Employability — What really matters to employers?

Employability, this is a topic that has many different definitions and concepts behind it. The tough thing with Employability is that there isn’t a clear example of what makes a person ‘employable’. Different roles have different needs for their employees, for example a salesperson won’t have the same employability skills as a mechanic, or an administrator doesn’t have the same employability skills as a sporting coach. My personal opinion on this topic is that I am more focused on the person and their personality rather than their qualifications and skills, in today’s modern business world every job description you see has the required skills as ‘Communication, Team Work, Problem Solving’. These skills are obvious to everyone and let’s be fair, if you don’t have these skills you are behind in the employment world anyway. By looking through a person’s university qualifications and actually getting to see who the potential applicant is as a person you can then judge if they fit your companies values and culture. This is obviously easier said then done, but in my view is worth while diving into as a company as hiring the right type of people, regardless of their qualifications is going to be beneficial to your organisation. This cannot be the case for certain professions such as doctors or lawyers due to the high level of knowledge and qualifications required for those roles, but the principle is the same when hiring for these positions.

I also wonder that as I am born in the 1990s, does that affect the way I look at employability. As the business world is developing and more businesses and companies are encourage flexible working arrangements and offer their employees more attractive benefits such as Netflix for example, does this change the way management look at employability. As Simon Sinek discusses, Millennials are completely different in the workplace to other generations so how do people view millennials from an employability point of view. Millennials have many skills that suit them such as their technology skills but from an employability point of view do those skills override the fact that millennials can be ‘entitled’ as Simon Sinek describes.

I genuinely enjoy the discussions on this topic, talking to different managers of different ages and seeing what they look for and what they classify as ‘employability’, I have definitely noticed the skills they look for have changed over the past few years from tangible skills such as problem solving and the generic skills to intangible skills such as their personality and values.

So, a couple of questions to leave everyone with, what skills do you actually classify as ‘Employability Skills’? Are they consistent with the norms of employability or are they different and unique? Do you think different generations look for different employability skills?