Employability Skills

Success is never easy and sustained winning at your career over a 30 to 40 year span is incredibly hard. However, the most successful people seem to get there effortlessly every time. What’s common to them is neither genetics nor luck but a set of common habits that create the momentum and circumstances for the dice to be loaded in their favour. You too can take responsibility for your success and achieve massive outcomes by making these small changes in your life that most people ignore.

Employability skills are transferrable skills that are useful in nearly every job. They involve the development of an expertise, knowledge base or mindset that makes you more attractive to employers. Employability skills are also often referred to as employment skills, soft skills, work-readiness skills or foundational skills. They often improve your performance, minimize errors and promote collaboration with your co-workers, enabling you to perform your role more effectively.

Employability skills may not be listed in a job description, but they are important skills that can make you more attractive to prospective employers. The main benefit of having these traits is that it can help you stand out among other candidates who are vying for the same position. While other candidates may have the same qualifications and experience, you may have a better chance of getting hired if you have employability skills that are particularly useful for the role.

Employers are often looking for skills that go beyond qualifications and experience. Your education and experience may make you eligible to apply for a job but, to be successful in most roles; you will need skills that you are likely to develop over time. These soft skills are ‘employability skills’: they are what makes you employable.

The building blocks of any career

Employability or ‘soft skills’ are the building blocks of your career. The media frequently run stories on how these skills are lacking in school-leavers, graduates and/or those already in employment. Most of us start to develop these skills early on in life, but we may not be aware that we are doing so.

The most important employability skills are in the areas of:

• Getting along with and working well with other people, such as communication skills and other interpersonal skills;
• Being reliable and dependable: doing what you say you will by the deadline you have agreed, and turning up when you are meant to be there; and
• A willingness to learn new skills, whether those are job-specific or more general.

Today, the job market is more competitive in an altogether different sense. Along with subject matter expertise, employers are now looking for employability skills as essential traits in their potential employees.

While it was easier for IT professionals to land jobs — thanks to the mushrooming start-ups — many of them are now finding it difficult to keep their employment or be successful in their roles. One reason for this is the ever-changing nature of technology. Technology is evolving every day, and if you are unable to up skill to stay relevant in your industry, you will inevitably fall behind your peers.

Today, your education and experience may only be enough to qualify for a job, but to be successful in most roles in the field of emerging technologies; you will need soft skills like communication, team-work, and problem-solving.

Why are Employability Skills Important?

These set of "job-readiness" skills are, in essence, behaviours that are necessary for every job and are essential attitudes that allow you to grow in your career and also efficiently let you:

• connect with co-workers
• solve problems
• be a part of and understand your role within the team
• make responsible choices for your job and your career
• be independent and take charge of your career

Employers value these unique attributes in their potential employees because they have always been necessary for a productive and smoothly functioning workforce. But in today's world, where jobs are few, employers enjoy more options and would like to hire a technical expert who also displays well-rounded employability skills.

What are the Personal Skills?

Employability skills depend on?

Your Education

This information helps companies understand your passions as a child. Thus, through a study of your education choices, companies can make judgements about the type of career you wished for. They compare it with the requirements of the job.

Your Skills

This information helps companies know how you used your education and your knowledge of the working to your benefit. How much of your time did you divert to polish your skills? In simple terms, your skills are measured against what you know and how you used that to better yourself.

Your Attitude

This is used to measure your employability. Your attitude is what you display to the world at all times. However, companies generally look for people that have a vision, and those that have strong decision making. Weak attitudes are often viewed as negative that makes co-working tough. Thus, one must paint a good picture of their attitude as a hardworking and honest one.

What is meant by career?

Job is a work that you are currently pursuing. Career is a path that you have taken in your work life.

E- Experience

This includes your work and personal experiences that have helped you develop skills that may be attractive for the hiring team.

D- Degree of Subject Knowledge

This includes the depth to your education. As mentioned above, skills are developed from the knowledge. Thus, improving knowledge can help improve or build skills.

G- Generic Skills

This includes the skills that come with a job in the social world. Good communicator, writing skills, attitude, basic courtesy, etc.

E- Emotional Intelligence

This is a hard one to measure. In a broad sense, emotional intelligence is the ability of the individual to take control of their emotions. Also, these help making informed decisions, not ones that lead out of panic.

Why are employability expertises significant?

Employability is not just securing one job. It has traits and factors that decide the skill of retaining or hiring employees. These are the reasons why employability is important:

Competitive World

In a world it is difficult to judge the individuality of the candidate? The larger point is that the basic education for every one is the same. However, even good colleges can just offer good jobs to their students. Retaining that job defines that student. Thus, this is the unique factor in each candidate.

Adapt to changing situations

Work-life is fickle. Not just in terms of emotions, the real change comes in the form of changes to job descriptions. Over time, you will go up the ranks of the company. You will be required to do various jobs that are needed at different stages. Hence, employability helps you gather and retain these traits.

Helps you explore self

The best thing about employability is that it is entirely in your hands. Thus, only you can find your true employability. Thus, exploring yourself urges you to become employable. You try to learn new things. Also, you retain more information for future use. And, you go through many work lives to finally select the one that works for you.

Return on Investment

Costs for completion of higher education are getting higher every year. Students are walking out of colleges with large debts and are in need of a job. This is why maintaining employability is important.

A degree is not enough

Truthfully, in today’s day and age, even students from well-reputed colleges are lacking job opportunities, because they have not developed their skills in different areas. Though, having managerial skills, even in non-business related fields like medicine, greatly improves your employability, as you can be considered for a post of manager at a hospital.

Final Thought

While getting up from your seat is also an action. But, an action with a determined result is a skill. To be employed is to be at risk, to be employable is to be secure.” These words have the true essence of employability.