{"id":113,"date":"2014-06-23T07:52:52","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T07:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2016-12-24T07:06:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-24T07:06:19","slug":"improving-employability-suggestions-for-administrators-educators-and-students-of-professional-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/improving-employability-suggestions-for-administrators-educators-and-students-of-professional-colleges\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Employability – Suggestions for Administrators, Educators and Students of Professional Colleges"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the common discussions I’ve run into with friends and ex-colleagues in India, especially in Kerala is regarding\u00a0’employability’. \u00a0A useful definition on wikipedia refers to\u00a0’employability’<\/strong>\u00a0as a person’s capability for gaining and maintaining employment (Hillage and Pollard, 1998).<\/span><\/p>\n

Multiple contacts of mine on the corporate side from small and large companies confirm\u00a0that they’re finding it more and more\u00a0difficult to find and hire quality candidates among fresh graduates. \u00a0On the other hand, the number of professional colleges and students passing out have gone up by a big margin in recent years. \u00a0The gap seems to be widening in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Having been involved in multiple related discussions and activities like university hiring in small and large organizations and with the development of\u00a0a global graduate program for a multinational organization, there is little doubt that\u00a0there needs to be an active dialogue on this among educators and addressed early in the educational system.<\/p>\n

How could we look at improving employability?<\/p>\n

In simple terms, organizations generally tend to look for three fundamental categories, especially among fresh professional graduates.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Technical or Hard Skills (Competent knowledge on\u00a0a specific engineering, software programming area, related thinking approach to solutions, financial skills etc.)<\/li>\n
  2. Soft Skills (Visible and measurable aspects like communication, interpersonal skills, learning agility etc.)<\/li>\n
  3. Attitude (Approach to tasks, mindset, ability to take responsibility and accountability, resilience in difficult situations etc.). \u00a0There may be some overlap with the second category or be combined with the second.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Skilled recruiters and hiring managers try to combine all the available data points like grades, responses to questions in interviews, visible behaviors, resume, group discussions, extra curricular activities, psychometric test responses if & where relevant, while finalizing a hire. \u00a0Students with high degree of self awareness and emotional intelligence generally seem to stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n

    Most of my corporate connections seem to agree that the second and third categories are equally \u00a0important, compared to the first category of technical skills or knowledge. \u00a0Many jobs\/roles that hire professional students today may not relate to their primary area of study but look for the ability to adapt their learning process and approach to other areas.<\/p>\n

    Designers of professional educational programs may need to rethink their effort, energy and overall investment across these categories. \u00a0It would be useful for them to seek support from internal and external experts, including alumni, recruiting organizations to ensure impact for their students and programs. \u00a0When professional education programs are designed\u00a0with the intent\u00a0to develop well rounded\u00a0personalities, they result in\u00a0\u00a0higher probability of success in career and life, even in difficult environments. \u00a0Working with some of the behavioral skills\u00a0could go a long way to helping students navigate through their career beyond the initial \u00a0years.<\/p>\n

    It would be worthwhile for individual students to ask themselves how much of their time\u00a0and energy is invested on developing themselves beyond learning their normal curriculum in professional institutions. \u00a0Students can\u00a0take responsibility for their own development, in a digitally connected world\u00a0and instant availability to brilliant sources of knowledge and wisdom.<\/p>\n

    I close with the following humble suggestion for students – Your investment in your continuous personal development will always pay off in the long run. \u00a0Even for those who may not land your first campus job, please\u00a0remember that your first job is only the start of a long working journey. \u00a0There is a long way to go and there will be lots of ups and downs. \u00a0As much as possible, select work that you will enjoy\u00a0doing and seem to hold at least some opportunities – not what everyone around\u00a0defines or tells you is good. \u00a0Be open to experimenting early in your career. \u00a0There will always be opportunities with patience, resilience through difficult times and hard work. \u00a0The earlier you can start, the better. \u00a0I also encourage you to seek and find mentors to help you on your journey that you should take responsibility for.<\/p>\n

    PS: Taking\u00a0this opportunity to remember and thank one of our\u00a0engineering\u00a0professors, Dr. K. Usha who spent\u00a0lots of extra personal time and effort to prepare her students on topics beyond engineering, \u00a0scheduling extra sessions\u00a0during lunch breaks and available\u00a0hours, on her own initiative. \u00a0We need more role models and educators who can think and act beyond ‘normal’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of the common discussions I’ve run into with friends and ex-colleagues in India, especially in Kerala is regarding\u00a0’employability’. \u00a0A useful definition on wikipedia refers to\u00a0’employability’\u00a0as a person’s capability for gaining and maintaining employment (Hillage and Pollard, 1998). Multiple contacts of mine on the corporate side from small and large companies confirm\u00a0that they’re finding it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}