Employability skills encompass a range of personal and professional aptitude and abilities that can help an individual to acquire and hold professional engagement and employment. Through the development of these skills, individuals can become employable and can acquire jobs. Some of the key skills needed to increase employability includes effective communication skills, ability to work in teams (teamwork), problem solving skills, imitativeness, planning skills, self management skills and usage of technology (Valero et al., 2018; Jackson, 2014). These skills are considered to be transferable from person to person, as the individuals can acquire these skills to improve their employability, and some authors have termed these skills as ‘soft skills’ and ‘career building blocks’ that helps individuals to develop their career (Benson et al., 2014; Collet et al., 2015).
The aim of this essay is to reflect upon my employability skills outlined by my Myer-Briggs Type Indicator which indicates how individuals think and interact with the world. Reflection on the recruitment process is compared with my MBTI type to understand the skills that I am strong in and the skills I need to develop in order to improve my employability.
For management jobs, the recruitment processes occurs through a number of steps which helps the recruiter to select the correct candidate with the right sets of skills and attitudes who would be able to take responsibility of the specific key responsibility areas in order to fulfill the necessary job requirements (Ahmed, 2015). The process starts with the development of the criterion for the job which helps to determine the strategies for testing and interviewing the candidates for the interview and develop an interview plan. The next step in the recruitment process is the review of applications and resumes submitted by the potential candidates during whom the applications and resumes are reviewed based on the job criteria that have been outlined before (Rogoff, 2014). Once the appropriate and relevant profiles (applications and resumes) have been selected, the candidates are called for an interview. At this stage the type of interview that needs to be conducted (face to face or telephonic) needs to be communicated, and the interview questions needs to be identified. After the interview has been conducted, tests can be administered based on the job criteria and skill development requirements. At this stage, several tests can be conducted, such as personality test and cognitive test which can be written by the candidates. Other tests that can also be done include drug tests and review of work samples (Holm & Haahr, 2018). These tests helps the assessor to understand whether the candidate has the right cognitive skills, personality and aptitude to hold on to the employment and also if the candidate has any drug dependencies. Personality of the individual is assessed using the Myers Briggs Type Indicators that helps to understand the though process of the individual and thus how the individual can interact with his/her environment and world (Furnham, 2017). I believe that these tests can help the recruiters to understand the employability of the individuals, and thus help them to select the correct candidate for the job.
After performing the Myers Briggs personality test, my MBTI type was indicated as ISFJ. This type is an abbreviation for four key characteristics: Introversion, Sensing, Feelings and Judging. The four types show the strengths and weaknesses across these four aspects, and thus help to understand my personality type (Ware, 2018). Discussed below is my reflection on my MBTI type:
My introversion scale was rated at 6%, showing a slight preference towards introversion over extraversion. I believe that was an accurate diagnosis. Since my preference towards introversion is significantly influenced by the situation. I tend to be an introvert when I am in an unknown situation, where I prefer to observe more than talk, and it helps me to gain insights on the environment. However, when I am in a familiar environment, I like to interact with people more often (Furnham & Crump, 2015).
The Sensing capacity was scaled at 6%, which implied that I had a slight preference to sensing a situation over the usage of my intuition. I believe this was also very accurate since I prefer to make my decisions based upon how I sensed the environment and the conditions, instead of the intuitions. However, I do use my intuitions from time to time whenever the situations suits, but my normal preference is to collect information through my sense of perceptions, especially during crucial situations (Ware, 2018).
The trait of Feelings was scored at 31% which implied a moderate preference of feeling over thinking. I believe that this is not completely accurate because I also use my thinking ability to understand different situations instead of just going with my gut feelings. I believe that feelings can be misplaced at times, which is why it is important to use thought fullness to understand and interpret situations more effectively to reach an effective conclusion (Bales, 2016).
Also, the test showed that my score for Judging at 12%, which implied that I had a slight preference of Judging over Perceiving. I believe the score was correct, since I tend to draw conclusions faster than I should which limits my ability to perceive the entire context with effectiveness. I often show the inclination of making judgments based on how I sense situations, which showed that I relied significantly on judging (Sample, 2017).
The post graduate study as well as the international experience has allowed me to gather significant skills and competencies to increase my employability skills and thus acquire good jobs and pave my path towards professional and career growth in the future. These also helped me to acquire more experience, which was necessary for me to identify my strengths and weaknesses, and thus understand aspects where I needed to work on to further develop my competencies as an employee (Furnham & Crump, 2015). Discussed bellow is how the graduate study and international experience have helped me towards my career development:
During my graduate studies, I had the opportunity to understand the various soft skills that are necessary to be developed in order to become and efficient manager. These studies also helped me understand the various psychological and personality traits which allows better engagement with the job roles and how professional skills can be developed through the inculcation of the personal traits and soft skills. Learning about different psychometric tests was pivotal for me to understand my own skill sets and personality types, and how they can be used to develop my career on the long run. For example, the MBTI test that I performed helped me to understand my personality type and thus understand the kind of job role that can best suit my personality type (Sample, 2017).
International experience which I gathered while working with various organizations helped me to gain an exposure to the various roles and responsibilities of a manager, and also helped me to show my professional skills and abilities in the real world. The experience helped me to reinforce my knowledge, by applying the theoretical understandings to the practical world and thus help me further towards my career growth and development. For example, I was able to use effective conflict management and problem solving skills, based on the strategies learnt during my graduate studies (Ware, 2018).
During my studies, I also was able to understand and fully comprehend the significance of ethics in a profession and why it is vital for the employees and the managers to follow an ethical code of conduct. I also learnt that the ability or inability to maintain an ethical working practice significantly affects the reputation of the organization, with the ethical businesses getting more reputation compared to unethical businesses. Discussed below is a scandal related to workplace ethics that I learnt of during my Graduate studies, and how that have impacted the work culture and reputation of the organization (Ferrell, 2016).
The Australian Cosmetics giant, Lush has been accused by several independent reviewers and agencies for systematically exploiting their employees, underpaying thousands of employees and making them work for extra hours without adequate payment across more than 5000 retail and manufacturing divisions. According to many authors, the organization had serious payroll system errors which were not addressed by the human resources and payroll departments, thereby failing to identify or raise concerns related to payroll discrepancies. According to reports, the wages paid to the employees were often below the wage and thus showing a malpractice or unethical practice of the management. This event has significantly eroded the fame and reputation of the company which also have affected their revenue. This shows why organizations should ensure ethical practice (McGowan, 2018). Unethical practice can also have significant personal impact as the employability of individuals identified to have conducted their work unethically have reduced employment chances.
Conclusion:
Development of employability skills is vital in order to acquire employability and move towards professional development. I was able to develop my skills through my graduate studies and international work experience in a professional environment. These experiences helped me understand the process of recruitment, and how the correct candidates are selected in the process based on which I was able to understand the best strategies to develop my own skills. I also performed a Briggs Myers Type Test that helped me understand my personality type and thus identify the type of job roles that can fit my talents. Based on such information I also developed an action plan that can help me to further develop my competencies and a management professional. I believe that the skills provided a significant support towards my professional development.
References:
Ahmed, R. (2015). Employee Recruitment and Selection Procedures of NGOs in Bangladesh: A Study on BRAC. Asian Business Review, 2(1), 24-30.
Bales, R. (2016). Using the Myers-Briggs type indicator for personal and professional development in the Miller Business Honors Program.
Benson, V., Morgan, S., & Filippaios, F. (2014). Social career management: Social media and employability skills gap. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 519-525.
Collet, C., Hine, D., & du Plessis, K. (2015). Employability skills: perspectives from a knowledge-intensive industry. Education+ Training, 57(5), 532-559.
Ferrell, O. C. (2016). A framework for understanding organizational ethics. In Business ethics: New challenges for business schools and corporate leaders (pp. 15-29). Routledge.
Furnham, A. (2017). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). In Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (pp. 1-4). Springer International Publishing.
Furnham, A., & Crump, J. (2015). The myers-briggs type indicator (mbti) and promotion at work. Psychology, 6(12), 1510.
Holm, A. B., & Haahr, L. (2018). 11 e-Recruitment and selection. e-HRM: Digital Approaches, Directions & Applications.
Jackson, D. (2014). Testing a model of undergraduate competence in employability skills and its implications for stakeholders. Journal of Education and Work, 27(2), 220-242.
McGowan, M. (2018). Lush cosmetics payroll error underpaid staff by $2m. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/17/lush-cosmetics-payroll-error-underpaid-staff-by-2m
Rogoff, B. M. (2014). 7 steps for superb staff recruitment and retention: here’s how to find the best new candidates while minimizing staff turnover. Review of Optometry, 151(11), 28-32.
Sample, J. (2017). A Review of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Public Affairs Education. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 23(4), 979-992.
Valero, M., Madden, T., & Dell, G. (2018, June). Employability Skills in Curriculum Design: A Hands-on, Multidisciplinary Integration Approach. In 4th Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship Conference.
Ware, K. B. (2018). Relationships between Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and NAPLEX Performances. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, ajpe6787.
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