Key Skills for University Students & Improving CV Presentation

This report provides an overview of essential skills required for students to succeed in higher education and their importance in the workplace. It identifies five key skills: time management, collaboration, innovation, problem-solving, and networking. The report discusses the significance of these skill...Read More

Skills for Higher
Education

ABSTRACT
The report summarises that skill are essential competence and abilities within a person to
complete specific task effectively. At higher education, skill assist in finding new ways to think
and complete working. Skill guides people to recognise impact of won actions as well as teach
them for undertaking responsibilities for their performances despite of blaming others. The
individual report includes essential skills within students of higher education. It also comprises
ways to improve content of CVs.

Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................2
Contents...........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF QUESTIONS......................................................................1
1. Identification of five skills which students require to be successful at University as well as
discussion of importance of them in workplace..........................................................................1
2. Providing five recommendations which can assist students to improve content of their CVs3
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The term skill is defined to ability to use knowledge by an individual effectively together
with readily for great performances (Assiter, 2017). Well-developed skill makes a person master
in specific field and feel more confident for utilising emerging techniques to become faster in
completing working. In higher education, skills improve positive behaviour and minimises
negative behaviour of students. Learning new skills gives confidence and motivation to students
to build a professional life.
The report highlights skills which are essentially required among students for becoming
successful at University along with their significance at workplace. It also includes
recommendations to students to improve content of CVs.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF QUESTIONS
1. Identification of five skills which students require to be successful at University as well as
discussion of importance of them in workplace
Skills are potentials or competence of a person to do specific work with perfection. In
higher education, skills assist in attaining good grades, gives confidence and motivates students
for working hard (Oliveri and Markle, 2017). Students learn huge types of skills at university
that are said to transferable skills. These assist students to attain higher paid jobs as these are
more valued by employers at workplace. Mentioned below are some identified skills which
students of higher education require to achieve success and importance of all in workplace:
Time management skill: It is an ability to organise and plan ways to divide time among
particular activities. It is productive usage to time that permit an individual to get everything they
planned done. For a student of higher education or University, time management skill is essential
skill as it aids them to prioritise time to complete study groups, assignments, projects and extra
curriculum practices. With effective time management, students of University prioritise essential
tasks which needs immediate actions. Moreover, time management skill is important at
workplace because it assist in preparing proper schedule to complete all tasks by hitting deadline
in time. It also helps employees to know what they need to do as well as time they need for
completing each task. It minimises level of anxiety addition to overall stress level at workplace.
Collaboration skill: It refers to the skills that is used while working with others with the
hope of producing something or attaining common goal (Succi and Canovi, 2020). Within
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students of University, collaboration skill is required not only to develop higher thinking level,
rather to boost their self-esteem while practicing group projects. Collaborative skill allows
students of higher education to involve in working with pairs addition to small groups for
discussing concepts or brainstorming solutions to educational based problem. The skill develops
higher level thinking and increases retention of students along with exposes them towards
diverse perspectives. It plays crucial function at workplace as it connects people together to gain
favourable work experience together with better living. It establishes a solid foundation to open
embody new streams of thoughts, ideas along with values for appreciating differences between
perspectives of people, promoting social bonding addition to supportive relationships.
Innovation skill: It is delineated to ability which is used for creating along with
adaptation to change (Albrahim, 2020). For students of University, innovation skill is required as
it enhances chance to react for any changes in academic aspect together with discovering new
opportunities to complete working. In higher education, innovation skill encourages learners to
research, explore addition to use all types of tools for uncovering something new in studies. It
improves education level as students compels towards higher thinking level for solving complex
issues. Innovation skills helps a student for coming up with extra ordinary approach, strategy or
process for completing assessments, assignments and presentations differently. At workplace,
innovation skill is importance because it increases competitiveness for offering higher level of
quality products in more efficient manner at lower cost. Furthermore, the skill helps employees
of business to offer new and make improvisation in current products or entering in new markets.
Problem solving skill: It is defined to a skill which is significant for people and
businesses for having exert control on work environment (Civilcharran and Maharaj, 2018).
Within higher education, problem solving skill is required among students as it provides
mechanisms to determine things, figuring out reason to break them and determine suitable course
of action for fixing all. It helps students to look at challenges from fresh outlooks and take
diverse calculated risks (Weingarten and Hicks, 2018). When students practice the skill
consistently, they are able to develop greater situational as well as social awareness. In context to
workplace, problem solving skill is important because it fosters potentials of employees for
prioritising, planning addition to executing strategies. Through this skill, employees think out of
box and address risk with proper planning.
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Networking skill: It refers to a capability for exchanging ideas, perspectives and
information with people having shared interest. in higher education, networking skill is essential
for students as it guides them to build network or relation with peers and experts in the field and
gain advice for success in examination or other academic work. It teaches students for ways to
properly interact with others and stay on top in all types of curriculum practices. At same time,
networking skill is important at workplace as it advances career of employees and provides them
access towards more job opportunities (Hora, Benbow and Smolarek, 2018). Having well
established network builds relationship with people that are known to people and company.
Effective networking skill benefits workplace to gain insights about various information to look
towards key potential employers seek for and advice ways for improvising professionalism.
2. Providing five recommendations which can assist students to improve content of their CVs
Crafting perfect curriculum vitae or CVs refers to taking time for revising along with
improvising it throughout professional life. Mentioned below are some recommendations to
students to higher education for making improvisation in content of their CVs:
 Trimming excess: It is recommended to students of higher education to trim out excess
information from content of the curriculum vitae. It is determined that employers prefer
to see relevant information which makes a student an interesting candidate for interview,
for this, student must avoid clinches and jargon along with use plain English in the
content presented in curriculum vitae. It is suggested to students to add things in content
of CVs which catches attention with achievements, facts and figures (Nisha and
Rajasekaran, 2018).
 Including keywords: For making improvisation in CVs, it is recommended to students to
add keywords. Through adding specific keywords or phrases in content of curriculum
vitae, students are able to relate themselves with job spec addition to industry.
 Including personal statement: In content of CVs, it is recommended to students to
include personal statement which is extreme effective when students get it right. It is
suggested to students to keep the content short, highlight significant things including
level of experience, personal along with professional qualities and strongest skill in the
content which makes them right for particular job (Shields and Sandoval Hernandez,
2020).
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 Tailoring information to the role: It is suggested to students to tailor out information as
per information asked by recruitment consultant for specific job in the content of
curriculum vitae. Moreover, student should change content through providing evidence of
the ways they have performed similar duties, responsibilities and solved similar problems
in past roles. Students must emphasise ways in which relevant skills could be transferred
to the position and show enthusiasm for areas addition to challenges of job description in
the CVs.
 Proper presentation: Content of CVs could be improved by a student by presenting
information by making attempts to try space items as well as fragment long paragraphs
with line breaks (Quinn and Buzzetto-Hollywood, 2019). Moreover, student s
recommended to improve their CVs’ content through using bullet point rather than listing
them in long sentences.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations to improve skills and content of CVs by students
To students of higher education, it is recommended to improve skills for becoming
capable to work for particular job. For improving required skill-sets, it is recommended to
students to work on building evaluation and analysis, tolerance and resilience. There are some
students who learn more fastly and easily as compared to others. It is recommended to students
of higher education to fill gap in developing learning skill than others through underlining key
points, preparing study notes, making study plan, stay organised, collaborate with study partners,
recall learning and trying new techniques. At same time, improving content of CVs could be
done through using number and statistics, researching roles student are applying for along with
making changes accordingly.
CONCLUSION
From the report, it is concluded that skill play significant role in higher education. In higher
education, skills assist to pursue career which interest as well as inspires them. Some skills
which are essential for students to achieve success at University are time management skill,
innovation skill, collaboration skill, problem solving skill and networking skill. To improvise
content of CVs, student is recommended to properly present information, trim excess, include
keywords, tailor information to role and include personal statement.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Albrahim, F. A., 2020. Online teaching skills and competencies. Turkish Online Journal of
Educational Technology-TOJET, 19(1), pp.9-20.
Assiter, A., 2017. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
Civilcharran, S. and Maharaj, M. S., 2018, December. A framework to determine the digital
skills preparedness of graduates for industry. In 2018 International Conference on
Intelligent and Innovative Computing Applications (ICONIC) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Hora, M. T., Benbow, R. J. and Smolarek, B. B., 2018. Re-thinking soft skills and student
employability: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change: The Magazine of
Higher Learning. 50(6). pp.30-37.
Nisha, S. M. and Rajasekaran, V., 2018. Employability skills: A review. IUP Journal of Soft
Skills. 12(1). pp.29-37.
Oliveri, M. E. and Markle, R., 2017. Continuing a culture of evidence: Expanding skills in higher
education. ETS Research Report Series. 2017(1). pp.1-8.
Quinn, K. and Buzzetto-Hollywood, N., 2019. Faculty and Student Perceptions of the
Importance of Management Skills in the Hospitality Industry. Interdisciplinary Journal
of E-Learning & Learning Objects. 15.
Shields, R. and Sandoval Hernandez, A., 2020. Mixed signals: cognitive skills, qualifications and
earnings in an international comparative perspective. Oxford Review of
Education. 46(1). pp.111-128.
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.
Weingarten, H. P. and Hicks, M., 2018. On Test: Skills Summary of Fin
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