Employability skills

Improve employability

Watch the employability video (mp4 30mb)
Watch the employability video (mp4 30mb)

Employability is improved by a good academic record plus skills and attributes that enable you to adapt and manage the constantly changing work environment.

Employability skills include hard skills (technical or discipline-specific) and generic or soft skills, such as:

  • communication
  • teamwork
  • problem solving
  • initiative and enterprise
  • planning and organising
  • self management
  • learning
  • technology.

Every stage of your career requires that you are able to identify, analyse, prioritise and convincingly describe your skills.

You need these when you are:

  • career planning
  • applying for jobs using a resume, cover letter or response to selection criteria
  • being interviewed for a job
  • requesting new duties and responsibilities
  • selecting future professional development.

Developing employability skills

You develop employability skills through work (paid or voluntary), studies and community involvement. During your degree, you should not only strive for excellent results but also be involved in a variety of activities within the community including clubs and societies, sport, hobbies, and volunteer activities.

General employability skills

Skills area Skills claims Possible evidence
Communication
  • Organising and expressing ideas concisely.
  • Speaking clearly and directly to individuals or groups.
  • Being proficient in other languages.
  • Writing assignments and reports.
  • Presenting and participating in class discussions.
  • Using customer service skills.
Teamwork
  • Working in a team to achieve a common goal..
  • Sharing information, supporting and empowering other team members.
  • Responding constructively to the opinions of others.
  • Working on group assignments at university.
  • Being involved in a student society, sports team or community organisation.
  • Working in a team in employment.
Problem solving
  • Researching and selecting relevant information to solve a problem.
  • Analysing issues for underlying causes, assessing options, proposing solutions.
  • Thinking sequentially, critiquing and synthesizing information.
  • Working on assessment exercises such as a research project.
  • Participating in work-integrated learning such as a placement or internship.
  • Working within a customer service environment and dealing with complaints.
Initiative and enterprise
  • Easily adjusting to new situations.
  • Mapping out ideas to an action plan.
  • Identifying innovative options.
  • Obtaining work placement, vacation employment or internship
  • Operating own business.
  • Innovation in student group, club or team.
Planning and organisation
  • Managing timelines and prioritising.
  • Allocating and coordinating tasks for self and others.
  • Anticipating future needs and forward planning.
  • Project planning or managing an event.
  • Arranging study and work commitments to support yourself at university.
  • Organising networking, fundraising, sporting or social activities.
Self-management
  • Operating independently and taking responsibility for your own actions.
  • Being aware of your own strengths and limitations.
  • Being able to communicate your own ideas.
  • Acting on feedback and addressing gaps in skills and knowledge.
  • Developing a career plan.
  • Doing work experience through placement, internship or vacation work.
Learning
  • Putting in time and effort to learn new skills.
  • Understanding the need for learning to bring about change.
  • Being adaptable in different learning environments, eg class, online, on the job.
  • Mentoring or coaching activities.
  • Participating in an interest group or student society.
  • Subscribing to newsletters and updates from professional associations.
Technology
  • Proficiency in using computers and telecommunications systems.
  • Understanding current trends and developments Managing information through technology.
  • Sourcing information with electronic databases.
  • Using specialised software packages for course/occupation.
  • Managing project timelines with software.

Study-related skills

Graduates from each faculty typically develop certain skills. Examples include:

Art Design and Architecture

  • Setting goals, managing own workload and meeting deadlines.
  • Working in an interdisciplinary environment and collaborating with others.
  • Accommodating change, and dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

Arts

  • Making a structured argument based on an assessment of historical evidence.
  • Expressing ideas in writing with coherence and clarity.
  • Critically applying methodologies for quantifying, analysing and interpreting data.

Business and Economics

  • Modelling and data analysis, interpretation and extrapolation.
  • Listening, negotiating and persuading.
  • Problem solving and decision making by creating, evaluating and assessing options.

Education

  • Questioning ideas and theories encountered in learning.
  • Communicating oral and written arguments.
  • Comprehending a range of education systems and the values behind these.

Engineering

  • Investigating and defining issues, taking into account limitations and risk assessment.
  • Adopting creative and innovative solutions to problems.
  • Managing projects including planning, execution and evaluation.

Information Technology

  • Planning solutions to specific problems within appropriate specifications.
  • Identifying, analysing and evaluating the information needs of different groups.
  • Providing access to information via different delivery strategies.

Law

  • Identifying and prioritising issues in terms of importance.
  • Researching relevant information from a range of sources.
  • Making and presenting a rationalised choice between a range of solutions.

Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

  • Analysing, interpreting and critically evaluating data.
  • Communicating effectively with clients.
  • Liaising and negotiating within a multi-discipline team.

Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

  • Understanding and upholding the ethical responsibility of the role.
  • Apply scientific and technical rigour to the use of medicines.
  • Using evidence-based decision-making skills.

Sciences

  • Planning, conducting and reporting on investigations through individual and group projects.
  • Developing arguments from scientific, philosophical and ethical perspectives.
  • Accessing, analysing and processing information from a range of sources.

Adapted from Degrees of Skill. The Council for Industry & Higher Education, UK, 2006.

Employability attributes

Attributes are your approach to work and are usually related to your value system. Unlike skills, they are very difficult to teach someone. Employers will seek out particular attributes. You need to recognise your own and learn to communicate them to employers. These include such things as:

  • adaptability
  • loyalty and commitment
  • ability to deal with pressure
  • honesty and integrity
  • commonsense
  • enthusiasm and motivation
  • reliability
  • sense of humour.

References

Employability Skills for the Future, 2002, Hely, P., produced by the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Australian National Training Authority.

Student Employability Profiles: a Guide for Employers, 2005, Kubler, B., and Forbes, P., produced by the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) in association with Graduate Prospects. London: CIHE.

Resources

View some examples of how to describe employability skills.

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