Building a career in marketing communication in a sustainable development era: which key competencies are required?

. The paper focuses on identifying which key competencies the higher educated graduates need to succeed at entry-level jobs in the field of marketing communication in the current sustainable development marketing approaches era and create a competency model for such jobs. The resulting competency model, based on data collected from 194 SMEs operating in the Czech Republic, defines an optimal set of the six most critical key competencies as well as the expected behavior that a competent higher educated graduate should possess to be successfully hired for different marketing communication-related jobs and be able to perform work tasks well. The proposed competency model can bring more transparency to the selection process for both recruiters and job candidates by establishing standards for desirable key competencies in such marketing positions