Employability and Professional Development: Skills in Work Contexts

This report explores the connection between employability and professional development, emphasizing the significance of work-related practices and skills acquisition. It highlights how university education contributes to employability by providing essential knowledge and skills sought by employers. The report contrasts employment with volunteering, noting that volunteering enhances employability by fostering leadership, communication, and decision-making skills. It also discusses the importance of graduate attributes in cultivating innovative leadership and professional capabilities. Effective communication, work experience, and the development of work-related competencies, such as time management and emotional intelligence, are identified as crucial for career success. The reflection section emphasizes how work experience complements academic studies, offering opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge in practical settings and develop personal attributes. Ultimately, the report concludes that a combination of university education, work experience, and essential skills significantly enhances a student's employability and prospects for career advancement. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students' reference.

EMPLOYABILITY AND
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT CW2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Practices in work- related contexts.............................................................................................3
Implications of work- based setting............................................................................................4
Reflection....................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Employability is associated with various different contexts and is related with the higher
level of education. It includes having certain skills, understandings along with some personal
attributes. It is important to get a job and broader the range of skills possessed in an individual.
Employability enables an individual to be successful in their working career (Watkins, and
Smith, 2018). Developing transferable and employability skills makes one eligible for job while
developing it over times. It includes both soft and hard skills that makes one employable
material. These skills help them to go beyond their qualification level and experience to become
better than other people. This report deal with the various areas in the work- related contexts
along with the implications towards the skills required.
MAIN BODY
Practices in work- related contexts
I believe that university setting is very closely related with the various parameters
important for employment level. These two are connected as university setting helps in providing
supply of well- education that will promote economic development. Education plays a part in
mitigating unemployment and its related impacts. It helps in carrying out important information
related to the area of interest along with gaining certain skills in the process. My education plays
a huge impact on the employment prospectives narrowing the gap of unemployment among the
individuals holding higher level of education. University helps in providing education that acts as
a good form of insurance against unemployment. Employers are looking to hire graduates like
me, who are having enough skills and knowledge that will help them to work aligned with the
goals and objectives of the company. Individuals will seek to build their future careers from
attaining higher education and have and economic payback.
The link between employment and higher level of education is very strong, and the rights
and obligations in the higher education institutes will later represent the employment interests
(Lo Presti, Pluviano, and Briscoe, 2018). University setting helps in attaining wisdom and helps
me to reach my personal and professional goals. Having a higher form of education is directly
related with opening larger number of career options with less possibility in developing expertise
from various training sessions that the individuals can join. My education helped me to see and
set a career path while setting my priorities straight and clear. The knowledge gained from my

university setting helped me to set a base for learning and understanding my future choice of
career and excel in the same.
On the other hand, employment and volunteering are not same as volunteering deals with
carrying out unpaid work of an organisation. Volunteering helped me in gaining certain
experience in my field of interest and be prepared for my job roles and expectations put forward
in the corporate world. Volunteering increases the chances of employment as it helped me to
attain some leadership skills along with improved my communication, decisiveness and
accountability skills. Performing volunteering work for the community will increase my chance
of finding employment in the areas of specialised I desire to work in.
Implications of work- based setting
The bucks graduate attributes helps in building the focus to develop and be innovative
leader that holds the professional and creative capacities. This program was helpful for me as it
helped in making positive impact on the professional career graph. I have developed various
attributes through this program. I gained experience that helped me produce high quality media
in range of different platforms. I learnt how to deals with the new ways of working in this
modern world along with the ways to cope up with the constantly changing technology (Peacock,
and Bacon, 2018). Moreover, with this program I learnt to communicate effectively that
produces many advantages for me such as building trust with other I am working with while
building networks and connections. My communication skills will help me to prevent from
resolving the problems that are caused from misunderstanding and unnecessary confusion from
lack of communication. Moreover, with effective communication, I have managed to foster
better relations with other people that helped me settle in well in the new corporate life within
my professional career. I work with increased engagement that allows to be more confident in
working areas. It is easy to understand what is supposed to be done and what not along with
being clear in the roles of responsibilities at my job level position. I prioritise effective
communication as it boots my working and learning satisfaction while working with my team
members.
Choosing a career path is not easy and I have to work to make it happen for myself. I
believe that work experience is very important to fulfil the tasks of organisation and standing in
the expectations. Activities associated with the work experience have assisted me in making a

better career path and handle decisions coming in that way. Work experience have made me
grow and crossing each milestone in my path to success. In my case, my work experience from
volunteering and other internships have helped me to understand the work environment and
identify the expectations of employers. It allows an opportunity to explore various career options
and increasing the level of self- understanding, independence as well as boost my self-
confidence. I have increased my level of motivation by taking certain trainings that prepared me
for work and face the challenges in corporate life. In addition to this, work experience will help
me to enhance my opportunities in terms of casual and part- time work contexts (Lo Presti, and
et.al., 2019). In this highly competitive market conditions, this experience will increase my
chance of selection over the candidates that are just graduates with no work experience. The
organisation I am looking forward to work with, will understand I have the knowledge of these
areas, and they will not have to use their resources in training me from beginning as what the
case will be for fresh graduate. I have developed the work- related competencies over time that
made me learn and be punctual while working. I have gained time management skills that are
important to finish my work under provided deadlines while demonstrating the self- management
and planning processes. I am able to listen and pay more attention towards the details that helps
me gain insight information and perform the work with perfection.
The knowledge that I have gained over my time in university, have helped me understand
the needs of customers and understanding the business environment as well as its expectations.
Working in business management sector, requires me to exploit my knowledge and benefit the
company. Knowledge helps in making the business run in right way and understand patterns of
customers. The skills that I have learnt over time includes emotional intelligence that helps me to
identify as well as manage my own emotions while responding the same of others. I am more
self aware and managed by which I can manage some distressing emotions making it not affect
my functionality. I am motivated top work in business management field while being positive
towards facing the challenges coming in the way. I can showcase empathy, that is I
understanding and support what other people such as my leader and colleague are feeling.
With so much work experience, it helped me gain team player qualities that is I can easily
collaborate and come up with new ideas while respecting the working patterns of other people. I
am very comfortable in working in a group and work while having a growing mindset. This

mindset helped me to stay self- motivated and understanding the importance of updating my
skills while meeting new challenges.
Reflection
Work experience have helped me to complement my academic studies whereas,
providing an opportunity to learn outside the classroom. It assisted me in providing with crucial
knowledge and personal attributes that will make me a better candidate. In the competitive
market, it is important to posses something more than the technical skills and the knowledge that
is gained from pursuing the course from university (Haemer, and et.al., 2017). I have worked in
some internships before that last for very less time but helped me use my theoretical knowledge
in practical work. There are various opportunities that evolve from the pursuing some
internships.
My work experience helped in opening my eyes towards various perspectives in context
with the academic learning. It provides with an opportunity to develop ideas in innovative and
creative way while offering to earn some cash. I have enhanced my opportunity towards
employability with the help of work experience. It made it easy for me to adapt in any workplace
culture while following team management and team working skills. I have gained the
opportunity to network and expand my connection that will help in future. In my chosen career
path, I have attaining a chance to visualise various aspects in work and obtain the opportunity to
see how the process of marketing and sales in business contexts. Most importantly, with the
worm experience, I have managed to developed my personal self.
Work experience will offer the opportunity of applying my knowledge in real- life
situations by applying my skills of critical thinking. From the workplace setting, I have so much
to learn from reflecting my differences from the things that I have learnt along with considering
other ways of doing things. I can apply my workplace practices in academic learning and
generalising my studies to attain my academic goals in the process in association with the
company's goals (Wailey, and Sambade). With good amount of work experience, I have
successfully increased my knowledge and personal attributes that will make the employers to
employ me over the others.
Interpersonal skills are important to work at various levels and along with planning,
organising and managing the time such that there is a proper balance between my personal and
professional life. Problem solving and decision making skills have helped me to not rely on other

people regarding what is to be done while taking my own initiatives to overcome the challenges.
Numeracy and information technological skills are crucial in understanding the technical
working of things along with analytics while it helps in smoothing the process of interpreting the
results. Moreover,negotiation skills help in overcoming the conflicting priorities in a particular
way and working in the organisation to attain me learning objective (Healy, Hammer, and
McIlveen, 2020). I posses the ability to understand and adapt my workplace culture along with
the particular demands. Work placement helps in gaining more chance to gain the insight
regarding my chosen field of interest. It exposed me towards some modern technologies and
techniques related to the practices in my industry. Workplace allows assessing different
professional association and get through the important meetings. This experience proves to be
very valuable to rise my career graph and become more professional.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that all the programs at university level will help the student in
gaining major benefits for their professional career. Different aspects involved in the work-
related contexts are linked with one another in such a way that it provide efficient working
productivity and helps in gaining competitive advantage. There are certain skills that are
important for the purpose of employability and these skills along with work experience and
other competencies will make the knowledge of the student strong and help them attain the
desired job position in organization they wish to.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Haemer, and et.al., 2017. Learning strategies at work and professional development. Journal of
Workplace Learning.
Healy, M., Hammer, S. and McIlveen, P., 2020. Mapping graduate employability and career
development in higher education research: a citation network analysis. Studies in Higher
Education, pp.1-13.
Lo Presti, A., Pluviano, S. and Briscoe, J.P., 2018. Are freelancers a breed apart? The role of
protean and boundaryless career attitudes in employability and career success. Human
Resource Management Journal, 28(3), pp.427-442.
Lo Presti, and et.al., 2019. Employability as a compass for career success: development and
initial validation of a new multidimensional measure. International Journal of Training
and Development, 23(4), pp.253-275.
Lysova, and et.al., 2018. Examining calling as a double-edged sword for employability. Journal
of Vocational Behavior, 104, pp.261-272.
Peacock, J. and Bacon, K.L., 2018. Enhancing student employability through urban ecology
fieldwork. Higher Education Pedagogies, 3(1), pp.440-450.
Wailey, T. and Sambade, S., Text. and. image. to. access. Employability.
Watkins, H. and Smith, R., 2018. Thinking globally, working locally: Employability and
internationalization at home. Journal of Studies in International Education, 22(3),
pp.210-224.