Developmental and Educational Dimensions of Employability Rachel Gali

Developmental and Educational Dimensions of Employability Rachel Gali Cinamon Career Development Lab, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Employability is considered to be an important individual resource that may ensure the possibility of finding and maintaining jobs (Hill & Pollard, 1998). The importance attributed to employability also increases as a result of the hectic world of work accompanied with the growth of artificial intelligence, automation and robotics that is likely to shrink employment opportunities. In the absence of organizationally provided ‘job security’, workers need to derive ‘employment security’ from sharpened skills in career selfmanagement and their own employability skills (Berntson & Marklund, 2007).

Ethical and practical reasons to develop and enhance employability skills Society is responsible for the development of its members. Employability has the potential to maximize the likrlohood of an individual attaining work aspirations and goals (Van der Heijden, de Lange, Demerouti, & Van der Heijde, 2009). Being employable may reduces the threat of job loss and job insecurity (De Cuyper, De Witte, Kinnunen, & Nätti, 2010).

Studies on Employability Most studies on employability focus upon the contribution of personal characteristics of perceived employability (PE) or employability expectations. The participants are mainly college students. Personal characteristics that were found to be antecedents of employability are: Occupational expertise (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006) Adaptability (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003), Career openness to change (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008), Opportunity awareness (Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010), Job-related skills (Eby et al. , 2003) PE tends to be lower during difficult economic conditions, yet during such times the confidence and resilience associated with PE are even more critical (Berntson, Sverke, and Marklund, 2006) Contextual variables and processes that may promote and enhance employability have received much less empirical attention.

Developmental aspect of employability It is necessary to understand the effects of time and experiences upon employability: more longitudinal studies on adults employees are needed, especially in time of employment crises. More interventions are needed from an early age of development, throughout the life span. The ability to find and maintain jobs relates to time and work experience. For many people, work experiences begin as early as during the period of adolescence. Due to economic concerns, the need to find and maintain a job will never end for many of us.

Educational aspects of employability Career development education generally includes school-based curriculum, and connecting activities designed to promote personal and career awareness, workbased learning, internships, coaching, and job shadowing (Kenny, 2010), but the concept of employability is not yet established. The significant role of higher education (HE) has become the provision of employable graduates to the labor market. This is at least partly in response to longterm employer concerns about the work-readiness of the graduate labor supply (Jackson and Nicholas, 2017). Most existing career interventions focus upon the individual responsibility to find/ design and manage one’s career development, neglecting social responsibility. Social responsibility to create/ design a better decent work environment should be a target of career education as well.

Components of Career Education of employability Individual focus Context focus Knowledge: personal (selfawareness) and professional knowledge (striving for expertise) Knowledge: labor market, economic theories, labor onions, moral economy Attitudes: scholarship, positive attitudes toward changes and lifelong learning Attitudes: positive attitudes toward social responsibilities, active citizenship and moral citizenship. Skills & Behaviors: work experience, job search capabilities, social network, creating and maintaining personal relations, critical thinking and reflective thinking. Skills & Behaviors: critical thinking, active citizenship experiences, reflective thinking, critical action.

An example of career education focusing on employability Encourage students (middle high school students, colleges students) to participate in extra-curricular activities from which they could learn a range of skills or to work part time along with their studies. Support them in learning how to reflect on their experiences in writing. Give personal feedback Enable and facilitate critical group discussions on contextual aspects of their experiences. Encourage students to active citizenship involvement that relates to their experiences Encourage students to develop the skills commonly associated with employability, to learn to reflect upon and articulate their experiences effectively to potential employers, and to take an active role in creating and designing a decent labor market.

Thank you for listening The presentation can be downloaded from Cinamon’s Career Development Lab Website: https: //education. tau. ac. il/yeuts_career_lab