This paper examines university students’ motivations with regard to developing skills in a job during their academic years of study. In this respect, we conducted a piece of qualitative research by focusing on two different sub-samples of students, one represented by Romanian students and another one represented by foreign UE and non-UE students who come to study in Romania. Our main purposes are, firstly to highlight the motivation of students to be employed and secondly, to put the basis of more studentcentred public policies with regard to improving the future labour force’s complex skills and employers’ consciousness by using it more efficiently. Hence, we herein present the advantages of creating, implementing and using a mutual platform both for universities which have high quality standards in developing skills and for employers who are socially responsible for teaching and orienting students so as to successfully face with the labour market challenges.