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Employability Skills: Employability Attributes

This guide includes resources that will help you get ready to get the job you want or to create your own activity.

Graduate+ focuses on four key employability attributes which characterise a BCU graduate:

  1. Being a creative problem solver 
  2. Being enterprising
  3. Having a global outlook
  4. Being professional and work-ready

Use the list below to discover valuable skills and to build self-awareness.

We also recommend you these books about employability.

Creative problem solver

Attributes

  • Creative and critical thinking
  • Active problem-solving
  • Risk management
  • Knowledge application
  • Decision-making
  • Negotiating
  • Influencing

Competencies

  • Make use of colleagues, develop organizational contacts and exploit organizational teams, networks and group dynamics as valuable sources of information and knowledge.
     
  • Structure, package and communicate information/data persuasively (verbally, visually and in writing) in a way that is pertinent and clear to the different intended audiences.
     
  • Consider the costs and benefits of time spent acquiring information/data, particularly with regards to meeting deadlines, and prioritise accordingly.

Enterprising

Attributes

  • Positive attitude and outlook
  • Initiative
  • Leadership
  • Perseverance and motivation
  • Flexible and adaptable to change
  • Networking

Competencies

  • Exhibit a positive, can-do attitude, willingness to learn and sense of curiosity and apply these to the enterprise.
     
  • Manage workplace relationships and foster networks as a means of drawing on organizational knowledge.
    Make use of the collaborative potential of digital technologies, including social networking tools, as a means of creating and sharing information/data.
     
  • Motivate and/or instruct colleagues, associates, customers/users in the identification and use of information/data.

Global outlook

Attributes

  • Moral and ethical awareness
  • Social and environmental awareness
  • Self awareness
  • Integrity
  • Commercial awareness
  • Resilience and tenacity

Competencies

  • Manage, manipulate and interpret information/data, paying heed to ethical and legal requirements.
     
  • Demonstrate an ability for self-management and rigour in the processes of searching for, evaluating and analyzing information/data.

Professional and work-ready

Attributes

  • Digital literacy
  • Oral/written/visual communication
  • Teamwork and collaboration
  • Planning and organizational skills
  • Time management and working under pressure
  • Conflict resolution

Competencies

  • Determine the amount of information or data needed to resolve business questions and problems, to propose solutions and to make decisions accordingly.
     

  •  Use and review information/data to resolve business questions and problems imaginatively and innovatively, propose solutions and take decisions accordingly.
     

  • Assess the quality, accuracy, relevance, bias, reputation and credibility of the sources of information/data that are being used.
     
  • Think critically to evaluate and analyse information/data that are relevant for meeting organizational goals.
     
  • Identify relevant sources of information/data, internal and external to the enterprise, including alternative sources that haven't previously been used.
     
  • Identify available tools and resources (including Open Access resources) to access relevant academic information/data where they are needed for business purposes.
     
  • Use information/data as a basis for influencing and negotiating.

Try these books ...

References

The above list links the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) graduate employability lenses with the BCU graduate attributes.

The SCONUL lenses are linked below:

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