Linkage between Students’ Skills and Employability: Moderating Influence of University Reputation.

The primary aim of this study underlines the examination of underlying students' skills and their relationship to the employability of students of Pakistan. The current study also examines the moderating impact of "University Reputation" between students' skills and employability. The authors undertook a quantitative approach in the testing of hypotheses. The primary data collection of 265 respondents was carried out. Students and graduates of different higher educational institutes in Pakistan participated in the questionnaire about their employability perception based on their skills. "Partial Least Square (PLS) based Structural Equation Model (SEM)" has been utilized for the analysis of the relationship between students' skills and students' employability. The propelling findings reveal that students' soft skills, adaptability skills, and personal skills are positively associated with employability and consistent with previous studies, while teamwork skills affect negatively. On the other hand, social mobility skills, career skills, managerial skills, and technical skills do not seem to have a significant role in students' employability. Moreover, university reputation plays a role in the moderation of certain students' skills with employability. This current research makes some valuable contributions to developing the skillset amongst students and graduates of a developing country such as Pakistan. The research focused on the moderating role of university reputation between skill and employability, which was previously ignored, and utilized human capital theory. Finally, the study separately used soft skills, personal skills, adaptability, and managerial skills with employability.