Twenty-first-century labour-market projections—spanning claims that the first 150-year-old human is already alive to estimates that up to 375 million people will have to change occupations by 2030—underline the need to cultivate employability skills (known as future skills, transferable skills etc.) throughout the life-span. Rapid technological change, demographic ageing and fluid work arrangements have pushed universities to prepare graduates for long, multi-stage careers in which success rests less on narrow technical expertise than on broadly transferable abilities such as self-management, collaboration, communication, digital literacy, problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, entrepreneurial initiative and a sustainability mindset.

To gauge how well higher education meets these expectations, this study first compared the skills highlighted in the literature with those demanded by Estonian employers, then examined whether interns display them. A mixed-methods content analysis was conducted: 56 business-sector vacancies posted on CV-Online were reviewed to identify the competencies most frequently requested, and 347 internship-supervisor evaluations (2019–2024) from the course Practical Training in Economics and Business Administration were analysed. Each evaluation combined a twelve-item, five-point Likert scale with an open comment.

The vacancy analysis revealed a clear hierarchy: communication and expressive skill appeared in 77% of adverts, teamwork in 50 % and analytical ability in 41%, a pattern that echoes findings elsewhere. Supervisors likewise rated interns generously, classifying 59% of observed skills as “excellent” and another 32% as “very good”, with learning aptitude, analytical ability, and responsibility receiving the highest means. Narrative comments nevertheless uncovered persistent weaknesses: students often lacked self-confidence when presenting ideas, showed limited initiative, struggled to persevere with complex problems, and found it challenging to schedule concurrent tasks—shortcomings long lamented by employers who argue that technical knowledge alone is insufficient. Master’s students were evaluated more favourably than bachelor students, lending empirical weight to lifelong-learning and T-shaped competence models.

These results imply that scale-based assessment without explicit criteria encourages positive bias and conceals genuine development needs. Supervisors expressed a wish for more precise yet still efficient feedback tools. Therefore, the study recommends adopting a concise, generic rubric that specifies performance levels for each skill, extends internship duration to allow deeper organisational immersion, and creates a university-wide framework that links target levels, pedagogy, and assessment while strengthening university–industry collaboration. By uniting vacancy analysis and internship evaluations—two sources previously examined in isolation—this research provides new empirical evidence on converting employer feedback into an effective pedagogical instrument and on aligning curricula more closely with labour-market demands; it also raises a strategic question for policy and practice: how can an ageing workforce whose careers may span a century be supported to sustain employability across multiple skill domains?

Keywords: Employability skills, internship.