Employability Skills for Business Success: A Comprehensive Analysis

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BUSINESS ACADEMIC EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
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Executive Summary
Employment in today’s context includes a lot of requirements from the employees such as
employability skills, other than educational background. This is because the educational
knowledge helps to get a job whereas employability skills help to survive that job. Survival of an
employee's job ensures the growth and success of his or her employee. Thus, existence of
employability skills in the graduating students has become essential in order to secure a job in
reputed organizations. In this report, the researcher has describes the whole concept of
employability skills along with its different types and its importance for both employees and the
employers. The researcher has also highlighted various models of employability to prove the
necessity of employability skills in today’s job market. This report also contains a personal
SWOT analysis of the researcher which has helped him or her to identify the positive and
negative areas of hit or her skill sets and take necessary plan of actions via SMART theory to
improve the loopholes.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
The concept of Employability and Employability Skills.................................................................5
Employability skills employers look in the candidates during recruitment....................................5
Importance of employability skills for the employers.....................................................................7
Various models of employability skills...........................................................................................7
Personal SWOT Analysis..............................................................................................................11
Plan of actions to improve the lack of skills to match the employer’s criteria (SMART)............12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
Reference List................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
In today’s era, the society is changing in a rapid pace which results in the increasing competition
between the companies. This fierce level of competition between the companies forces the
employers of the company to set high qualification standards for the candidates while recruiting
them. The employers look for a wider range of skills in the graduate job candidates outside their
subject area of study in higher education so that the company needs to spend lesser time and
money to train them. Skills mentioned here refers to the employability skills that any employer
looks in any employee or job candidate which help to measure the performance level of any
employee. By having these skills, the employees can not only gain employment but also can
perform better and add value toward the growth of the company. Apart from that employability
skills of the employees also assist the employer company to face and overcome severe challenges
in course of their business operations.
In this report, a brief overview of the term ‘employability skills’ and its importance, from the
perspective of both an employer and an employee, has been mentioned. The researcher has also
explored different employability skill types such as communication skills, team working skills,
organizing skills and many more by supporting them with various employability models such as
bridgstock model, Dots model, heuristic model and others. This report contains a personal
SWOT analysis of the researcher to analyze his or her existing skills and the lacking areas that
the he or she might need to improve. The report also include SMART analysis of the researcher’s
existing skill sets to determine the actions he or she need to take to improve the lacking areas of
his or her employability skills.
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The concept of Employability and Employability Skills
The term ‘employability’ refers to the attributes or qualities that a person should have for being
suitable for any paid job. Rather than simply getting a job, employability ensures continuous
success in the career path of a student irrespective of the industry that the student chooses
(Jackson, 2015). It helps the students or the job candidates to stay at a secure position as ‘To be
employed is to be at risk; to be employable is to be secure’. To become employable, a student or
a job candidate must have some attributes or skills which are generally known as employability
skills (Ibarraran et al., 2014).
Employability skills employers look in the candidates during recruitment
A student should have a certain numbers of employability skills as degrees or educational
qualification no longer serve as the sole criteria to get a job and employers nowadays are looking
for a lot of attributes in the students than just a degree (Guilbert et al., 2016). Now, the choice of
skills the employer will require depends on the operating conditions of the employer’s company
and it varies between different companies from different industries. There are various types of
employability skills that most of the employers required to be present in the students while hiring
them. Some of them are as followed:
Communication skills
It is the most important and primary skill that every organizations across all industries demands
in the students while hiring them. It helps the employees to maintain a good relationship with
their colleagues, superiors and thus developing a good working environment within the
organization (Collet, 2015). Proper communication also ensures proper information flow across
the organizational structure which finally results in the successful attainment of the
organizational goals and objectives or any particular task.
Team Working skills
Working individually is easy but working on groups or team is quite complex. In this case, the
opinions and views of all the team members need to be welcomed, analyzed and applied
accordingly while making any business decision for the organization. Due to the accumulation of
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various thoughts and ideas from different employees, team working also helps to speed up the
progress of any task and to achieve success quickly.
Problem solving skills
In today’s competitive market, companies are facing a lot of market challenges on a frequent
basis such as threat of new entrants, threat of competitions lack of product demand and others.
Thus, solving these issues becomes essential for the companies to survive in the market for
which they look for strong problem solving skills in their employees which will help them to
overcome any market challenge successfully.
Initiative and enterprising skills
In modern world, most of the companies have their operations in various countries, states or
cities and thus they keep transferring their employees according to their skills and experience
level. The companies also shift the departments of the employees many a times according to the
job requirements. Thus, taking initiatives and having enterprising skills to adjust with the new
roles or new locations become essential for the employees.
Planning and organizing skills
Any business organization has certain amount of resources available with them which they want
to be utilized properly and to the fullest to minimize further investment on developing resources.
Proper planning and organizing skills are required to ensure maximum utilization of the
resources.
Self-management skills
It is another important skill which any employer will demand which is the ability of an employee
to complete a task assigned to him or her alone, without asking for any help or guidance. This
saves time and effort of the other employees to help a new joinee to complete his or her
individual work.
Learning skills
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To keep pace with the rapid development happening in modern society, companies are
incorporating various changes in their modes of operations on and off. Thus they look for
employees having learning skills who can learn the new changes the company is incorporating,
within a short span of time.
Technology skills
In the modern era of digitalization, technological skills i.e. knowledge and proficiency of the
employees in using computers and telecommunications systems, analyzing the current trends are
highly essential for the employers to save time and effort. The more knowledgeable the
candidates are, regarding the utilization of specific technologies in the workplace that they
choose to function in, the more their employability quotient increases in the eyes of the
recruiters.
Importance of employability skills for the employers
In today’s era of competition and rapid technological advancements, the demand for skills is
shift is getting modified frequently which results in the necessity of highly skilled employees
(Deeley, 2014). The reasons for which employers strive for employability skills are mentioned
below:
 These skills help the employers to evaluate the performance level of the employees
(Tomlinson and Holmes, 2016).
 Employability skills help the employer company to grow in the market by overcoming
challenges, utilising resources properly and saving company’s expenditures.
 These skills also help the employer to achieve the company goals and objectives smoothly
and within time.
Various models of employability skills
Employability skills are the primary needs of the employers in today’s job market rather than the
educational qualifications, which will aid the company to grow further. There are various models
which describe the concept of employability skills more precisely. Some of the popular models
are as follows:
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Bridgstock employability model
This model of employability puts emphasis on the importance of employees having career
management skills. It states that the students of today’s rapidly changing and competitive
economy, must be able to self-manage their career building path. This requires having some
career management skills which are more than the generic skills commonly required by any
employer (Pool and Sewell, 2014). These skills will help the students to utilize their generic
skills properly in order to choose their career path and grow accordingly.
Fig 1: Bridgstock employability model
Source: (Pool and Sewell, 2014)
Usem employability model
The USEM model was proposed by Knight and Yorke in the year 2004, which shows an
interrelation between skills, assessments, learning of the workforce and various skills to generate
employability as the outcome. Each of the elements mentioned in this model, contribute a lot to
set higher employability skills. This model has helped teaching institutions to guide skilled
graduates and prepare them as prospective good employees for the future (Ariouat et al., 2016)
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Fig 2: USEM Employability Model
Source: (Ariouat et al., 2016)
Heuristic model of employability
This model was proposed by Fugate, Kinicki and Ashforth in 2004, which highlights three
different dimensions of employability and shows an inter-relation between them. The first
dimension is Career identity which refers to the role an individual plays in career opportunities
and also the personal dispositions like “knowledge, skills, and abilities. The next dimension is
Social and human capital which indicates the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence of
an individual which he or she uses on a regular basis to interact with other people around him or
her (Paadi, 2014). The last dimension is Personal adaptability, which is the ability of an
individual to adjust with any favorable or unfavorable situation by bringing in necessary changes
within.
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Fig 3: Heuristic Model of Employability
Source: (Paadi, 2014)
Dots employability model
The Dots model was developed by Bill Law and Tony Watts which is a four stage model of
career planning. The stages are decision making, opportunity awareness, transition learning and
self awareness (Dacre et al., 2014). According to this model, decision-making highlights an
individual’s ability to utilize personal attributes to prepare a fruitful career plan. Transition
learning refers to the level of understanding of an individual about the ways to seek and secure
employment opportunities. Self awareness indicates the ability of an individual to identify the
various positive attributes within and Opportunity awareness refers to the awareness level of an
individual about any employment opportunity and the ability to research further information
about it (Lim et al., 2016).
Fig 4: Dots Employability Model
Source: (Dacre et al., 2014)
Career EDGE model
This model was developed by Pool and Sewell in 2007, which states that there are five elements
or key areas of employability and those are Career Development Learning, Experience, Degree
subject knowledge, understanding & skills, Generic skills and Emotional Intelligence (Pool,
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2017). Absence of any of these elements reduces the employability level of a graduate employee
to a great extent.
Fig 5: Career EDGE model
Source: (Pool, 2017)
Personal SWOT Analysis
I have done a personal SWOT analysis to determine my strengths in terms of having
employability skills and to identify my weaknesses and areas of development. It will also help
me to find the opportunities I have which can leverage upon utilizing my strengths and the threat
areas or negative attributes which can pull me down. This analysis will help me to focus on my
strengths, minimize my weaknesses, take maximum advantage of the opportunities I have and to
identify and reduce my grey areas by taking proper actions. The detailed analysis is mentioned
below:
Strengths Weakness
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 I have good team work and organizing
skills
 I am good at Self management
 I have a lot of technology skills
 I am a quick learner
 I do not have any prior employment
experience
 I am weak in problem solving
 My Communication skills are weak
Opportunity
 I can arrange a part-time job for me and
learn new skills to enhance my CV
 Currently I am preparing a presentation on
‘business management skills’ as a part of
my course assignment which will help me
to learn about business skills in brief
Threat
 The current employment pressure in
United Kingdom
 Skilled and experienced overseas students
applying for jobs in United Kingdom
Table 1: Personal SWOT Analysis
(Source: Created by the learner)
This analysis has helped me to identify my weak areas in terms of employability skills and also
the threats or negative areas which I need to improve by taking necessary actions.
Plan of actions to improve the lack of skills to match the employer’s criteria (SMART)
After finishing my personal SWOT analysis, I have made an action plan base on SMART
according to my own situation which is described below:
Specific Actions Measurable: Achievable Resources Time-Bound
To improve my
communication
skill
I will sit for a
IELTS test which
will help to
assess the
improvement
I will participate
in various
activities
organized by my
graduation
Internet Summer holidays
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