Reflective Report on Employability Skills

This reflective report discusses the importance of employability skills and reflects on the author's experience in a group presentation exercise. It highlights the skills required for success in personal and professional life and suggests ways to improve weak areas.

Professional Discussion and
individual supporting notes

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Employability skills are characterised as some essential skills, values and personal
qualities that enable an individual to thrive in workplace. These skills include oral and verbal
communication skills, numeracy, time management, team work, ICT, problem solving and
research skills (Baruah, Ward and Brereton, 2017). While applying for job, these skills are
necessary to be possess by a person in order to gain success in his/her professional career.
Having these skills will allow an individual to apply knowledge in resolving issues and enables
him/her to work in any environment. This is a reflective report in which reflection is provided on
some employability skills on the basis of my own experience in group presentation exercise.
MAIN BODY
There are so many skills which are required by an individual to have in order to be
successful in his/her personal as well as professional life. These skills involves numeracy, team
work, ICT, time management, problem solving, research and oral and verbal communication
skills. All the employers seek these skills in an individual and are important for a person to gain
employment (Brennan, 2014). Apart from the employment, these skills are also required in
academic context. I am a student of 1st year and undertaking foundation degree in business and
management. While learning this module, my teacher asked me to take participation in group
presentation exercise and conduct a formal discussion over the topic “analyse the relationship
and effect that external and internal stakeholders have on business practice”. In context of this, I
am reflecting on the employability skills, based on my own experience in group presentation
exercise.
At the time when I undertaking this module, my tutor asked me to give group
presentation on the given topic. As I was new to the class and it was the first time when I
assigned with the responsibility of giving presentation, I was very nervous and hesitated to stand
in front of people and discuss on the topic. Apart from this, my oral communication skill was
also weak due to which I am not able to present my opinions and views to others. However, I
was not required to give presentation individually, although I felt nervousness. My teacher
formed a group of six people and each one was assigned with a specific responsibility. As my
research skills are very good, I was very easy task for me to gather information on the topic. My
good research skills helped me in collecting a lot of information or data on the topic. But, I was

not able to discuss that with others due to my ineffective communication skills. As we all six
people needed to work in group, it requires effective interaction. While worked in group and
interacted with other people, I felt that my communication skills were not effective as other
people face difficulty in understanding what I want to said. However, my time management
skills are good which enables me to complete my work on time. My numeracy and ICT skills are
average which enabled me in analysing numerical data and preparing notes and presentation. By
the help of these skilled, I was able to get proper understanding about the facts and figures and
store and retrieve information in proper way (Cottrell, 2017). Initially, when I stand in front of
people to discuss on the topic, I was so worried about how I will do this, but then my tutor and
team members encourage and motivate me to give presentation.
By group working, I learnt so many things. I learnt how to work in a team, the way to
prioritize work and activities and ensure their successful completion. Apart from this, my
confidence level was also increased which enables me now to work or perform each activity on
time. By undertaking this module, there are so many things which I learnt, however, there are
some areas also which I need to improve by working upon them. Through this module, I enabled
to know my strong areas and weaknesses. By giving presentation and conducting discussion over
topic, I realised that although my communication skills are improved by undertaking this
module, but still I need to work hard on my oral and written communication skills. In future, for
improving my skill, I will undertake communication classes, attend seminars, watching and
listening videos. All this will help me in improving my communication and enables me to
interact with others and present my own views and opinions more effectively.
This module also contributes highly in my professional development as well. The skills
which I require in getting employment are developed through this module. By working in group,
my problem solving skills were also develop which enables me to resolve all the problems and
issues efficiently and maintaining harmony in group. Group working makes me realised that any
work can be done in much more effective way if a group of people work together in coordination
with each other. Instead of doing each task individually, I would be better to work collectively as
this helps in effectively completion of work on specified time. So, from the entire experience of
group presentation, it can be said that an individuals can learn many new things by working in a
group and doing things which they never do before (Eden, 2014). Although, there were some
difficulties which I faced during group presentation exercise, but the learning which I get from

this module helped me in overcoming the difficulties and completing the group presentation
exercise successfully (McAllister, 2015).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that having good skills in an
individual is very necessary in order to get success in both personal and professional life. By
undertaking group presentation exercise, I realised that my some of my skills gets improved.
However, I identified from this module that there are some weak skills also on which I need to
work upon. For improving these skills, I will undergo some seminars, professional classes and
other activities which help me in improving my weak areas and working in more effective
manner.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baruah, B., Ward, T. and Brereton, J., 2017, June. An e-learning tool for reflective practice and
enhancing employability among engineering students. In 2017 27th EAEEIE Annual
Conference (EAEEIE) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Brennan, R., 2014. Reflecting on experiential learning in marketing education. The Marketing
Review, 14(1), pp.97-108.
Cottrell, S., 2017. Critical thinking skills: Effective analysis, argument and reflection. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Eden, S., 2014. Out of the comfort zone: Enhancing work-based learning about employability
through student reflection on work placements. Journal of Geography in Higher
Education, 38(2), pp.266-276.
McAllister, L., 2015. An ePortfolio approach: Supporting critical reflection for pedagogic
innovation. In Teaching reflective learning in higher education (pp. 173-187). Springer,
Cham.
Petrova, P., 2015. The evolution of the employability skills agenda in tourism higher
education. Routledge Handbook of Tourism and Hospitality Education, pp.383-394.