THE LABOR MARKET, EMPLOYABILITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE ROMANIAN PUBLIC SECTOR

Abstract The issue of employability and the development of entrepreneurship presents a real challenge, given that today’s labor market is highly dynamic. Projections made for the next twenty years indicate important changes. The present study capitalizes on a research carried out in the Romanian academic environment, within three universities. The sample included students and employers from the public sphere. Our research reveals that the services available in three Romanian universities are developing in two main directions: one concerns working with students and developing their skills to become attractive on the labor market. Another direction is one that mediates between the academic world and the business environment. The results obtained through our research capture the policies and services of higher education in order to better train students and increase their employment opportunities. The options and expectations of students regarding the insertion on the labor market are contrasted to those of employers. This is the only way we can think of functional and flexible models for educating future employees in order to be able to face the new challenges of the labor market.


Current challenges concerning labor market dynamics
The insertion of youth on the labor market is a present-day issue, being debated at European and global level. Due to the multitude of factors influencing the evolution of the labor market, the impact of new technologies and artificial intelligence occupies an important place on the public agenda. Every year in Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum discusses, among other things, the developments and implications of a number of global changes in the labor market. The most important political leaders, specialists and influential executives correlate climate change, economic and banking changes, migration, but especially new technologies with the serious readjustments of the labor market in the coming years. Thus, the theme of the 2016 edition of the World Economic Forum was the fourth industrial revolution. The unanimous opinion of the participants was that we are at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution, and the first effects will be seen in maximum 10 years. This revolution will produce visible changes in terms of lifestyle, especially in the labor market. New professions will appear and many more will disappear. For example, the report 'The future of jobs', published by the World Economic Forum, shows that 65% of children who start school now will have professions that do not exist today. Similarly, following the analysis of an important database (15 global economies representing 65% of the global workforce), it has been predicted that around 7.1 million jobs will disappear in the next 5 years and 2 million new jobs in the IT and engineering sectors will appear instead.
In the report, the forecasts for Romania are quite worrying: 60% of existing jobs will disappear in the coming years due to the development of new technologies. The effects of these shifts on the labor market can be dramatic. A European Commission study, for example, shows that 41% of employees in Romania are 'digitally illiterate'. How do we meet these challenges triggered by the new technologies? Are we ready to face reconfigurations of such magnitude?
In fact, two scenarios have been set up in Davos: an optimistic one (manufactured work will disappear, and people will work more lightly, will be better paid, will have more free time which they could dedicate to hobbies or creative activities) and a pessimistic one (social inequities will deepen, i. e. the poor will become poorer and the rich will become even richer).
The fact that the great challenges are triggered by the field of technology and artificial intelligence (Chiacchio, Petropoulos and Pichler, 2018;Gavriluță, 2018) is also demonstrated by the European Commission (2018) report 'Employment and Social Developments in Europe'. The report's figures show that the labor market is in a swift rearrangement, with the services sector thriving to the detriment of production. In the European Union, the IT sector registered an increase of 80% in 2015 compared to 2000. According to the same report, significant increases were reported in the financial sector, in professional, scientific, research and technical activities or real estate.
On the same note, that of the changes initiated by technology, is the interview given on July 25, 2017 by Dieter Zetssche, the CEO of Daimler AG, a concern that owns the well-known automotive brand Mercedes-Benz. His predictions are much more direct and he announced a future world completely different from the one we know today. 'From 2020 onwards, the car industry will change completely and our children will call cars by means of an application, cars that will, of course, not require a driver. No one will own cars anymore, but we will all have access to them. We will only need 5% of the parking space we need today. 90% to 95% of parking lots will become playgrounds. 1.2 million people die every year in traffic accidents. The accident rate is now 1/100,000 km; once we will have autonomous cars on the entire Earth, the rate will be 1/10,000,000 km' (Delahunty, 2017). The changes will affect insurance agencies (lower accident rates), the real estate market (people will prefer rents due to greater mobility in the labor market), health and medical services, justice, agriculture and other fields of production.
For example, Dieter Zetssche announced in his 2017 interview: 'Tricorder X will be launched this year, a digital mechanism similar to those in Star Trek. It analyzes the retina, the blood sample and the breath by his smartphone. This is how medical tests will be carried out. In a few years, a significant part of the medical system will disappear (collection and interpretation of tests). 54 markers will give verdicts in various diseases'. In court, lawyers will be replaced by specialized software, which will reduce their number by 90%. In addition, legal solutions will be given in just a few seconds with an accuracy of 90% compared to the advice received from lawyers that has an accuracy of 70%. Farmer robots and the introduction of 3D printers in the industry will transform the two fields by making a significant human workforce available. For example, 'in China, they have already printed in 3D and built a complete six-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that is produced will be printed in 3D', says Dieter Zetssche in the same source.
The scenario described by the Daimler AG CEO seems to come from a sci-fi film, as it breaks the boundaries between fiction and reality (Gavriluță, 2017). However, it is based on a series of real data in the current field of technology and covers precise periods, estimated between 5 and 20 years. Therefore, it needs enough attention. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne also published 'The Future of Employment' (Frey and Osborne, undated); the two build a mathematical algorithm based on which they calculate the probability that some professions will be completely computerized. Therefore, the transformations triggered by the field of high technology require a keen interest, both from economic agents and scientific research. In this respect, according to the report of a project carried out by the Romanian Academy in 2015, it is expected that the interest for education will increase 'in the context of a dynamic society, subject to technological pressures' (Vlad, 2015, p. 24).
If this hyper-technological world is overlapped by a number of demographic changes (birth, mortality, migration), climate change (global warming) or a series of cultural, political and ideological factors, we could get an extremely complex picture in terms of the labor market's evolution in the foreseeable future. Research conducted in this regard highlights this dynamic of the labor market in recent years among higher education graduates (Mora, Teichler and Schomburg, 2007, pp. 11-34;Schomburg and Teichler, 2016).
Is the young population ready for such changes? Can the existing education system deliver a workforce capable of meeting these new challenges? Do current public policies favor adaptation and ongoing professional training? These questions target the young population who is going through a full cycle of educational training and who, naturally, should be well connected to the social and labor market realities. We will take into account first and foremost the data regarding Romanian youth.
A study conducted by INS (the National Institute of Statistics) in 2016, later published under the title 'Youth access to the labor market' and capitalized in the report 'Forecast of developments and trends in the labor market -Threats and opportunities. 2018', highlighted an interesting situation regarding young people between 15 and 34 years old in Romania. It is described in the figure below. The image clearly shows us that in today's Romanian society, education training does not have a continuous character. It is structured as a distinct period in professional training and only overlaps to a very small extent to the activity on the labor market. Once they finish their studies, young people look for jobs and no longer dedicate time to their professional development. Education may be given a utilitarian role, as it is perceived as a passport to occupying positions in society and on the labor market. At least for some young people, access to higher education involves the acquisition of a cultural and educational capital that can be exploited in the realm of power and symbolic exchanges, 'allowing access to dominant positions' (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 4;Bourdieu, 1970).
Of course, in addition to the symbolic and cultural dimension (social prestige, the prospect of accessing high social positions, social recognition, etc.), academic education has a practical dimension as well, given by the specialization in different fields. However, this practical dimension also contains a symbolic layer. Our research shows that their choices are not entirely rational. They are not the result of a one hundred percent precise, pragmatic calculation. This refers to a research carried out in 2018 in several academic centers in Romania where we organized focus groups and discussions with students and employers. The topic dealt with the projections and expectations of university students and the labor market. Part of this research was carried out in a larger project conducted by the Romanian Academy entitled 'Developing the capacity of the Ministry of National Education to monitor and forecast the evolution of higher education in relation to the labor market' -SIPOCA 3, funded by the European Social Fund through the Operational Program Administrative Capacity (Romanian Academy, undated). The theory of rational choices is practically refuted in this case. Our research shows that the actions of actors are not always rationally shaped by precise ideals (Scott, 2000).
Many students choose their faculties and majors according to certain models they have (friends, acquaintances, etc.), depending on the ideals and projections of their family with regards to professional achievement, depending on the professional prestige and opportunities the programs offer on the labor market, etc. The formative and continuous role of education emerges too little from the data provided by INS in 2016. The same source indicates a relatively low share of young graduates of secondary and higher education who are employed. This draws attention to secondary and post-secondary education and to how it relates to our labor market. Practically 37.7% of high school graduates did not occupy any place on the labor market in 2016.
INS figures also show that graduates with a general background have a lower absorption on the labor market than those who are trained in specialized fields. Among the latter, fluctuations are quite small, especially concerning IT, followed by health, social assistance (D9), business, administration and law (D4) (see Figure 3). Although the information processed and provided by INS does not reveal anything about the activity of young people in the fields in which they were trained or in related fields, we can easily conclude that the labor market in Romania values specialized training. . Thus, in the next 10 years the share of white-collar workers (i.e. highly qualified people) on the labor market will increase, as well as the segment of specialists in technical fields and engineering. According to the same study, areas such as health and technological innovation will produce a demand for specialists on the market, and the number of blue-collar workers will be declining. At EU level, forecasts are made by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP, 2018), based on data provided by Eurostat. The forecasts made by this center distinguish between newly created jobs and those that require replacement. Figures for 2018 show that the workforce is steadily declining (from 8.8 million in 2020 to 8.2 million in 2030). The most dramatic decrease in employment for the next 10 years will be recorded by the age groups 25-29 years old (13%) and 30-34 years old (28%). The age range 20-24 will benefit from a slight stability and growth on the labor market over the forecast period. CEDEFOP (2016) forecasts for Romania show a general downward trend in the case of people with secondary education and an increase in the percentage of those with higher education, but also those with a low level of education. This may be a consequence of the demographic decline, but also of the reconfiguration of the labor market in the next decade. Under these circumstances, we wonder: what is the answer of Romanian universities, as pools for the training of future specialists? What is students' perception of labor market opportunities and what are their expectations? What is the opinion of employers and the business environment? With all these in mind, the aim of our research is to follow to what extent the expectations of employers and students connect with the strategies of large Romanian universities in order to employ people and ultimately develop a set of appropriate public policies.

The methodology of research
Our research was exploratory and took place on three main levels: the study of university strategies to increase employability; students' expectations regarding employment opportunities; and employers' expectations of future graduates with higher education. The sample was random and it was formed on the institutional-educational level made up of three representative Romanian universities (the University of Bucharest, 'Alexandru Ioan Cuza' University of Iași and 'Babeș-Bolyai' University of Cluj-Napoca). There were 12 focus groups with students from different academic centers and 12 focus groups with employers from the same academic centers. The empirical research took place in 2017-2018.
The general objectives of the research were: -Identifying the strategies and services offered by the three universities to students in order to increase employability; -Identifying the structure of students' expectations regarding employment on the labor market; and -Identifying the expectation structure of employers in terms of training/formation within universities, but also in terms of students' abilities.
The research hypotheses were the following: -Employers' expectations regarding the profile of higher education graduates differ from the current offer; -The three universities have special services and programs that support students and graduates; -Students' expectations regarding future jobs exceed the supply on the labor market; and -Students show a certain pessimism regarding employment opportunities on the Romanian market, in accordance with the type of studies completed. The methods used are limited to a qualitative approach, one that involves combining documentation with the focus group. The choice for these methods is owed to the fact that, now, there is a multitude of statistics at national and European level concerned with the employment of young higher education graduates. But they do not offer the perspectives of the social actors directly involved: universities -students -employers. Here is the novelty brought by our study. Through our approach, we want to highlight the fact that social policies in Romania must take into account the actual situations and exploit the expectations of the social actors involved. The documentation took place in two stages. The first stage involved a statistical documentation on the employment situation of graduates in Romania, in relation to what is happening in Europe. The second stage involved identifying the main strategies to enhance employability proposed by the three universities.
Given that the focus group is a method used in qualitative research -especially when talking about homogeneous groups (Bulai, 2000;Chelcea, 2007;Morgan, 1998) -the technique has proven very effective in studying the expectations of students and entrepreneurs. In our research, the focus group also gave us the opportunity to observe how some ideas circulate within the group, then they are owned and eventually form group opinions (Krueger and Casey, 2005; De Singly, Gotman and Kaufmann, 1998). The number of participants varied between 8 and 12, and the questions launched for discussion were limited to the following topics: (a) academic education and labor market requirements; (b) employment opportunities on the Romanian labor market; (c) skills and expectations on the labor market; and (d) services and support programs for cooperation between universities, students and employers.  The duration of the focus groups varied between 1 hour and 30 minutes and 2 hours. The analysis of the discussions highlighted certain typologies, perceptions and aspects among the population investigated.
Starting from the above-mentioned analysis grids, our research insisted on the sub-topics that enjoyed the greatest interest and benefited from a clear and edifying approach from the focus group participants. We then tried to build a series of typologies and a grid of criteria that can better explain, from the perspective of training and expectations, the employment situation of higher education graduates on the Romanian labor market.
Expectations, requirements and strategies on the labor market

Academic strategies to enhance employability
During 2017-2018, we carried out a research that focused on identifying the strategies of three Romanian public universities on stimulating career development and entrepreneurship; the sample included the University of Bucharest, 'Alexandru Ioan Cuza' University of Iași and 'Babeș-Bolyai' University of Cluj-Napoca.
Thus, the University of Bucharest has a Career Counseling and Orientation Department (DCOC) whose organizational structure includes: Information Center, Professional Guidance and Counseling (CIOCP) and the Labor Market Relations Office (BRPM). The department develops on three main pillars: counseling and career orientation services, training and workshops for information and promotion.
The Career Counseling and Orientation Department of the University of Bucharest conducts a whole series of activities that follow a well-developed strategic plan aimed at developing the services offered to students and graduates, strengthening the university's relations with the business environment and developing projects or events for an easier transition from student life to employee life (University of Bucharest, 2018).
DCOC provides students with a guide that includes details on the usefulness of counseling services, various forms of professional experience that students can access (volunteering, internship, company visits, etc.) and provides examples of drafting CVs and letters of intent. The guide is interactive because students can present their personal experiences from internships or volunteer programs. At the same time, the University of Bucharest manages a website that presents career opportunities (University of Bucharest, undated 1 and 2).
Among the events organized by the University of Bucharest through the Department of Career Counseling and Guidance, there are: UnibucPM (interactions between employers, teachers and students), Career Days (professional training, presentation of opportunities, internships, volunteering and practice), Meetings of the Education-Industry Council (meetings between potential employers, teachers and students), Career Education Caravan (seminars with high school students on decision management, self-knowledge).
'Alexandru Ioan Cuza' University of Iași through the Department of Services for Students and Graduates (DSSA) provides services such as: educational counseling, psychological counseling and career counseling (focuses on the main aspects of career projects, identifying opportunities and strategies for presenting individual skills and potential). Within DSSA there are a number of centers such as the Center for Educational, Psychological and Special Needs Counseling -CCEPP, Center for Professional Information, Career Guidance and Placement -CIPO (provides professional planning services), Alumni Center (facilitates the process of communication between graduates and academia); INSERT Center (conducts studies and thematic research focused on investigating the insertion of students and graduates on the labor market).
The activities regarding the face-to-face interaction of students with professionals and representatives of public and private institutions are: The Living Library -Read a professional (2011-2016); Having tea with a professional; UAIC Career Days (trainings and workshops on career development); Open Doors Days at UAIC; Freshmen Days; University caravans; Welcome to UAIC; trainings and thematic meetings. The INSERT Center periodically prepares a report on the insertion of UAIC graduates on the labor market, a document that includes information on the rate of professional absorption of former students of the university.
'Babeș-Bolyai' University (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca has the Center for Career, Alumni and Business Relations (CCARMA), accredited by AJOFM Cluj-Napoca. It is noteworthy that the CCARMA website hosts an online recruitment platform called Smart Dreamers (undated) which posts constantly updated job announcements, online counseling services, a platform with announcements on career related events in UBB. The Career, Alumni and Business Relations Center organizes thematic workshops, trainings, services for companies/ institutions that want to promote their job offers.
UBB focuses on a series of hands-on activities with students, aimed at preparing them for the labor market: correct drafting of CVs, SWOT analysis, design of SMART objectives (specific, measurable, accessible, relevant and time-bound objectives), identification of personal skills, obtaining recommendations, outlining a correct personal image in the online environment, uploading CVs on various specialized platforms, following the activities of professionals in the field of interest, identifying events and opportunities in career development. In general, the services offered focus on career guidance, thematic workshops, evaluation and testing, internships and job promotion activities.
Therefore, the services available in the most important Romanian universities aim at two main directions: one concerns work with students and the development of skills that make them attractive on the labor market. Another direction is the one that mediates between the academic world and the business environment. Thus, in all three public universities, the services want to be an interface between academic training and professional life, between the academic environment and employers. The relationship with them and the business environment is materialized in promo-tion activities, partnerships, internships (Moldovan and Raboca, 2019, pp. 67-85) and training, etc. The information provided to students, the databases and the consulting services offered become important resources in making the right career decisions. Equally, these services can provide employers with concrete feedback on students' professional expectations. We consider, as well, that the analyzed universities continue to exploit the image capital given by the academic tradition and the cultural patterns on the labor market.
Other services and programs developed quite well within European universities, which can be a source of inspiration for us, are the following: -Promoting and sustaining contacts between successful alumni and current students (Oxford University Careers Service, 2018); -Developing the entrepreneurial(ship) environment in universities; -Increasing the number of successful startups based on innovation and technological development (for instance the EXIST program in German universities); -Development of a service-learning type education that focuses on the community, on its opportunities and needs (for example, the Knowledge Antennas program thanks to which the University 'Roviri I Virgili' in Spain organizes various actions and events within and for the community aimed at mutual learning, organizing internships in the community, support services, etc.); and -Development of mentoring networks for young would-be entrepreneurs.
The above-mentioned Romanian universities continue to function as elite institutions of Romanian academic education (in official rankings, but also through openly assumed missions). They focus on the training and education process, managing to adapt to the new challenges of the labor market. Today, Romanian universities are looking for solutions to better manage the absorption of graduates on the labor market. The services provided to students, the establishment of new specializations or academic modules, the relations with the economic environment are just some of them. Basically, the humboldian university model has undergone transformations over time. Today, concepts such as multiversity or entrepreneurial universities are taking shape in institutional constructions that develop a high adaptability, following the transformations on the labor market (Ișan, 2008). Under these conditions, the initial ideals of the university to deal with the 'development of the moral culture of a nation' (Sîrghi, 2017) are turned into utilitarian ideals that meet the demands of the moment. So, a dilemma arises: does today's university train young people with high morale, able to develop permanently, or rather specialists for the labor market?

Students' expectations regarding employment opportunities
We conducted several focus groups with the students, looking into their career options and projections. The answers are extremely varied and describe patterns and expectations that create, in our opinion, distinct typologies of the Romanian student.

Students with a well-defined career project
They show curiosity, the desire to learn more and to do research. 'I want to study and gain as much knowledge as possible by applying for scholarships at various European universities and pursuing a master's degree. I think it is very important to be well prepared and always follow your dream. I want to become a very good journalist' (D.I.). 'Since high school, I have set precise career goals and I think I am on the right track. I'm getting ready for that' (M.R.). Young people who show a clear orientation come with high grades in high school, have good results in both high school and college, benefit from a classic family education and have solid role models of professional success.
This clear career orientation characterizes students from all specializations and, in particular, from the faculties where the selection is made based on an exam. This requires better prior information and greater awareness of and commitment to professional training. 'I knew from the very beginning what I was committing myself to. I know what opportunities the college I attend offers me. Anyway, I will make the most of all the opportunities, and my parents are very supportive' (A.A.). The expectations of these students from their careers are quite high, and future projections target the peak of professional achievement.

Nonconformist students
They do not necessarily have high grades, but they distinguish themselves by an unusual ingenuity and curiosity, are extremely creative, mobile and difficult to include in a pattern. 'I did not know what to expect. I said I would give it a try. Now I see it's interesting. I have some professors that I like a lot and they advise me. I don't really know what will come out, but I like experimenting. The world is evolving and I will figure it out as I go along' (G.T.). 'I enrolled in college just like that ... without anyone telling me what I could do. I don't have a clear career plan, but I like to find out what's around me, what my colleagues from other faculties are doing. It's interesting to know how others are doing. Maybe I'll open a business … I don't know yet. I like to combine things. I will try a master's degree in another field. I feel that will help me'. These students can offer pleasant surprises in their professional development and can make a passion for research.

Students who discover themselves
Our meetings with students show that quite a number of them do not come up with a clear career plan. Some young people choose a specialization by chance, others as a result of recommendations or the wish of their parents. Others end up in college accidentally, because they failed in other specializations due to competition. In such cases, marked by uncertainties regarding their career, the student ends up discovering affinities with the specialization he(she) is pursuing. 'I hardly knew anything when I came here. It was quite hard … Little by little, I realized I could learn interesting things and make plans. It's true, I also have the chance to have supportive teachers and my colleagues are OK. I know many colleagues who started just like me. Now they're going to internships, they have scholarships and have more insight into how things work' (T.P.).
Under such conditions, the student begins to accumulate knowledge and develops constantly. We are dealing with a certain perseverance and determination that produce spectacular effects at the level of each training cycle. 10 years later, at graduation reunions, we find that some of these students have very successful careers.

Careless students
They pursue university studies for various reasons: because it is what their parents wanted; they were bored; because it 'works well' from the point of view of the resume; because the diploma can be, after all, a useful symbolic capital, etc. 'Everyone has diplomas these days. It is no big deal … I don't know what I'll do. I'm still having fun and I will figure it out later' (L.S.). In general, these students have a low performance and no projects in terms of their professional career ('We will figure it out on the spot' -D.R.). Their professional development is random, being left to chance.

Pessimistic and complaining students
They are average and mediocre students. Some of them make a certain effort to meet the requirements of university education and have very high expectations. In general, they are dissatisfied with the education system, teachers, the assessment system, the opportunities offered to them, the economic environment and the labor market, etc. 'It is very difficult to find a well-paid job where you can practice what you learnt. If you don't have connections or political support, it doesn't work' (C.T.). 'Everything is going bad here. We will have to emigrate in order to accomplish something. The school always stresses us with theory, not with concrete things that are required on the market' (B.A.).
In this case, the blame for all the failures and disappointments of life is placed outside, and one's own responsibility is much diluted. The number of such students increases as their knowledge and performance at the university decrease. Such attitudes can be explained from the perspective of social psychology by the fundamental error of attribution. This approach was first mentioned by Lee Ross in 1977 and explains people's tendency to underestimate contextual, institutional situations in personal success, and to overestimate their own qualities (Ross, 1997).
Beyond these typologies that outline a certain mentality regarding education and the students' status in the equation of professional training, the reaction of concern regarding their professional future is extremely common. But what do students really want? (Onofrei et al., 2017). The answers can be summarized as follows: well-paid jobs in the fields in which they were trained or in related fields, career development opportunities, flexible schedule, healthy working environment and safe working conditions, stable jobs ensuring a good work-life balance, jobs located close to home, and bonuses, incentives and other facilities. This synthesis of students' individual desires for their professional future indicates a somewhat conservative outlook for a highly flexible, ever-changing labor market. Basically, the Romanian student wants material satisfaction, stability, predictability, safety and enough time for personal and family life. Risk, initiative, challenges or professional mobility are variables found to a lesser extent in the discourse of students who are asked to make individual professional projections. These requirements are observed by human resources specialists and employers.
Of course, there is also research at the organizational level that somewhat changes the perspective on students' relationship with the labor market. A series of research evoked by the National Alliance of Student Organizations in Romania (ANOSR) brings to attention the idea of entrepreneurship among students. Thus, the Barometer of entrepreneurship education among Romanian students (2014) highlights very interesting facts: -52% of students want to have their own start-up; -57% of students want to be entrepreneurs rather than managers; -97% of students are willing to work hard to obtain what they want; -82% consider that they have at least one entrepreneur among their acquaintances; -56% of respondents say they have at least one entrepreneur in the family; and -44% of respondents believe that universities prepare them to become entrepreneurs only to an average extent. We must mention that the research aims at assessing students' views on entrepreneurship, and the working tool was designed specifically for this purpose.
Another research (Onofrei et al., 2017) carried out on a representative sample at the 'Alexandru Ioan Cuza' University of Iași in 2017 presents the students' preferences in accessing information about the labor market: -use dedicated websites such as Best Jobs, EJobs, HIPO: 79,68%; -apply to different companies: 51.58%; -access their own social network (friends, acquaintances, family): 47.62%; -follow the careers section of various companies: 45.51%; and -attend career fairs and events: 41,68%.
Given the figures and information presented here, we can get an idea of how students project themselves on the labor market. Thus, we can say that the concept of professional success dominates, in particular, by making the most of the graduation diploma on the labor market. According to Wallerstein et al. (2015, pp . 57-107), the diploma becomes a currency of social respectability that helps to secure jobmatching, as much as possible, the training. In an extremely competitive job market, those who have additional skills and qualifications will have more chances to make a difference.
In general, the idea of mentoring or internship post-graduation disappears from the students' projections. This is rather the case in the German education system, considered more egalitarian and focused on the acquisition of skills (Titieni (Hatos), 2016). The answers received show the idea of acquiring a specialization or doing fur-ther studies is more and more popular, in order to harmonize the training with the demands of certain positions. Often, undergraduates do a master's degree or return to complete their studies due to the demands of the professions they have in mind. Some of them participate in training modules offered by employers (especially large companies), as they want to improve and advance in their careers. Transition periods (unemployment or temporary employment) are perceived as failures and lack of adequate support (Fecioru, 2008) in accessing professional positions. On the other hand, furthering studies could also be a disguised form of unemployment. This would attract an inflationary spiral in schooling figures, doubled by the decrease of performance and promotion standards (Wallerstein et al., 2015, p. 80). Or, this would involve a series of conductive measures and policies that may affect labor market mobility.

What do employers want?
In the employment equation, in addition to professional training and the expectations of students from the labor market, potential employers also play an important role. The way they design their development strategies and staff policies, the requirements for recruiting future employees, their involvement in the development of quality staff, all these become important variables in the analysis of the labor market and the employability of graduates.
There are, without a doubt, a series of specifics of employers' expectations towards future employees depending on the size of the company, the field of activity or the nature of the job. Thus, smaller employers, especially private ones, often require previous work experience and the willingness to respond to tasks other than those required by professional training. All these requirements are due to a fairly small turnover and a rather light staff training policy. The focus is on the concrete skills and experience of the future employee. In addition, such requirements also betray an insufficient staff training and development policy on the part of the employer.
In the case of large companies with many employees and tailor-made logistics (multinationals, for example), personnel policy is clear and well defined. The emphasis is on the quality of training the future employees, on their personal qualities and availability to grow. The job description and the selection of future employees are well developed.
In our focus groups with the employers, we reached the following results.

Education
Employers require a general culture and a basic professional culture in the respective field. Lack of education, say human resources experts, heralds a poor willingness to learn something new later or a reduced ability to analyze and know certain things, accompanied by certain difficulties in making the right decisions. 'From personal experience I noticed that well-trained graduates learn details specific to the job more easily. They combine their theoretical training with the hands-on part more effort-lessly. We provide them with internships during college and after hiring they all participate in training courses where they practically learn the ropes' (S.N.).
The requirement of an adequate education has in view theoretical training. In the opinion of employers, the future employee can work and develop professionally based on this. 'In recent years we have noticed a decrease in theoretical training and this creates problems for us in our training courses. If there is no base, there is nothing to build upon …' (B.P.). Employers actually refer to a series of knowledge and skills that students can acquire during school training: the ability to be interested in news from the field, to be informed, to make a logical synthesis of a material, the ability to design different solutions, to use appropriate professional language and basic knowledge in the field, etc. Employers say that only these graduates show 'greater adaptability to the workplace and acquire practical skills more easily' (G. D.).
In what concerns smaller companies, the emphasis changes slightly. They do not have resources to allocate to training and therefore focus on practical training. 'I don't care what grades he got in school. I want to know exactly what he can do. I don't have time to teach them what they haven't learnt. Nowadays, it is very difficult to meet a truly skilled person. The good ones have left the country and we are struggling here with what is left. Only the last year we had three people filling the same position! They just come and go!'(L.P.) Therefore, depending on the recruitment capacity, training and loyalty, but also on the size of the organization, the requirements for education vary.

Human quality
It is one of the important factors, frequently mentioned by employers and human resources specialists in various fields. In the opinion of most, this is closely related to certain values in future employees: reliability, punctuality, respect, enthusiasm and motivation. Along with all this, the research carried out also includes the ability to react quickly as an absolutely necessary skill (Onofrei et al., 2017).
The lack of reliability of the new employees appears as the main problem. It generates a lack of trust and is, in the view of employers, the main source of poor performance. 'How do I perform well if my employees are late for work or on the phone all the time?' (G.T.) Moreover, job interviews sometimes betray 'lack of interest and seriousness'. 'I almost got used to meeting people who are late for the interview, who don't show interest in questions, make unjustified claims or show disrespect' (A.B.).

Having clear goals
Meetings with employers also highlight the importance they attach to the skill of having clear goals. 'I ask them what their medium and long-term goals are ... some don't know what to answer me. They look at me in surprise' (C.L.). The answers received from the focus groups with employers reveal that many young people are insecure. They have no plans or a clear path they want to follow in life. Human resources experts say that the image of a generation 'without an ideal' is emerging. It is about a lack of being grounded, realistic, it is about indifference in approaching one's own professional development.

Communication skills
Our research has shown that employers aim to hire people who show 'a real ability to communicate' (MM). This would involve: 'willingness to listen to your interlocutor until the end, as well as the ability to provide appropriate answers'. Due to the development of virtual communication, young people may lose their ability to convey something and to communicate directly, face to face. In fact, the interviews conducted with graduates reveal a reduced capacity for synthesis and clear formulation of thoughts, information or knowledge. There are, say the same recruiters and human resources specialists, multiple situations when there are obstacles in the recruitment interview. At other times, candidates 'do not have the slightest knowledge about the nature of such an interview' (A.B.).

Teamwork skills
This is not just an indicator of sociability. It is also a prerequisite on the part of employers in order to ensure a coherent, efficient professional environment, safe from conflicts or personal hostilities. 'I ask them from the very beginning if they previously worked in a team and I ask them to give me examples. That says a lot about them' (B.S.). This requirement is very common among employers. Volunteering, internships and various teamwork experiences are very important.
It is important for the employer that the future employee does not develop in isolation, but that he (she) is mindful of the existence of a team and a professional group. 'I have the best performances with people who cooperate, communicate, with people who exchange ideas and experience' (E.L.).

Willingness to grow and develop professionally
This is, in the eyes of the employer, an indicator of competence and interest towards the profession. 'If they don't display curiosity, desire for permanent training, they are outdated in a few years. This is especially valid in our field, in computers. But I believe this is becoming a standard requirement for even larger fields' (L.P.).

Creativity
It is a variable that appears more and more often in entrepreneurs' requirements, especially in areas where a lot of imagination and intellectual brightness are needed. 'I had an extremely reliable employee. He managed to find solutions to almost all difficult situations … Great man! Then he went abroad for a much higher salary. We couldn't offer him that much. Those who stayed are not as good or as dynamic' (B.S.).
The idea of creativity was also emphasized at the Davos meeting in 2016. Bryn Jolfsson, for example, argued on that occasion that human creativity remains the main capital in the age of new technologies: 'It is difficult to teach machines to be truly creative. It is virtually impossible for a robot to come up with a new business idea'.

The relationship with the academia
In this regard, entrepreneurs belong to several categories. In a first category are those who have a traditional collaboration with universities and who appreciate that this collaboration is useful and can develop on different levels. 'I have participated in job fairs, presentations and workshops for several years and I already know how to select my people' (A.L.). 'I know university professors, I attend conferences and I started to get more insight into how my field is evolving and how I and future employees can adapt. Mind you, that is not easy and without real policies, the competition will shatter you' (G.C.).
Then there are those who have infrequent collaborations with the university and consider that their activity is too modest to insist on developing relations with the academic environment. 'I have few employees, some very good at what we do and I can't afford to grow. I need money, technology, skilled people and a market. It's hard'.
Those who don't collaborate with universities are generally small companies that simply survive on the Romanian market. They do not require a specific background from their employees and do not have personnel policies or development plans. Salaries are quite low and employees don't keep their job for too long.
As can be seen in the above synthesis on employers' expectations, the emphasis is mainly on the socio-human dimension of the candidate's training. Hence, the need for courses in the socio-human field that can prepare the student for the future socio-professional life. These courses have the capacity to develop the student's skills in relationships, professional socialization, communication, assuming values and principles of professional ethics, etc.
Large corporations and well-developed companies are willing to invest in the training of future employees, provided they meet a number of basic conditions. Therefore, continuous professional training revolves around responsibility, collaboration, respect, availability and seriousness. All these skills can be doubled by continuous training programs that the university and companies can design for the professional development of employees and for their permanent adaptation to new changes. All these, together with other aspects, can constitute real 'strategic choices' (Hințea, 2013, pp. 294-309) in the educational reform policies of the Romanian public sector.

Public policies for increasing the insertion of higher education graduates in the public sector
Our research in the academia and entrepreneurship clearly highlights a joint effort by universities, employers and students to find the best solutions in order to cope with a constantly moving and changing labor market. The main coordinates for increasing the employability of graduates in the public sector revolve around several elements.
The professional training and the human quality of the future employee are important landmarks of absorption in the labor market. The results of the research con-ducted by the Ernst and Young (2017) confirmed these realities. 'For the first time in the EY indicators dedicated to entrepreneurs, but also compared to the first edition of the EY Barometer and Impact Hub of startups, bureaucracy decreases significantly in the options of entrepreneurs, precarious education taking first place in the top of the most important obstacles for those who want to start and develop a business in Romania' (Ernst and Young, 2017). Until recently, the education system provided the labor market with sufficient knowledge, skills and abilities that did not raise problems in their integration and professional training. This leads to the conclusion that repeated changes in education did not necessarily have positive effects.
In this regard, we propose a series of public policies aimed at educating, training, and increasing employment on the labor market. They are as follows: -Coherent educational policies attained through the restructuring of curricula and harmonization of learning cycles that involve the development of human qualities and basic general knowledge. In the academia, the evaluation of universities and rethinking of funding, together with a more rigorous selection of candidates, can lead to a better performance in terms of graduates' training; -In addition, greater flexibility of training modules/courses comprising a core of general and specialized courses and the opportunity to supplement one's credits with any other courses from the curriculum could broaden students' horizons and increase creative approaches, so necessary today; -Initiating and funding internships and exchange programs for students; -Facilitating partnerships with employers and supporting them in order to train and hire graduates (internships); -Financing joint projects between universities and employers; -Creating platforms for students containing information necessary for the development of careers in different fields and access to jobs. -Developing an entrepreneurial spirit. Research has generally shown a rather weak concern for entrepreneurship among students. However, there are exceptions. This fact is also noticed by the research conducted by Ernst and Young in 2017. The reticent opinions of entrepreneurs regarding the ability of students to develop their own businesses relate to the lack of an adequate entrepreneurial education. As a solution, we propose the development, promotion and support of courses and practical initiatives on entrepreneurship in the academia and beyond. Equally, a series of public support policies (co-financing, advantageous loans, facilitating access to a number of projects, bureaucratic facilities) for young graduates with entrepreneurial initiative can be a positive signal for those who want to become entrepreneurs. -Appropriate economic policies and incentives to stimulate employability and continuous training on areas of activity. On the other hand, the issue of student employability in Romania must be viewed in a broader social and economic context. Many Romanian graduates are recruited by large companies abroad. They receive bonuses, facilities, opportunities for professional growth and career de-velopment. This top includes those who study in the fields of high technology: IT, automation, physics, engineering, medicine, advanced scientific research, etc. -Increasing the undergraduates' employability in Romania can also be accomplished by means of public policies that stimulate the development of certain promising sectors (IT, tourism, ecological agriculture, medical services, etc.). Here, we can provide a qualified human resource. To these can be added a number of facilities (bonuses, the possibility of continuous improvement and working with modern technology, flexible schedule, living facilities) to increase the attractiveness of positions for highly specialized graduates who usually choose to emigrate.
In conclusion, the figures concerning the status of employability on the Romanian labor market could indicate a crisis of skilled labor, doubled by one of the education system in terms of preparing students to increase their employability and to practice entrepreneurship. Sometimes the crisis is induced by the effect of simple economic calculations: foreign employers prefer a skilled and highly skilled labor force that costs much less than the labor force in their countries. In fact, this may be also symptomatic of a crisis of the system of selection and promotion of valuable specialists, as well as the absence of providing incentives in the local economic and research environment.
In essence, our research reveals another side of the Romanian social reality. Highly trained and highly qualified graduates prefer well-paid careers abroad. Obviously, the labor market in Romania is not an attractive one for them. It does not offer them material, symbolic satisfactions or real opportunities for developing and capitalizing their potential. Other graduates choose jobs in the country, but their motivation, knowledge and skills do not always live up to the expectations of the employers. This can lead to disinterest, lack of involvement and neglect.
In order to avoid all these dysfunctions, we believe that we need to know in advance the dynamics and the latest challenges existing on the labor market in Western Europe and in Romania. Finding solutions to these challenges ultimately leads to increased employability of graduates with higher education in Romania. In this sense, the analysis of the expectations structure and of the students' offer in relation to the Romanian labor market is a fact of special educational, administrative and political importance. Our study aims to bring more insight and efficiency in this regard.