Employability

Professor Mantz Yorke of the University of Edinburgh defines Employability as "a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy."

Other Definitions of Employability

• (Hillage and Pollard, 1998): "Employability is the capability to move self-sufficiently within the labour market to realise potential through sustainable employment. For the individual, employability depends on the knowledge, skills and attitudes they possess, the way they use these assets and present them to employers and the context (personal circumstances and labour market environment) within which they seek work." They propose employability consists of four elements:
  • employability assets (knowledge, skills, attitudes)
  • deployment (career management skills)
  • presentation (job getting skills, CV, interview technique, etc)
  • personal circumstances (who you are, responsibility, labour market, etc).
• Anneleen Forrier; Luc Sels (2003): "Employability is the ability to maintain employment and make 'transitions' between jobs and roles within the same organization to meet new job requirements."
• Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2005): "Employability is the ability to obtain new employment if required, i.e. to be independent in the labour market by being willing and able to manage their own employment transitions between and within organisations. The continuously fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of efforts."
• Erik Berntson (2008): "Employability is the ability to gain initial employment; hence the interest in ensuring that 'key competencies', careers advice and an understanding about the world of work are embedded in the education system." Berntson argues that employability refers to an individual's perception of his or her possibilities of getting new, equal, or better employment. Berntson's study differentiates employability into two main categories – actual employability (objective employability) and perceived employability (subjective employability).
• Lee Harvey, former Director of the Centre for Research and Evaluation at Sheffield Hallam University, defines employability "as the ability of a graduate to get a satisfying job", stating that job acquisition should not be prioritized over preparedness for employment to avoid pseudo measure of individual employability. Lee argues that employability is not a set of skills but a range of experiences and attributes developed through higher-level learning, thus employability is not a "product' but a process of learning.