Personal competencies from the perspective of human resource management and the business programmes of higher education

Our paper is centred on the research problem whether competencies are really essential as they play a significant role in human resource management and also enhance competitiveness. It wishes to highlight what competencies (can) enhance the success of employees and their competitiveness in the labour market together with certain personality traits that have a powerful impact on decision making mechanisms. An answer is also sought to the question of how competencies have been transformed and how their role was appreciated and re-evaluated. To this end, we applied both primary and secondary research with qualitative (focus group interviews) and quantitative (standardised questionnaires) phases. One of our further objectives was to create and test a competency structure tailored to the Hungarian labour market situation on the basis of the professional literature and our research. Based on the literature review we have supposed that it is not practical to talk about competencies in general, rather the adequate competency profile and portfolio has to be reviewed in a certain job or profession. As a conclusion, our research has underlined the importance of competencies in the labour market and justified their existence mostly in selection. Both parties, i.e. the employers and employees have pointed out the significance of developing them in training and practice and see competencies as a factor of future growth. Furthermore, they regard the role that competencies play indispensable in improving the dialogue between the labour market and education