Soft Skills Development in Higher Education

Nowadays, as a result of economic changes, employers are eager to look for employees with applied skills rather than cognitive skills. Diplomas are not being considered as a definitive indicator of students' professional intelligence as it used to be before. Fourth Industry Revolution has dramatically changed labor market and knowledge is now acknowledged as strength of productivity and economic growth, and information technology has acquired great importance. In such a situation, whether employees start their career or change a job, they can show successful performance, if they can change and update themselves continuously, build positive interpersonal relationships in the workplace, learn and win in the unpredictable challenges of the work place. Accordingly, today the graduates of Higher Education need to master not only professional skills of their job, but also various soft skills, including the ability to communicate, coordinate, work under pressure, and solve problems. The purpose of this article is to provide literature on the connection of soft skills with employability and world labour market, the role of soft skills in career success for future professionals. The article also examines the definition and selection of the most demanding soft skills from the perspective of different literature. The role of Higher Education in forming and developing soft skills will then be discussed. The article illustrates the results of survey carried out with the aim to analyze the degree of integration of soft skills in Study Skills program that is taught for bachelor students in Uzbek State World Languages University and academic curricula.