What are employability skills?
Employability skills are the core competencies and key personal attributes required for nearly every job. They are the skills that employers believe will enable an employee to carry out their role to the best of their ability, and they are the general skills most employers look for when recruiting. They are sometimes referred to as soft skills or transferable skills. These are the kinds of skills you pick up through life experience and should not be confused with hard skills, which are needed to do a specific job, generally gained through work, learning, or training.
Why are they important?
Your employability skills will shape the education and career path you decide to follow, and they will help you to work effectively throughout your career. In today’s competitive job market, it’s important to stand out, and employability skills can help you do that. Being able to demonstrate strong employability skills could be what makes an employer choose you. They are also useful skills that will help you outside of work. It’s important to understand the employability skills you already have, as well as those you may need to develop in the future.
The Skills Builder Universal Framework, which is being used successfully by many schools, colleges, universities and employers, defines eight essential skills:
Listening: Receiving, retaining and processing information
Speaking: Transmitting information or ideas
Problem Solving: Finding solutions to challenges
Creativity: Using imagination and generating new ideas
Adapting: Overcoming challenges and setbacks to achieve goals
Planning: Setting goals and designing routes to achieve them
Leadership: Supporting, encouraging and motivating others to achieve a shared goal
Teamwork: Working cooperatively with others to achieve a shared goal
These crucial skills are high on employers’ wish lists, as they will enable you to be successful in your job.
Use Skills Builder’s free tools and resources to start developing your essential skills. They break each of the eight skills down into a sequence of steps, taking you from being an absolute beginner through to mastery: Skills Builder Benchmark
Useful Links
Find out what skills are needed in the Hull and East Yorkshire area in our Skills Dashboard.
Register for an account on >log on | move on> today and create your own Skills Passport.
Find out about careers that might be right for you by taking a National Careers Service skills assessment. It takes 5 to 10 minutes and will help you identify your interests, motivations and preferences. Understanding yourself can help you work out what careers you may enjoy working in. You can then use this information to explore careers that interest you in more detail.
