The Impact of Skills, Competences, Knowledge and Personal Traits Acquired by Students on Income and Job Satisfaction. Case Study on Graduates from Physical Education and Sports Faculties from Romania

The development of students’ skills, abilities, competences and knowledge is the basis for sustainable socio-economic development. Today we live in a world that is in continuous change, both economically and socially, which also determines a change in the requirements on the labor market and therefore graduates and higher education institutions must continuously adapt to these changes. Thus, higher education institutions must adapt their teaching strategies and educational offer, while students must develop new skills and competences. The purpose of this article is to analyze the extent to which the information, skills, attitudes and competences acquired by graduates of physical education and sports faculties during their years of study influence their income level, standard of living and job satisfaction. The article also aims to compare students’ perceptions of their skills and employers’ perceptions of students' skills and to identify which skills students need to improve. Thus, data were collected through two questionnaires, one distributed among 333 graduates from physical education and sports faculties in Romania and one to 11 employers working in the sports industry in Romania. The data obtained from the students were analyzed using SPSS and it was found that there is a significant correlation between the information, skills, competences, knowledge acquired during the years of study and income, standard of living, degree of satisfaction at work, confidence in one's own ability to successfully perform tasks at work, desire to change the field of work or desire to emigrate. Among the skills, abilities and aptitudes that students consider themselves to excel in are passion for sports, continuous desire for improvement, conscientiousness, teamwork, openness to new things and respect for hierarchies and regulations. At the opposite end, graduates consider that they need to improve their public speaking skills, management skills, ability to communicate in a foreign language, ability to sell themselves and ability to manage a project. By comparing with the perception of employers, it was found that graduates tend to overestimate their abilities.