Joe Buglass, Enterprise and Employability Manager at LUSU, explores just what exactly employability means and how you can ensure you have it.
As a student I strongly suspect the question you’ll be asking is am I going to get a job when I graduate? This question is central to employability. The term slips off the tongue easily enough even if you have only a vague idea of what it means. In this post I want to define employability and show you some ways in which you can very quickly raise yours.
I define employability as:
The evidence you can provide of your skills/experience and your ability to communicate them in a powerful job winning way to potential employers.
Now that we know what employability is how do we go about raising it?
First of all realise you already have the skills and some of the experience to get yourself a job! In some ways you are already highly employable. What most students lack is the evidence and the ability to communicate to employers in a powerful way.
There are some rather easy things you can do to raise your employability almost instantly:
Start thinking in terms of achievements not activities – when it comes to CVs, application forms and interviews you don’t want to tell them what you did but how well you did it. It’s a simple and powerful distinction and one that few realise fully. If you start thinking in this fashion and applying it to both your degree and other activities you will start to find you achieve a lot more and build up that critical body of evidence. An achievements focused mindset also helps to change the way you communicate. Rather than wittering on about your experience you get to the part that matters – the results.
Start collecting evidence of your achievements – Whilst you need to be careful about this (any sensible person can spot a “trophy hunter” a mile off) evidence is what you fill your CV/application with and talk about in interviews Evidence can be any of the following:
- Powerful stories/examples you can talk about at interview/assessment centres and write about on your CV and application forms
- Press clippings/reports
- Awards/commendations
- Video/Audio
- Blogs
- Certificates/Qualifications
- References (from high quality people/contacts!)
The more evidence you have of the skills and experience you have developed the more employable you are.
Apply for as many jobs as possible – it may sound odd but I’m going to suggest that you apply for as many jobs as possible and that you do so now regardless of whether you want them or are even suitable for them. The aim is to get as much experience as possible of for what for most of us is a stressful situation. In times of stress people do not default to their natural ability they default to their level of training! The mock interview service that most university career centres offer are good to a point but only if you take them seriously. The real thing is better.
The important thing to remember when it comes to CVs and application forms is that its not really about you (!) It’s about the role you are applying for and the company you want to work for. Look at the language they use on their website, look at their objectives and values. Do you use the same language in your application? Do you tell them that you find their future objectives exciting and that their values correspond with yours? If not go back and start again.
Focus on getting as much from your university experience as possible –try and hit as many of transferable skills as you can with the above three. These include team work, leadership, project planning and management, information skills, communication skills and reflective skills. You could develop most of thee and gain evidence for them through your degree alone but you will want to broaden your experience so you can talk about more than just your degree. Consider if you haven’t already volunteering, work placements, work experience, charity work, community projects, and part time jobs
Realise what employers are really looking for – regardless of what the job or person spec says an employer is really looking for three things in applicants:
1) That you can do the job
2) That you will fit in with the organisation
3) You will add more value than you take from the organisation.
Ensure that your application shows the above and that the examples you will be using at interview (you will want four good ones that demonstrate a variety of skills and experiences which you can use to answer more than one question).
Start putting these principles into practice and you may just get that job you really want.
For more information on LUSU and its employability activities contact Joe Buglass, Enterprise and Employability Manager through email j.buglass@lancs.ac.uk
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