of the research was to establish which skills and competencies are mostly demanded by organizations/employers in Portugal and Poland. Secondly, we wanted to determine if there are any differences in this type of skills and competencies in these two countries. In order to analyze the skills necessary in organizations, we applied the typology of soft and hard skills. In the analysis, we had to distinguish moral competencies from soft skills, due to the specificity of the formers. In the research, we use the mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology. In the survey, carried out on convenience samples composed of Portuguese and Polish working students, the respondents were eager to answer one open-ended question and describe/list the skills/competencies demanded by organizations. In order to categorize the answers, we employed a two-stage process of phenomenological reduction. For the purpose of conducting a comparative analysis of the data and due to a wide dispersion of results in the case of soft skills in the two samples, we grouped the soft skills according to the ESCO and interpreted the differences by referring to the cultural dimensions introduced by Hofstede et al. [2011].