Reflective Journal: Enhancing Employability and Study Skills Module

This reflective journal explores the concept of employability skills, focusing on transferable abilities essential for career success. It begins with an introduction to employability skills, emphasizing their importance in various work environments and their role in problem-solving and effective task performance. The main body delves into the definition of employability skills, highlighting the knowledge, attitude, and skills required for effective employment. It also includes a discussion of the Gibbs reflective cycle model to provide a structured learning experience. The journal covers the author's personal learning journey, focusing on communication, research, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. The conclusion summarizes the significance of employability skills for future opportunities and professional growth, referencing various academic sources to support the arguments made. The journal emphasizes that these skills are crucial for graduates to meet the demands of the job market, which is a critical component of professional development.

Reflective journal

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main body........................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Employability skills refers to the transferable skills that needed by a person to make
themselves employable. By this, individual can aware about all the necessary skills that they
required at the time of performing their task activities in an effective manner. Mainly, they are
soft that allow individual to work well with others people, apply their knowledge to effectively
resolve problems and at the same time also fit into any kind of work environment. As it also
consider the professional skills that help of make enable to people to be successful at working
area. Current report is based on the reflective journals that is related with completing module and
that that has contributed in individual achievement of the employability and study skills.
Main body
Employability skills are defined as an transferable skills which is needed by an particular
person for becoming employable. In addition to this, good technical understanding as well as
subject knowledge, employers outline set of skills which they need from an employee. These
skills are what individual believe that help in carrying out activities and their role at best. In
addition to this employability totally depends on individual knowledge, attitude as well as skills.
In simple term it can be said that, for becoming an effective employee their is requirement of
employability skills as it will provide assistance in conducting activities within more effective
manner and help in accomplishing goals as well as objectives of company.
It is important every individual to improve their employability skills with the aim of
making them able to execute as well as perform all the task and activities in an effective manner.
For performing within the company, awareness and better understanding about employability
skills is one of the crucial activity that support in attaining all the set goals and objectives in
stipulated time frame. Mainly, it includes various skills such as communication skills, research
skills, proper team work, time and self management skills, problem solving skills and many
more. In context of employability and study skills, as a learner I learnt a lot from employability
skills which help me in my personal and professional aspect. As it also contributed in my
achievement in enhancing skills. Mainly, there are various skills which I have learned from the
module like communication skills that consist verbal and written, research skills to address the
specific issues, team working, time and self management and problem solving skills. All these
are different skills that helped me in improving my knowledge to attain all the set goals and
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objectives in stipulated time frame. For better understanding, Gibbs reflective cycle model is
used that provide overall experience of learning.
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to
learning from experiences. It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic
nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing individual to learn and plan
from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages explanation of these in
relation of employability skills will elaborate. First stage is description, Employability skills are
defined as an transferable skills which is needed by an particular person for becoming
employable. In addition to this, good technical understanding as well as subject knowledge,
employers outline set of skills which they need from an employee. It is important every
individual to improve their employability skills with the aim of making them able to execute as
well as perform all the task and activities in an effective manner. Second stage is feeling, it has
been observed by me that after learning employability skills it become easy for me to gain
suitable job opportunities as well as i am able to perform activities in more effective manner. So,
I feel that it is important for individual to learn employability skills in effective manner as it is
beneficial for becoming employable.
Third stage of respective model is evaluation, it is related to my experience in both good
and bad manner related to learning employability skills. In terms of good learning respective
skills is effective for individual as It helped me in getting better future opportunities and working
as a professional. When I will work in an organisation it help me in achieving their goals with an
effective manner as well as to employability skills I can perform my responsibilities in
appropriate manner. On the other hand bad thing related to be same is it is not easy to learn
employability skills because business environment is dynamic in nature and several modification
take place within it which require individual also to learn latest skills. Apart from this, fourth
stage is analysis it is essential to learn employability skills as it help me in performing my job
role in effective manner and with the assistance of this I am able to get better future
opportunities. Thus, conclusion of employability skill is that it is essential for every person to
have employability skills and them because it will help them in getting better future opportunities
and also assist in performing their job roles with an effective manner. Respective skills include
several skills, knowledge, values and many more which provide assistance to me in performing
my job roles within more effective manner. What employability skills the graduates should have
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are depend on company’s actual operating conditions and different companies have different
standards. Through a wide range of literature research, the result of what the employability skills
needed by companies are almost the same, and can be roughly divided into the following eight
basic skills: “Communication skills, Teamwork skills, Problem solving skills , Self management
skills, Planning and organizing skills, Technology skills, Life-long learning skills and Initiative
and enterprise skills.
Employability skills are defined as skills required not only to gain employment, but also
to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to
enterprise strategic directions. Today, despite the degree, companies are paying more attention to
the employability skills of the graduates, but there is no uniform standard of employability skills.
What employability skills the graduates should have are depend on company’s actual operating
conditions and different companies have different standards. Through a wide range of literature
research, the result of what the employability skills needed by companies are almost the same,
and can be roughly divided into the following eight basic skills: “Communication skills,
Teamwork skills, Problem solving skills , Self management skills, Planning and organizing
skills, Technology skills, Life-long learning skills and Initiative and enterprise skills.
CONCLUSION
After going through entire discussion it has been summarised that, for an individual
employability skills are essential as it help them in taking better future advantages.
Employability skills refers to the transferable skills that needed by a person to make themselves
employable. By this, individual can aware about all the necessary skills that they required at the
time of performing their task activities in an effective manner. Mainly, they are soft that allow
individual to work well with others people, apply their knowledge to effectively resolve
problems and at the same time also fit into any kind of work environment. There are several
ways through which individual can learn employability skills as discussed. Apart from this, by
learning these there will be positive impact on nature of individual also and can work as
professional in any business firm.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Suleman, F., 2018. The employability skills of higher education graduates: insights into conceptual
frameworks and methodological options. Higher Education, 76(2), pp.263-278.
Messum, D., Wilkes, L., Peters, C. and Jackson, D., 2017. Senior Managers' and Recent Graduates'
Perceptions of Employability Skills for Health Services Management. Asia-Pacific Journal of
Cooperative Education, 18(2), pp.115-128.
Tsitskari, E., Goudas, M., Tsalouchou, E. and Michalopoulou, M., 2017. Employers’ expectations of the
employability skills needed in the sport and recreation environment. Journal of hospitality,
leisure, sport & tourism education, 20, pp.1-9.
Rowe, A.D. and Zegwaard, K.E., 2017. Developing graduate employability skills and attributes:
Curriculum enhancement through work-integrated learning.
Jackson, T.P. and Oliver, S., 2018. Adaptive Learning Program for Developing Employability
Skills. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 8(1).
Belwal, R., Priyadarshi, P. and Al Fazari, M.H., 2017. Graduate attributes and employability
skills. International Journal of Educational Management.
Messum, D.G., Wilkes, L.M., Jackson, D. and Peters, K., 2016. Employability Skills in Health Services
Management: perceptions of recent graduates. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health
Management, 11(1), pp.25-34.
Griffiths, D.A., Inman, M., Rojas, H. and Williams, K., 2018. Transitioning student identity and sense of
place: future possibilities for assessment and development of student employability
skills. Studies in Higher Education, 43(5), pp.891-913.
Misra, R.K. and Khurana, K., 2017. Employability skills among information technology professionals: A
literature review. Procedia computer science, 122, pp.63-70.
Messum, D., Wilkes, L., Peters, K. and Jackson, D., 2016. Content analysis of vacancy advertisements for
employability skills: Challenges and opportunities for informing curriculum
development. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 7(1), p.72.
Fearon, C., van Vuuren, W., McLaughlin, H. and Nachmias, S., 2019. Graduate employability, skills
development and the UK’s Universities Business Challenge competition: a self-determined
learning perspective. Studies in Higher Education, pp.1-18.
Ayoubi, R.M., Alzarif, K. and Khalifa, B., 2017. The employability skills of business graduates in
Syria. Education+ Training.
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