Relevant Key Professional Skills and the Level of the Education Seekers' Awareness in This Regard

The modern development of the professional market is characterized by rapid transformations associated with the widespread use of digital technologies and the advent of artificial intelligence. This situation affects the field of employment, accelerating the emergence and disappearance of professions, and leads to a reassessment of the key professional skills that modern employees should have. However, there is a certain gap between the skills that are needed in the professional market and the ability of the education system to ensure their development. Given the trends of rapid technological transformations and corresponding changes in the employment market, professional education should train specialists capable of constant improvement of their professional level, possible retraining. Such tasks involve a certain change in the functions and objectives of higher education, and therefore scientists are increasingly paying attention to the process of formation and development of those students’ skills which will contribute to the realization in the employment market even during its structural transformations. The purpose of the study is to review the extent to which the students themselves know and understand the content and requirements of modern skills with a view to improving the professional training of future specialists by the higher education system. Based on research in the field of professional skills, the skills identified at the World Economic Forum 2023 in Davos have been chosen as a guide. A survey of education seekers with the aim of identifying the understanding of the importance of the specified skills has shown a gap between the optimal set of skills and the education seekers’ perception of them. We observe a shift in the preferences of education seekers towards technological skills, and at the same time insufficient awareness of the importance of so-called soft skills, which collectively constitute the sphere of skills necessary to achieve professional and life success and is an indicator of human capital. The findings support the need for purposeful development in the process of professional training of the key skills that employees need today in order to improve the conformity of education and training with the requirements of the professional market.