Educating the Future Workforce: Soft Skills Development in Undergraduate Translation Programs in Iran

The present study set out to investigate the concept of soft skills in academic translator education in Iran. To this aim, a needs assessment was conducted with two groups of stakeholders: i.e. translation professionals and translation students. The professionals were asked to indicate the importance of a set of soft skills in the context of the translation profession. Next, we examined through the basis of a self-assessment survey for students to what degree these skills are felt to be acquired by the transla- tion students. Our comparative study revealed that four soft skills pairs that professionals consider important for the translation profession seem to be lacking among students of translation in Iran: i.e. „critical thinking and rational inquiry‟, „problem-solving and creativity‟, „motivation and satisfaction‟, and „responsibility and autonomy‟. This study produced results that corroborate the findings of a great deal of previous research into the shortage of soft skills highly demanded by the professional market among university students and graduates. The article concludes with suggested instructional methods to develop soft skills among undergraduate translation students. This provides valuable guidelines for translation educators in their decisions on the whats and hows of course design and the evaluation of current courses to identify the shortcomings and refine them to meet the needs of the stakeholders.