Employability .

• Employability

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Employability

1 'Employability' refers to a person's capability for gaining and maintaining

employment (Hillage and Pollard, 1998). For individuals, employability depends on the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) they possess, the way they present those

assets to employers. As such employability is affected by both supply-side and demand-side factors which are often outside of an individual's control.


Employability - Origins

1 The concept of employability has been in the literature for many years. Current interest has been driven by:


Employability - Employability: towards a definition

1 While there is no singular definition of employability, a review of the

literature suggests that employability is about work and the ability to be

employed, such as:



1 Berntson (2008) Employability refers to an individual‘s perception of his or

her possibilities of getting new, equal, or better employment.



1 Harvey (2001) Employability is the ability of graduate to get a satisfying

job. Employability is a process of learning.



1 Hillage and Pollard (1998) Employability is the capability to

move self-sufficiently within the labor market to realize potential through

sustainable employment.



1 Fugate, Kinicki, and Ashforth (2004) define employability as a form of

work specific active adaptability that enables workers to identity and

realize career opportunity. Employability facilitates the

movement between jobs, bothwithin and between organizations



1 Fugate et al. (2004) contend that employability enhances an

individual‘s likelihood of gaining employment, although it does not

assure actual employment.



1 Harvey (2001) concurs that job acquisition should not be prioritized over preparedness for employment

to avoid pseudo measure of individual employability



1 Thus employability by this definition is about learning, not least learning

how to learn, and it is about empowering learners as critical

reflective citizens (Harvey, 2001).



1 Harvey‘s (2001) definition is important for it emphasizes

employability of graduates, which is similar to our context, hence, able to

provide insight about how to measure graduates‘ employability

and what are the differences between graduates and experienced

individuals in labor market.



1 Berntson (2008) argues that employability refers to an individual‘s perception of his or her possibilities

of getting new, equal, or better employment. Berntson‘s study

differentiates employability into two main categories – actual employability (objective

employability) and perceived employability (subjective

employability).https://store.theartofservice.com/the-employability-toolkit.html

Employability - Four components of employability

1 This suggests that we can separate out four main elements in respect of individuals’ employability: the first

three are analogous to the concepts of production, marketing and sales, and the fourth is the marketplace in

which they operate.


Employability - Assets

1 An individual’s ‘employability assets’ comprise their knowledge (i.e. what they know), skills (what they do with what they know) and attitudes (how they do it). There are a number of

detailed categorisations in the literature which, for instance,

distinguish between:


Employability - Assets

1 Further key points from the literature include the importance of the

transferability of these skills from one occupational or business context to another for employability and the increased attention employers are

paying to the softer attitudinal skills in selecting employees.


Employability - Deployment

1 * Job search skills— i.e. finding suitable jobs. Access to formal and informal networks is an important

component of job search and employability.


Employability - Presentation

1 Another key aspect of employability is being able to get a particular job, once identified— sometimes included under career management skills, but is given prominence as a separate element here due to its crucial importance to securing employment. It centres around the ability

to demonstrate ‘employability’ assets and present them to the market in an

accessible way. This includes:


Employability - In the context of personal circumstances and the labour market

1 Finally and crucially, the ability to realise or actualise ‘employability’ assets depends on the individual’s

personal and external circumstances and the inter-relationship between

the two. This includes:


Employability - Priorities for action

1 From 2005 to 2007 The Association of Graduate Recruiters in the UK identified

where there was a skills gap in the graduates leaving

university.http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/14782/1/HEA_-_Employability_is_the_answer_but_what

%27s_the_question.pdf It suggested that commercial awareness, leadership,

commitment and drive, problem solving and managing own learning as the areas in most

need of attention


Employability - Priorities for action

1 For the individual the need is to boost those aspects of their

employability which will most enhance their opportunities in the

light of their circumstances. However, what the individual

believes to be most critical does not necessarily coincide with the views of

the employer.


Employability - Issues for public policy

1 The above definition of employability provides a basis for analysing the

policies affecting the employability of certain groups (e.g. 16 and 17-year-

old school leavers), or conversely how major policy initiatives (e.g. the New Deal) impact on employability. A brief review of government initiatives

in this area suggests that policy is aimed:


Employability - Issues for public policy

1 the views of employers and the workforce of their employability; and outcome measures,

e.g


Employability - Duality of Employability

1 An alternative account of employability takes a more relative

approach. Brown and Hesketh define employability as ‘the relative

chances of getting and maintaining different kinds of employment’

(2004).



1 ‘Employability not only depends on whether one is able to fulfil the

requirements of specific jobs, but also on how one stands relative to

others within a hierarchy of job seekers’ (Brown and Hesketh, 2004)



1 With the move to a more knowledge economy|knowledge based economy,

it is widely thought that there is an increasing demand for high-calibre

managerial talent. However, a focus on obtaining skills in order to gain

good employment has led to an over-supply of graduates and a larger

number of contenders chasing the same top jobs. Brown and Hesketh

argue that there is a clear mismatch between individuals’ expectations of employability and the realities posed

by the labour market.



1 This view of employability incorporates the dual aspects of supply and demand of labour to show that advancing one’s position in the

labour market by gaining credentials is partially dependent on structural factors

outside the individual’s control. The recent financial crisis demonstrates that global

economic factors can and do have a significant impact on the likelihood of an

individual securing a job regardless of their skills, credentials and social status.


Higher education in Portugal - Employability

1 Due to these factors, higher education courses with a higher

employability rate include medicine (there is a very high demand for medical doctors across the whole

country), some classic engineering specializations, and computer

sciences.



1 Low employability is found among teaching, humanities and some

social sciences fields of study, like history, geography, linguistics,

philosophy, sociology; or to a lesser degree among the exact sciences

and natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology or geology, when these courses are oriented towards a

teaching career instead of a more technical or scientific research

career.



1 Despite their generally high reputation, economics, law and architecture degrees, even from some of the most selective and

prestigious schools, have had an increasingly low employability rate due to an excessive number of new

graduates each year.



1 There are courses which used to have high or very high employability rates (at least during the 1990s) and

currently are among the most precarious in terms of employment

for new graduates


Job guarantee - Full employability

1 The full employability agenda has come under fire from a number of sources in recent years (see, for example ILO, 2004).International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2004)

Macroeconomic policy for growth and employment Committee on

Employment and Social Policy, Governing Body, 291st Session


University of the Arts London - Student Enterprise and Employability service

1 To make sure that students and graduates are prepared for the

careers they will enter and that basic career skills and knowledge are built into the University’s curricula right

from the start, UAL’s Student Enterprise and Employability service

was set up in September 2011


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Employability .

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