Enhance Your Career and Employability Skills - Introductory Class #1

In this first video, course leader David Winter introduces the Enhance Your Career and Employability Skills course. He explains:

• The meaning of career and employability skills
• David talks about three elements of Employability.
  
  1. Specific subject knowledge and skills. These are the qualities you need in order to complete the distinctive tasks of any particular job that you gain through experience in that role or through professional training or education
  2. General workplace skills and awareness. These are the "transferable" skills that are necessary to operate successfully in any workplace. They include such things as communication, teamworking, time management, problem solving, planning, leadership, etc. We will look at some of these skills in Week 2.
  3. Career management skills. These are what enable you to take control of your career over the long term. They help you to move between jobs and to take charge of your career development in order to make progress. Through good use of career management skills you can decide which specific subject knowledge and skills you need to gain to help you achieve your career goals. You can also identify which general workplace skills and attitudes you need to develop in order to be more successful.
  • Types of career management skills: Career management skills can be grouped into four main areas:
  1. Self-evaluation skills: These skills help you to identify what is important to you and what you want from your career now and in the future. They help you to assess your value to potential employers and to monitor your progression and development.
  2. Option exploration skills: These skills help you to identify and investigate potential future options, such as new job roles or development and educational opportunities, that will help you to make progress in your career.
  3. Option evaluation skills: These skills help you to prioritise future options, weigh the potential costs and benefits of possible future actions, and make choices between them.
  4. Option implementation skills: These skills help you to act on the choices you have made, such as making job applications or building your professional profile, and they increase your chances of success in these actions.
   
• The aims of the course and the benefits we hope you will gain from taking part in it
• The content and structure of the six-week course

 (please see the Syllabus page for a summary of the course content).

Happy Learning,
Rey