Abstract
Traditional linear careers are being phased out in many sectors, emphasizing the need for individuals to be competent managers of their careers. Students need to understand and acquire the variety of skills and qualities of highly employable people to secure their financial and professional futures. This exercise assists students in identifying and appraising personal skills and strengths that contribute to their employability. To do this, students use a conceptual framework for employability comprised of three dimensions (career identity, personal adaptability, and social and human capital) to guide their reflection and then appraise personal attributes in group discussions. This activity is suitable for undergraduate courses addressing professional development and career management.
“Employability” is the likelihood one could obtain employment (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004). As traditional linear careers, the careers that may unfold in a single or few organizations, are phased out in many sectors, the concept has become increasingly salient. Individuals need to prepare for frequent bouts of unemployment and be able to manage their careers (Jarvis & Keeley, 2003). Success in a labor market characterized by low organizational loyalty depends on becoming the right kind of worker rather than finding the right job. Thus, students need to understand and acquire the variety of skills and qualities of highly employable people to secure their financial and professional futures.
The Employability Self-Assessment is an introductory exercise designed for undergraduate students both early or advanced in the career planning process. To self-assess their level of employability, students are provided with a conceptual framework comprising three dimensions (career identity, personal adaptability, and social and human capital) to guide their reflection and then appraise personal attributes in group discussions. The learning objectives of this activity are to
Identify and categorize personal skills and attributes in the dimensions of employability
Qualitatively appraise one’s level of employability
Identify and articulate transferable skills
Set self-improvement goals
This activity was developed in a business professional development course and is well-suited for course units addressing job search or career management processes. The following sections elaborate on employability, provide a detailed description of the exercise, and debrief past classroom use.
Conceptual Framework
The Employability Self-Assessment uses an empirically supported (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008; McArdel, Waters, Briscoe, & Hall, 2007) conceptual framework that situates a host of identified employability characteristics within three broad dimensions: career identity, personal adaptability, and human and social capital (Fugate et al., 2004). Together these dimensions facilitate the “identification and realization of career opportunities within and between organizations” (Fugate et al., 2004, p. 18).
The first dimension of employability is “career identity” (Fugate et al., 2004), which “refers to individuals’ understanding of who they are and who they want to be in the context of work” (Helens-Hart, 2015, para. 2). Career identities are shaped in part by socialization. Those with strong career identities will seek out opportunities to further reinforce or clarify identities. For example, human resources (HR) majors who have a desire to clarify their budding career identities may seek out HR-related internships, guest speakers, conferences, and mentors. These activities lead students to learn about HR career identities, which may strengthen or weaken their commitment to those identities.
The second dimension of employability is “personal adaptability” (Fugate et al., 2004), which refers to individuals’ abilities to modify their behaviors to meet the demands of changing situations. Personal adaptability is important for employability as individuals who can adapt to rapidly changing work environments will be better able to cope with unemployment and accept positions and perform in unfamiliar working conditions or fields (Fugate et al., 2004). Highly adaptable individuals tend to be optimistic about change, see it as an opportunity, and generally believe they will succeed in life. They have a propensity to learn and seek out information to help them perform. Adaptable individuals also attempt to anticipate and influence outcomes through proactive learning and planning.
The third dimension of employability addresses both human and social capital (Fugate et al., 2004). Human capital refers to individuals’ innate and learned characteristics such as cognitive ability, age, education, breadth and depth of skills, and work experience. Social capital refers to the strength and quality of one’s social and professional networks. Larger and more diverse networks with weaker ties are valuable for finding job opportunities, while localized, dense networks with strong ties may provide better support for job performance and career advancement. Individuals grow their social capital by increasing the size as well as the strength of certain ties within their networks (Career Research, n.d.). While Fugate et al. (2004) discuss social and human capital in a single dimension, it is useful to consider them separately for this exercise so students can better differentiate them in reflection.
The Exercise
I use this three-part exercise to introduce business majors to the concept of employability and continue to use the results as a touchstone for later activities designed to further explore and develop students’ employability. To facilitate this exercise with a 25-person class, budget 50 to 75 minutes to complete it. If working with a larger class, instructors may break up the activity and introduce and reflect on each dimension across several sessions or when they are salient to course content.
Provide students with a blank self-assessment handout (see online supplement; available with the article online). Ideally, students will have reviewed the employability framework from its original source (Fugate et al., 2004) or a quick summary (Helens-Hart, 2015) beforehand, but I usually review the framework and facilitate this activity in the same class period. Fugate and Kinicki (2008) validated an employability scale, based on the model, which further details individual characteristics contributing to employability. The scale and other readings cited with this exercise may be provided prior to the activity to further prime students’ thinking about their employability.
Part 1: Individual Work (Steps 1-3)
Step 1: Brainstorm (7-10 Minutes)
This exercise begins with students brainstorming significant life events or joyful experiences in their academic, professional, and personal lives. From these recollections, have them list personal actions that influenced the outcomes of these experiences. The following questions can help spark their brainstorming:
What has brought you joy in life?
When have you overcome a personal or professional challenge?
What have you worked hard to accomplish?
Who do you talk to if you have a problem or question?
Step 2: Identify Attributes, Skills, and Strengths (7-10 Minutes)
In this step, students think more abstractly to identify skills, strengths, abilities, and personality traits they exercised to deal with the situations. Instructors may choose to provide students with examples of employability traits and skills (Fugate et al., 2004; Fugate & Kinicki, 2008) to help them in this process.
Step 3: Categorize (10-15 Minutes)
After creating a brainstorming list, students move to their empty employability model and attempt to categorize items as supporting one or more of the dimensions of employability. If students think of new items, encourage them to include them in their models.
Part 2: Group Work (Steps 4 and 5)
Step 4: Small Group Reflection (15 Minutes)
Organize students into groups of three and ask them to discuss their lists and completed employability models. During this first discussion, students may be inspired by each other and add new items to their own models. Students should justify their categories and explain why some items may have been placed in more than one dimension.
Step 5: All-Class Discussion (15 Minutes)
Ask volunteer representatives from about four groups or more (time permitting) to present some of the items shared in the group and why they may have debated categorization. If students were unable to categorize a characteristic, it can be presented to the class for discussion. For more formalized class discussion, provide group representatives with possible questions to answer:
What qualities/skills did multiple group members share?
What were some of the most surprising qualities/skills shared?
How were qualities/skills categorized?
How could some qualities/skills fit within multiple dimensions?
Part 3: Personal Goals (Step 6)
Step 6: Personal Goals (5 Minutes)
To conclude, have students individually review their assessments and identify what employability dimensions may be well developed or in need of development. Ask students to draft employability goals they may be able to work on in this course. To help students draft their goals, instructors may provide sample language, such as “One area I would like to develop is . . .” or “Some activities I may pursue to develop this area are . . .” This step may be assigned for homework to allow for more thoughtful goal setting.
Debriefing
This activity is easy to administer, and debriefing is inherent in its facilitation. It sets an important precedent for reflexive discussion of the development of the skills and qualities employers find desirable. It helps students assess their employability and practice the reflective mindset in a low-stakes way, preparing them to consider how they might communicate their employability to employers. Small-group discussion prior to full-class discussion eases students into sharing personal experiences. Since students are asked to reflect on positive experiences and times when they overcame challenges, they have typically been comfortable sharing information. However, it is important to set clear, respectful discussion expectations prior to the activity (see Allen, 2014) and let students decide what examples and details are appropriate to share with others.
To push brainstorming and categorization beyond obvious or surface-level reflection, it is useful to offer students questions to consider during Steps 1 and 5 of the activity and present a list of employability skills and traits (Fugate et al., 2004; Fugate & Kinicki, 2008). Students tend to identify aspects of their human capital very quickly and pull examples of courses taken to fill out this dimension. They often find it difficult, however, to extend their reflections and search for skills and strengths beyond their professional and academic lives. I found students arrived at more thoughtful and surprising reflections when invited to look beyond their academic and employment experiences or when the activity was previewed in a class session prior to its facilitation. An example of an idealized written student response to this activity (excluding Part 2) is provided in the appendix.
In my experience, personal adaptability has been the most difficult dimension for students to fill out, but this may not be the case for all student populations. Courses in college are increasingly designed to reduce ambiguity in expectations and instruction, and thus, my students tended to consider ambiguity with apprehension and suspicion. Using positive language to describe adaptability challenges can assist students in appraising the outcomes of a challenge in a productive way. For example, using terms such as “surprises,” “resilience,” and “experiment” can replace more negatively associated terms such as “crisis,” “survival,” and “failure.”
Administering this activity at the beginning of the semester has been a useful way to introduce employability and makes the concept immediately relevant to students’ lives. Throughout the semester, we link the learning objectives of later assignments back to students’ employability assessment goals to help them chart their employability growth and think about the elements more critically. At the end of the semester, I ask students to revisit their models, articulate how they have improved their employability, and set new goals for the future. While I have not yet used this activity to formally collect qualitative assessment data for the course, it can easily be used for such purposes.
Overall, I have been satisfied with students’ self-assessments and have had students comment how learning about employability with this framework helped them think about career management in a more long-term and holistic way. I encourage instructors to try this exercise and consider how to use the concept of employability in their courses to tie theoretical content to soft skill development.
Supplementary Material
Supplementary Material, Supplemental_Doc_Blank_Form_Employability_Assessment – The Employability Self-Assessment: Identifying and Appraising Career Identity, Personal Adaptability, and Social and Human Capital
Supplementary Material, Supplemental_Doc_Blank_Form_Employability_Assessment for The Employability Self-Assessment: Identifying and Appraising Career Identity, Personal Adaptability, and Social and Human Capital by Rose Helens-Hart in Management Teaching Review
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Supplementary Material
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