The Dominant Soft Skills that Affect Readiness of Vocational Graduate Vocational Graduate in Entering Construction Labor Market

This study aims to recognize the dominant soft skills factors that influence the readiness of vocational education graduates to enter the job market in the field of construction. The method used is survey study including samples that consisted of 40 workers graduated from State University of Medan civil engineering diploma 3. The instruments used were the soft skills and the competence readiness questionnaire with reliability coefficients of 0.93 and 0.98. Furthermore, the multiple regression analysis techniques is used to test the hypothesis. The results shows that the soft skills readiness influencing 74% the vocational education skills readiness in entering the job market in construction. Furthermore, the factors that has dominant influenced soft skills in vocational education graduates' readiness including (a) communication skills (20.07%),(b) working according to plan (6.00%),(c) emotional intelligence (3.13%),(d) digital abilities (2.07%),(e) problem solving (1.96%),(f) willingness to learn (1.61%),(g) confident (1.23%),(h) ability to cooperate (1.14%), and (i) decision making (1.06%). This finding is useful for the university as an institution that produces graduates for vocational education, and the construction services as users of vocational education graduates. Moreover, it is also possible that these findings can apply more broadly to vocational secondary education institutions.