Employability

UCLan Employability brings together the knowledge, experience and resources that support and inform the understanding and practice of enhancing student and graduate employability. It has emerged through the work done over recent years by those within Futures and ceth.

Whether you are a student, academic, careers and guidance staff, staff and educational developer, policy maker or from the business and social community outside of higher education, there are resources here that can be of use to you.

The resources include:

• Employability Models
• Practical guides and tools for developing, recognising and assessing employability within the curriculum
• Audit tools
• Research papers
• Self Assessment of Skills
• Employability Strategies

These have been developed within UCLan (see Links) by a range of expert practitioners and are presented to help inform and enhance your understanding and practice. This is an ongoing and developing resource and we welcome suggestions, comments and material, so please contact us.

Employability Skills - a definition
David Hind and Stuart Moss, 2005

"Employability skills (ES) are a set of social behaviours and skills that you can learn to help you interact and work with other people in a variety of different situations. […] In the 1990s, such skills were thought to focus primarily around communication, interpersonal, or social skills. It was felt that individuals ought to be effective oral communicators, or competent team players. The trust now, though, is for a wider range of skills to be identified, [such as] learning and study skills, body language skills, and numeracy skills […] working with, and leading other people, problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, information gathering, consultancy and undertaking extended projects."

This definition clearly subscribes to the view that one can learn a set of behaviours and skills. It also emphasises the range of skills required by employers. The challenge for subject teams is to ensure that these are spread across the curriculum (and PT role) and that students are encouraged to develop some of these skills outside the curriculum and to understand the value of all types of work experience.