George Fussey and Cathy McKenna join Emma Ford (Founder, Coaching4Careers) in discussing how workshops help students appreciate their skills and understand their value to employers. This article originally featured in Career Matters in June 2024.
Employers across the UK are struggling with yawning gaps in workforce skills. According to the government’s Employer Skills Survey1, garnered from 70,000 employers in 2022 and published in late 2023, skills shortages are particularly acute in construction, IT, manufacturing and social work.2 In recent years, companies such as Apple, Google and IBM, eager to be more inclusive in their recruiting, have shifted their focus away from educational qualifications to concentrate more on skills.3
Platforms like LinkedIn are actively seeking to match the skills of users to roles so that they become more aware of job vacancies. Recruiters are making use of the fact that new functionality within LinkedIn allows users to record their skills, while allowing their network of contacts to rate their capability on each one. Recruiters are increasingly conducting their search for candidates on LinkedIn and other platforms using skills as a filter.4
In Eton College’s most recent (2022) Quality in Careers Standard (QiCS) accreditation, our students were described as having high levels of self-awareness and were confident talking about themselves in terms of their perceived strengths and skills. Nevertheless, their appreciation of skills, both in themselves and in their peers, was somewhat narrow. Perhaps not surprisingly, qualities that are prized and fostered at the school (such as leadership and teamwork) were clearly identified within the vocabulary of the students, but other skills, such as problem solving and creativity—just as important in today’s world of work—were not so easily recognised. We were concerned that our students were lacking a clear understanding of what skills are valued in the workplace.
None of this is unique to our students. Young people, in particular, are often unaware of the transferable abilities that they possess, and this ‘skills-blindness’ has undoubtedly been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic and the lack of in-person work experience that has resulted.
To help our students recognise the skills they have, and to help them understand how to articulate and portray these skills to potential employers, we decided to use a workshop approach to raise awareness of the skills widely sought by employers in specific sectors and professions.
Each 60-minute workshop involved up to 25 Year 10 students, who participated in five groups each supervised by their Tutors. Tutors know their students well and were able to facilitate learning and encourage reflection. They could also follow up on findings with their tutorial group in the following week.
The workshop started by asking the students to discuss the skills they used when doing an activity that they particularly enjoy. They then worked in tutorial groups on a tower-building exercise using Jenga-style bricks. Each group had two minutes, using only 15 bricks, to discuss and plan a strategy for building the tallest free-standing tower. Then, using this dry run to inform their design, they were asked to build the tallest possible tower using 144 bricks in 90 seconds. Tutors monitored progress and at the end of the exercise asked each group to reflect on what skills they had used during the building process. Tutors were given an aide memoire to help stimulate the discussion and enable the students to broaden their appreciation of the skills they were utilising (see aide memoire below). Tutors were able to identify skills that had been overlooked by the students.
Skills Aide Memoire for Tower Activity
Teamwork
Establishes good working relationships quickly building rapport and empathy, maintains a positive ‘can do’ approach. Is respectful and considerate.
Creativity and Innovation
Is curious, thinks differently about possibilities and acts to explore them, constantly questioning how things can be done better.
Communication
Communicates effectively. Relates and adapts to others in a confident and relaxed manner.
Organisational skills
Sets clearly defined goals, plans activities well, taking into account available resources.
Self-Management
Evaluates and monitors own performance. Is aware of own strengths and weaknesses and takes responsibility for tasks and goals.
We believe that broadening student appreciation of the range of skills required by employers is vital if they are to develop their employability in a competitive labour market.
The workshop then transitioned to a card game. Tutors handed out cards at random to their group, with students receiving one of the following ‘job’ cards: Chef, Doctor, Barrister, Teacher, Journalist, Business Manager, Architect, Aerospace Engineer.
A range of skills cards were then laid out on the table in front of the group. The 18 different skills cards were derived from the skills listed on the National Careers Service website for each career. Students then took turns to select skills that they thought would help them be effective in their given job. They kept choosing cards in rotation until they had four skills each. This was competitive because some skills would have been already selected by a previous member of the group. Just as in the real world, skills are in short supply!
Students were then asked to explain to the class the key skills that they had selected to go with the specific job role that they had been allocated. Tutors further explored with their groups whether there were any skills missing. Following up, they were asked how they could develop the skills they would need to do their given job. Finally, they were challenged how they could prove to a recruiter that they possessed a particular skill—what evidence would convince an HR professional and/or hiring manager that they should get the job?
We believe that broadening student appreciation of the range of skills required by employers is vital if they are to develop their employability in a competitive labour market. It is also vital to help them understand the vocabulary that goes with skills, so that they can present convincing evidence whether on CVs, on platforms like LinkedIn, or in interviews, that they possess those skills and know their value to future employers.
References
- Official Statistics – Employer skills survey: 2022. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/employer-skills-survey-2022
- Yawning skills gaps pose a ‘real challenge’. Financial Times Special Report, page 5, 3 November 2023
- The Burning Glass Institute (2022). The Emerging Degree Reset: How the Shift to Skills-Based Hiring Holds the Keys to Growing the U.S. Workforce at a Time of Talent Shortage https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/research/emerging_degree_reset_020922.pdf
- Sites take searches deeper with job-matching models. Financial Times Special Report, page 3, 3 November 2023
