Employability Skills

Employability Skills Workshop #2 Career Services University of Canberra www.canberra.edu.au

UC Graduate Attributes • Communication Skills • Information Literacy and Numeracy • Information Technology Skills • Problem-Solving Skills • Working with Others • Workplace Skills • Professional Ethics • Social Responsibility • Lifelong Learning • Personal Attributes

Careers Website Employability Skills presentation and UC Graduate Attributes www.canberra.edu.au/careers/ workshops2009

Employers …… • Hire people (generally) on the basis of their skills – what they can do. • Your degree alone (generally) does not entitle you to a job. • You must convince an employer that you have skills as well as knowledge.

Employment Partnership Two parties – • The employer – he wants certain skills for a particular job • The employee – you have certain skills to offer along with your knowledge. Do your skills meet the employer’s needs?

You’ve got your degree … Once an employer knows you have the degree (knowledge) that is useful to him, he/she will want to know what your workplace and personal skills are.

What skills do employers want? In descending order: • Communication skills (Writing and speaking clearly, listening well, able to negotiate. Can you give and receive feedback?) • Team work skills (Can you get on well with your colleagues in a group? Are you willing to help others?)

Skills contd • Problem-solving skills (Can you face problems calmly? Can you identify problems as they arise? Can you find ways to solve them?) • Initiative and enterprise skills (Can you deal with change and new situations? Can you put your ideas into action?) • Planning and organising skills (Good at meeting deadlines? Able to see the implications of your actions? Can you work well under a bit of pressure?)

Skills contd Learning skills • (Willing to learn new procedures? Willing to go on short courses? Prepared to do some graduate study? ) • Self-management skills (Do you have career goals? Can you assess your own job performance? Are you responsible for your own conduct?) • Technology skills (A good knowledge of basic IT? Willing to learn more? Can you use IT safely?)

Graduate Recruitment In the behavioural questions you must answer in Graduate Recruitment applications, you will be writing about your employability skills.

Example … • Describe a situation where you had to make a presentation to a group. How did you prepare for this? • Give an example of a time when you had to solve a problem on your own. What did you do? What was the outcome? • Have you had to make a difficult decision in the last few years? What process did you go through to come to a decision?

Example … • Tell us about a time when you had to juggle competing deadlines. How did you organise your time? • What other activities are you involved in outside your study? What do you gain from these activities? • Describe a time when you had to deal with a new, unexpected situation. How did you deal with this?

STAR Technique • Situation – describe the situation you were in, the context • Task – what exactly was the problem to be solved? • Action – what did you think, what did you do and why? • Result – what happened? Were you successful? What did you learn from this?

Employability Skills