What is employability? We talk a lot about how important it is that students should develop it and we regularly assert how higher education somehow creates or improves it. But what actually is it?
What is employability? We talk a lot about how important it is that students should develop it and we regularly assert how higher education somehow creates or improves it. But what actually is it?
Employability is not employment. Employment means getting or having a job. We measure it through the Graduate Outcomes Survey or Longitudinal Employment Outcomes (LEO) dataset. Employability is more than that and harder to quantify. It is the ability to get a job, to keep a job and to get on in it. In fact, employability is not as much about jobs as it is about careers.
So, again, what is this strange quality that makes someone employable? It boils down to four attributes.
Knowledge
An engineer needs to know stuff. They need to bring that knowledge to the workplace and apply it. Universities have a proud record of discovering new knowledge, instilling it in their students, and testing that they know it.
Skills
Knowing stuff, however, is not enough. You need to be able to do stuff too.
Skills are often divided into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills, which is thoroughly misleading. I prefer to talk about ‘specific’ and ‘squishy’ skills, because there is nothing inherently hard, in the sense of difficult, about hard or specific skills. Their hardness refers to their inflexibility: their suitability for a specific purpose where that skill and that skill only will do, even though the skill may be of little use outside that task. Sewing, for example, is not hard to learn at a basic level, but it is a ‘hard’ skill because if sewing is what’s needed, then it’s essential and, if it’s not, then it’s irrelevant.
Soft or squishy skills, on the other hand, are not easy. We spend our lives developing and improving them. But they are, to varying degrees, essential in almost any career. This transferability makes them adaptable or squishy. So, while engineers may need teamworking, communication and problem-solving skills, these squishy skills are also useful in other contexts – not just work.
Engineering higher education is an effective way to develop both specific and squishy skills, but we’re better at articulating – and assessing – the ‘specific skill’ learning goals. This is partly driven by AHEP which has focuses on that end of the skill spectrum, but, to be fair, that’s a reflection of the fact that, in skills development, we value what’s measured and measure what’s valued.
However, thanks to ever-changing technologies, specific skills that were once critical to the education of an engineer are all but obsolete now. If we want to engender lifelong employability, we need to focus more on the squishy stuff – especially the skill to keep learning.
To that end, we should talk more about skills, particularly squishy ones, as explicit learning outcomes, before, during and after every exercise, module or course. Being explicit at the outset supports metacognitive, deliberate learning. And, at the end, it supports the reflection that helps students become aware of the skills they’ve developed and how they might re-apply them in new contexts.
Character
Employability also involves the graduate’s attitude, their values, their behaviours and even their personality. Traditionally, universities have steered clear of overt attempts to shape the person rather than merely educate them. I’m not sure a clear line can be drawn between the two, and, when graduate’s character will be a component of their employability, surely universities have a responsibility to foster, for example, engineers with a strong ethical approach and an attitude of what they can bring to others (not just what they may feel they have a right to expect)?
I’m proud of the EPC’s Ethics and Sustainability Toolkits, which support engineering departments to embed this kind of character learning as part of an enhanced academic programme.
Social capital
The final component of employability is less meritocratic. It is the judgement that employers make without knowing the graduate’s actual value. Sometimes it is a prejudice based on class, gender, ethnicity or some other characteristic entirely irrelevant to the graduate’s ability to do a good job. Sometimes, it is a disproportionate value placed on nepotistic connections, shared irrelevant interests or ill-defined qualities like ‘fitting in’.
Universities can do more to support students’ social capital by helping them build networks, but ultimately, no one should be prejudged on the basis of things they cannot change and which shouldn’t matter.
Instead, universities need to help students to be more aware of, and reflective about, their knowledge, skills and character, and how they can put them at the service of an employer. By being able to put those attributes front and centre, the space for prejudice gets squeezed. The EPC’s new Inclusive Employability Toolkit is a valuable contribution to supporting this.
This four-part model of employability is, I hope, helpful in supporting engineering academics to consider how they can be more intentional about embedding employability into the design, delivery and assessment of their programmes.
It starts, I would argue, with talking about it more. Course descriptions should not claim that engineering degrees support employability simply by quoting employment data. That says as much about the state of the labour market as it does about how students may themselves be transformed. Instead, they should articulate the knowledge, skills and character attributes that students should expect to acquire and explain how that change will happen.
Students should be encouraged to assess their own employability from the outset and learn to recognise as it develops. This in turn will help them accelerate their development and demonstrate it to prospective employers.
Perhaps most importantly, a student with a well-developed sense of what they can bring to an employer has gained more than just an appreciation of their labour-market value. If they are knowledgeable, skilful and can show a worthy character, then they are not merely employable, they are a well-rounded individual. Sure, they’re likely to have career success, but that will be one facet of even wider fulfilment.
So, to answer my question, what is employability? It is being able to be useful, being well rounded and the foundation to a better life.
Johnny Rich © 2025
Johnny Rich is the Chief Executive of the Engineering Professors’ Council and Chief Executive of the award-winning outreach organisation that supports young people’s employability.