Underpinned by reforms initiated under the Bologna process, the European universities today have to develop student's skills and to prepare them for sustainable employment. In this article, we try to illustrate the changing roles of universities, highlighting the importance of the concept of competences. We present the first use of SQALES (process and tool) among students from three European universities (Luxembourg, Belgium, Romania) entering in their first year of social sciences study. Our results show that the evaluation of the employability skills is possible and can even be recommended as a guide to adjusting curricula and to implementing programmes of assistance tailored to identify student needs.