Employability refers to the attributes of a person that make that person able to gain and maintain employment.
Overview
Employability is related to work and the ability to be employed, such as: 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 The ability to maintain employment and make 'transitions' between jobs and roles within the same organization to meet new job requirements 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 (Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2005) The continuously fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of efforts)
Lee Harvey 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.
Employability continues to develop because the graduate, once employed, does not stop learning (i.e. continuous learning). Thus employability by this definition is about learning, not least learning how to learn, and it is about empowering learners as critical reflective citizens. Harvey‘s (2001) definition is important for it emphasizes the employability of graduates, which is similar to our context, hence, able to provide insight about how to measure graduates' employability and what are the differences between graduates and experienced individuals in the labor market.
There are numerous terms for employability skills, they are often used interchangeably with terms such as soft skills, generic skills, 21st century skills, generic attributes, transferable skills, generic competencies and holistic competencies. Chan at the University of Hong Kong uses holistic competencies as an umbrella term inclusive of different types of generic skills (e.g. critical thinking, problem-solving skills, positive values, and attitudes (e.g. resilience, appreciation for others) which are essential for students’ life-long learning and whole-person development (Chan, Fong, Luk, & Ho, 2017; Chan & Yeung, 2019). In order to understand how holistic competencies should be developed based on student perception, the Holistic Competency Development Framework (HCDF) was developed (Chan & Yeung, 2019). The HCDF consists of five key components that are fundamental to holistic competency development: 1) student characteristics; 2) rationale for learning; 3) students’ actual learning experience and perceptions and interpretations based on that experience; 4) students’ approaches to developing holistic competency; and 5) students’ development of holistic competency as outcomes. The HCDF is an adaption of Bigg's 3P Student Approach to Learn model (1987). Chan realised that traditional learning processes such as the 3P model do not apply to soft skills development because students who are deep learners in the academic context do not necessarily become deep learners in soft skills education. Thus, the words ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ with respect to academic knowledge are unsuitable in the soft skills context. Accordingly, a new term was coined, Approach to Develop, for conceptualising student engagement in experiential learning leading to the development of holistic competencies. Unlike academic knowledge, holistic competencies must be developed by experience. As an illustration, leadership skills cannot be learnt by reading a book; the learner must have opportunities to observe and experience what leadership is. Hence, the word ‘learn’ can be used to describe academic knowledge acquisition, whilst ‘develop’ is preferable for describing holistic competency education. Validated instruments for assessing student's holistic competencies awareness have been developed (Chan, Zhao & Luk, 2017; Chan & Luk, 2020) although the assessment literacy of competency for both teachers and students remains challenging (Chan & Luo, 2020).
Berntson (2008) 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).