Study Skills for Higher Education: CV Improvement & Essential Skills

This essay explores essential study skills for higher education, focusing on how students can enhance their CVs and develop crucial skills for future career prospects. It discusses strategies for fresh graduates to land jobs, including connecting with peers, gaining practical experience through virtual internships and freelancing, and focusing on skills over traditional settings. The essay also highlights the importance of communication, leadership, organizational, and critical thinking skills, emphasizing how developing these skills during university can provide a competitive edge. The author shares personal experiences on improving their CV and underscores the significance of each skill in achieving organizational goals. Desklib provides students access to past papers and solved assignments related to this topic.

Study Skills For Higher
Education

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
PROJECT-1.....................................................................................................................................1
PROJECT-2.....................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
Books and Journals:.....................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Study skills are often referred to as strategies for studies that individual apply on
learnings. These include set of shareable life skills that helps a student to acquire good grades in
school or university. (Cottrell, S., 2020). The study skill is a fundamental approach that will
benefit students in research, training, learning and recalling information. It can be easily applied
to their respective field of study. Freshers will be benefited by using these study skills in their
higher education. It will enhance the concentration level among individual, improve time
management skills and motivates individual to work with their full potential. Some of the skills
that an individual must excel in his/her leadership skills, interpersonal skills and writing skills.
This repost portrays what essential skills must be added in CV and how a CV can be made
productive and appealing without any experience. Furthermore, the essay explains the essential
skill that a student must develop and gain while studying and the importance of these skill in
organization.
MAIN BODY
PROJECT-1
To land a job right after graduating is a difficult task for every individual. Due to the
global pandemic many people has lost their jobs and are seeking for job with fresh graduates,
this has increased the competition as the organizations are looking for experienced candidates.
Many graduates students are facing difficulty in getting job as they lack certain experience.
There are various ways by which an individual can enhance his/her CV and get hired.
Connect with peers
Connecting with peers or subordinates will help an individual to understand the corporate
culture and environment better. While developing relationship with colleagues a person can learn
certain set of skills such as team management, problem-solving, decision making, empathy and
cooperation. Peer relation and interaction promotes job advancement. Building strong relation
with peers will help in effective and result in productive working in the organization. (Brady,
et.al, 2022). During the pandemic, it was difficult to coordinate with employees however there
are certain platform like Go to meeting or zoom meeting which has helped employees to stay
connected with each other. Powerful relation between work colleagues with boost employee
retention and eventually it will increases motivation among people and improve morale.
1

Make your own experience
An individual may boost his/her CV by adding some own work experience. Adding work
experience will give employers a quick idea about an individual employment history. (Goode,
et.al, 2021). Any student can opt for certain skills or short term courses to add valuable skills and
work experience in their resume. Apart from this identifying and analysing necessary skills
required by recruiters help students to prepare themselves for job interviews. It also specify that
student have the skills and experience necessary to get hired in role they are applying for. Job
seeking candidates can gain own experience by opting options like virtual internships,
freelancing and volunteering. These options will enhance the CV as these will help the students
as they will learn numerous skills and can expand their professional network. The way a person
highlight his/her work history on resume can put them on the shortlist of desired candidates.
Employers usually prefer candidate with work experience and gaining own experience will help
candidates to stand apart from the crowd.
Get experience online
Online and virtual internships is a great way to gain corporate experience. Virtual
internships will enhance students confidence and help them develop certain skills that are
required by the companies also it will add experience in an individual CV. To do a virtual
internship, a student only need laptop and stable internet connection. Online internship offers
flexibility and student can work from anywhere with the comfort of home. Many reputed
organizations offer virtual internships and this provide opportunity to students to gain experience
while studying. (Baker and Fitzpatrick, 2022). Doing virtual internship with such organization
will benefits students to find better jobs. Online internship are really convenient and feasible
options as there is no need to travel all the way just for an internship. With the advancement in
technology virtual and online internship are getting popularity these days. In the pandemic period
various businesses have permanently shifted their working online this may also provide great
opportunities to students.
Focus on skills over setting
Adding valuable skills in the CV will further improve candidates chances to get
hired in organization of their choice. Skills may be defined as a set of abilities and capabilities
that an individual gain in his/ her life. (Nagy, 2019). Adding skills is a great way to highlight
expertise in technical, software, language and other concerned area of profession. Individual skill
2

differ from each other in terms of interest, ability an capability. A candidate who own such skills
are considered more desirable and suitable for a particular post in an organization. While
studying in university, students must also focus on achieving extra skills as this will help them in
enhancing their professional competencies. This will help students to achieve organizational
objectives and goals.
Personal experience: Are you happy with your CV? Why/ why not?
I am delighted with my CV and reasons are mentioned below:-
I have completely applied my free time in enhancing my CV by adding valuable skills and work
experience. I enrolled in online courses and programmes to gain knowledge and worked on self
development. I participated in virtual internships which helped me to gain knowledge about the
working of the corporate and the structure of the organization. Adding all these skills and
internships has enhanced and improved my resume and will get the attention of recruiters. Apart
from this I have added an objective section in my CV this will give employer an idea about why I
am seeking this particular job. I have designed my curriculum vitae in such a way that it is
unambiguous, short and communicate every point without any disturbance. I have also
mentioned some extra curricular activities apart from academic as this will make my resume
more effective. I have avoided silly mistakes like grammatical error and added key words in my
CV and this will help me to gain advantage over other prospective candidates. I excel good
interpersonal, teamwork and leadership skill which helped me to confidently attract with other
people and helped me in making professional contract. Interacting with people will help me to
gain knowledge about industry and market trends.
PROJECT-2
Skills which should be developed by students while studying in university.
There are certain skills that an individual may develop while studying in university.
(Succi and Canovi, 2020). Developing necessary learning skills can help students improve their
future career prospects and prepare them to surpass academically. Communication skill is
essential these days as it is crucial part in every day working. Good interpersonal skills will help
students to convey their ideas, views and opinions effectively. Having exceptional
communication skills also enables students to build meaningful professional networks and
ensures that the listener understands what they are trying to convey. This skills include both
3

verbal and written communication, and students must excel both form of communication to
smoothly express their views. (Shorey, et.al, 2020). Good interpersonal skill will help an
individual to succeed in future. Ineffective communication will lead to negative work relation in
an organization. Good communication will enhance work relation in the company. Effective
communication will give an advantage to students and help them stand ahead of other. Positive
communication skills are necessary to allow others and yourself to understand information more
quickly and accurately. Negative communication will create complex and puzzled environment
in the workplace and between people. So, it can be stated that it is essential to develop good
communication and students must focus on improving their communication skills while studying
in university.
Every organization need leadership skills and student must develop it while studying. If
an individual have leadership skills it will help them to perform better in their respective field.
Students can achieve leadership skill by participating in numerous activities and volunteering
themselves for any project or task. (Philip and Gavrilova Aguilar, 2022). Leadership skill will
help a person to perform well in the organization and help them to stand apart from other
candidates. This skill will also encourage them to lead any project effectively. Effective
supervision skills help students to control and manage complex business environment, helping
them to cooperate with different teams and business models to attain goals. An individual can
learn leadership or supervision skills by volunteering to perform certain task and by practising
how to handle complex organizational challenges. Sharing information with one another will
also improve the supervision traits of a student as it will provide view point of other people and
give a sense how they perceive shared information. Developing productive leadership skills will
help a student to extract the best capabilities from other team mates and inspire them to work
towards a common objective. It does not matter where an individual is working learning
leadership skill will definitely help them in their university or workplace. Supervision skills are
the combination of specific traits that motivates students to perform their task with their full
potential. The student can attain leadership skill by analysing and identifying his/her weakness
and strengths. This will provide an insight that individual may use by using his strength in
particular situation and enhancing their weakness. Teaching other students is an effective way to
boost such trait as this allow then to check their perception and improve their understanding of
4

the discussed topic. It can be stated that improving effective leadership skill provide students a
competitive edge over other candidates.
Developing organization skills is an important trait that a student must learn in his/her
University. Organizational skill is related with keeping all the things in proper place, it specifies
that there should be a proper place for everything and the needed thing must be at its place when
needed. Advancing organizational skill will significantly help students to work with more
productivity and perform their everyday task effectively. (Cibrian, Hayes and Lakes,
2021) .Improving organizing skills will be reflected in their regular responsibilities and task and
this will provide them competitive edge over other students. Organizing skill help a student to
work more efficiently as every needed thing will be well organized and this will save time and
eventually improve the productivity. Improving organizational skill is an essential factor which
employers can use to sort out prospective and applicable candidates to hire as this trait benefits
business in achieving their mission and vision effectively. Organizing skill enhance the working
and efficiency in the organization. With powerful and operative organizational skill students
eventually develop time management and help students to stay connected with organizational
target. The essential benefit that organizational skills provide is effective time and team
management and this further improve the productivity of the company. Having organization
skills will also be helpful while studying in university as it will help students to successfully
divide their day to day task and perform assigned projects more accurately. This particular skill
helps manager to reduce unwanted stress in the organization as organized person will perform his
task accurately without any confusion and this will help employees to work confidently. An
organized worker who have such skill will give better performance and efforts in the workplace
as compared to the person who lacks such trait.
Another necessary skill that a student must learn in his/her education is critical thinking.
Critical knowledge will help an individual to understand their true nature and what thing
motivates him/her to perform an assigned task. Having strong critical skill will help students to
do task with more focus and concentration. A person can learn critical thinking by carefully
identifying and evaluating the information shared. If an individual want to address critical
thinking on hi/her CV they have to add key terms like problem-solving, observation skills and
analytical skills. A critical thinker will look the prevailing situation with all the possible site and
then provide with a solution, this practise will result in proper and efficient working of the
5

company. (Varenina, et.al, 2021). Critical thinking will also benefit student this help them to
understand their project and task accurately and eventually they will provide correct answers
towards a certain situation. Critical thinker will briefly identify and evaluate available
opportunities and threats to an organization, and with this company can take advantage of the
prevailing opportunities and will try to minimize its threats. The students must learn and develop
critical thinking while studying as many employers seek such skills while short listing
candidates. A person can build critical thinking by asking a lot of questions and carefully judging
a particular situation.
Presentation skill is very essential skill as it is useful for students and it has significant
role in organization. Every student require to give presentation in their universities and this is an
important practise that student must develop. (Pradhananga, ElZomor and Santi Kasabdji, 2022)
Presentation provides a great way to communicate a new project or report in the organization as
presentation only contains key points and important information to be discussed. Presentation
skill will further improve an individual speaking skill and enhance confidence. The main aim of
practising presentation skills in higher education is to make student professional as presentation
skill is must in organization. With the technological advancement a person can improve their
presentation skill with the help of innovative and updated equipments. Advance presentation
skill also help people to come with creative and innovative ideas. With the help of in build
templates and animation students can communicate their opinions and views creatively in front
of their mentors. Taking initiative to enhance presentation skill will definitely help students in
improving their interpersonal, debating and interview skills. In organization employees are often
asked to present and display their project with presentation, if individual knows how to make
effective report they will definitely get ahead of his competition. Presenting skill will also boost
an individual confidence and help them to perform task more effectively.
Employees are the key presenter of the organization as it cannot function without its
human resource. So, it is essential for every individual to possess a skill of team management.
Collective efforts of team results in organization's success. Every department be it marketing,
sales or operation connect with one another to achieve organization mission and target. Students
must develop team management as they also get some group projects where this skill is must.
Every enterprise will need team management in order to run its day to day operations. Team
management is referred to a managerial skill to lead and control a group to conduct and achieve
6

common business objectives. It means effective management of time and resources available to
do a certain task. This will enhance the productivity and eventually contributes to organization
growth. A person may develop team management by building relation with their subordinates
and colleagues. Mistakes are unavoidable part of human life and the manager accept the mistake
and take necessary action to control the situation. The team leader should be responsible for his
team working and try to avoid mistakes. An effective leader will give its members a chance to
present their ideas and opinions and the employees will feel that they are valuable asset to the
company.
Time Management skills can also play a critical role in shaping the career of students and
it will also help them in their student life as having these skills will enable them to be more
punctual and productive. (Krutyakova, 2018). Time management refers to the process of
elaborating and dividing the time to be spent on specific tasks or activities and completing them
effectively. An individual with effective time management skills will be preferred by employers
over other candidates as they believe that person with such skills will be more beneficial for the
firm because they will complete the task given in the specified deadline, thus the productivity
and profitability of business will increase. Having these skills will help the individual in tracking
and following the deadlines, preparing schedule for the day, enhancing work life balance,
avoiding unnecessary stress, avoiding wastage of time, fulfilling the tasks faster, extracting more
time for leisure activities etc. Whereas, poor time management skills can result in lack of focus,
missed deadlines, decrease in professional reputation, unwanted stress, financial loss or
penalties, work-life imbalance etc. A student can develop effective time management skills by
creating a proper and effective schedule for the day and honestly sticking to it, fixing boundaries,
creating deadlines for self, avoiding distractions, listing the tasks, taking breaks, avoiding
multitasking etc.
In today’s competitive business environment, companies are heavily relying on
technology in order to facilitate its operation and getting competitive advantage in market.
Working methods nowadays have changed rapidly and it demands high technical skills. Rapid
advancement in technology not only help the businesses, but it also leads to various complex
challenges. (Tabatabaei, Cuellar and Williams, 2019). To combat with such technological
challenges, high level of technical skills is required. This is why, companies are highly preferring
candidates with technical skills while hiring. Technical skills not only mean basic computer
7

skills or knowledge of Microsoft Office, it refers to more advanced knowledge of languages,
coding, SEO etc. All companies in current digital world requires some sort of these skills to
accomplish tasks related to computers or any other physical technological measure. So, it is
essential for students to focus on these skills along with the studies as these skills will provide
them lot of career opportunities and advancement in future. These skills can be gained by
understanding the technological gadgets, their frameworks and practising on such software that
are used in enterprises to fulfil several tasks like PowerPoint, Excel etc. Advanced technical
skills can be gained by taking professional training from certified institutes like Tally, SAP etc.
CONCLUSION
The above essay concludes that study skills in an individual play a major role in shaping
and supporting the career. But, in current scenario the experienced candidates are in more
demand resulting in limiting the options for university students, to cope up with this it is
recommended that one must develop those skills which are mostly demanded by employers in
order to sort candidates for specific roles. (Sinfield and Burns, 2022). There are certain ways by
which students can enhance the effectiveness of their CV such as by gaining online experience,
making good professional network and making own experience. Along with these, students must
focus on developing skills while studying. Students can develop the skills by various ways such
as changing the lifestyle, scheduling the work, taking professional training for advanced skills,
enhancing communication way, changing the perception etc.
8

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Baker, I. and Fitzpatrick, D., 2022. Student Experiences in Pre-COVID Virtual Internships:
Integration, Barriers, Motivation Challenges, Supportive Supervisors, and Intern
Growth. American Journal of Distance Education, pp.1-13.
Brady, L.A., Wozniak, M.L., Brimmer, M.J., Terranova, E., Moore, C., Kahn, L., Vest, B.M. and
Thomas, M., 2022. Coping Strategies and Workplace Supports for Peers with Substance
Use Disorders. Substance Use & Misuse, pp.1-7.
Cibrian, F.L., Hayes, G.R. and Lakes, K.D., 2021. Academic and Organizational Skills and
Support. In Research Advances in ADHD and Technology (pp. 65-75). Springer, Cham.
Cottrell, S., 2020. Teaching study skills and supporting learning. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Goode, R.W., Cowell, M., McMillan, D., Van Deinse, T. and Cooper-Lewter, C., 2021.
Preparing social workers to confront social injustice and oppression: Evaluating the role
of social work education. Social work, 66(1), pp.39-48.
Krutyakova, M.S., 2018. Changing functions of management at the present stage. Наука и
образование: новое время, (5), pp.176-180.
Nagy, Z., 2019. The Importance of Soft Skills. In Soft Skills to Advance Your Developer
Career (pp. 1-28). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Philip, J. and Gavrilova Aguilar, M., 2022. Student perceptions of leadership skills necessary for
digital transformation. Journal of Education for Business, 97(2), pp.86-98.
Pradhananga, P., ElZomor, M. and Santi Kasabdji, G., 2022. Advancing Minority STEM
Students’ Communication and Presentation Skills through Cocurricular Training
Activities. Journal of Civil Engineering Education, 148(2), p.04022001.
Shorey, S., Ang, E., Ng, E.D., Yap, J., Lau, L.S.T. and Chui, C.K., 2020. Communication skills
training using virtual reality: A descriptive qualitative study. Nurse education today, 94,
p.104592.
Sinfield, S. and Burns, T., 2022. Essential Study Skills: The complete guide to success at
university. Essential Study Skills, pp.1-100.
Succi, C. and Canovi, M., 2020. Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: comparing
students and employers’ perceptions. Studies in higher education, 45(9), pp.1834-1847.
Tabatabaei, M., Cuellar, M. and Williams, J., 2019. Practitioners' Perception of Skills in
Effective Project Management.
Varenina, L., Vecherinina, E., Shchedrina, E., Valiev, I. and Islamov, A., 2021. Developing
critical thinking skills in a digital educational environment. Thinking Skills and
Creativity, 41, p.100906.
9