What does employability mean for me?
Employability is about much more than just getting your first job – it’s about having a positive self image and presenting yourself successfully, both as a new graduate and throughout your life. Your skills, knowledge and personal attributes and the ability to convey them effectively all contribute to your employability as do your personal circumstances and labour market conditions.
You probably already know that you need to get a good degree, complete some work experience and improve your skills in order to maximise your investment in HE. The onus is on you, to start right from the first year at university, to build up your employability.
What do I need to build my employability?
It is important to be able to manage your own career by:
- Knowing your strengths and weaknesses and the way that you like to work
- Building your confidence and self-belief
- Researching and understanding the opportunities available to you and knowing how to access them
- Being able to reflect, evaluate and make sensible decisions on your future and being able to act upon them
- Knowing how to present your skills, knowledge and competencies to employers when applying for jobs, preparing for interviews, presentations or assessment centres
What other skills and experience do I need to build?
You need a range of skills that you can use in different settings. For example:
- Being a good communicator, able to express yourself in writing clearly and concisely and being confident and fluent in your speech
- Being competent in using a computer e.g. word processing, email and using the Internet
- Being able to plan and organise and manage your time well
- Being able to reflect on, evaluate and improve on what you do
- Being a good team worker, able to work with a variety of people to achieve a task or goal
Find out more about the skills that employers want from the Prospects website.
Develop your employability skills through work experience and volunteering and take part in our Student Employability Development Programme
Start here
Employability Online
When you graduate you need to be ready to convince employers not only of your academic ability but also of a whole range of work-related skills. It takes time and effort from you, but there is plenty of support to get the skills and positive mind-set you need. Employability Online is designed to help you every step of the way, from giving you the knowledge and understanding of what it takes to be successful in your degree, to landing that first graduate job.
Go to the Student Resource Area on Moodle and click on Employability Online.
MMU graduate?
You can access Employability Online here. Click ‘Login as a guest’, scroll to ‘Search Courses’, type in ‘Employability Online’ and click ‘GO’.