Edward Gillmore, Adele Berndt, Nobukhosi Dlodlo, Elmarie Strydom
Abstract
In higher education settings, teaching usually encourages the interactions of different intelligences in two ways: within the student and across students. This misses the market actor contribution (industry) that have awareness of current demands of intelligences to interact with students. Be that as it may, an overall gap exists between the skills expressed by employers in South Africa and the expression of interest of employers for any form of graduate intelligence. The purpose of the study is to draw from Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory (Gardner, 1993) to understand the relationship between the acquisition of traditional skills and professional attributes, including how this can facilitate the inception of an intelligence-set framework relevant for Marketing graduates. An inductive approach was followed. Data were collected from two leading online recruitment sites that advertise marketing jobs across South Africa. Job announcements were analysed by applying qualitative content analysis, using NVivo. The themes identified are intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence and communication intelligence. Listening, interpersonal and communication skills have the highest influence on the employability of marketing graduates. For the best result for employers, it is recommended that recruitment of marketing graduates makes clearer specifications between traditional skills and intelligences that they require. Furthermore, the skill and intelligences gaps identified in this study may help business schools to revise and improve the curriculum of specialised marketing programs to be aligned with the needs of the marketing industry.