Employability through assessment: A win-win for students and corporate

"Employability is the ability of the graduate to get a satisfying job." - Lee Harvey

Would there be any student who wouldn’t like to be placed from the campus into a great organisation? Would there be any employer who doesn’t want an employee to be ready to perform his duties on “Day-1”?

These are two goals of employment. The job-ready skills of the students play a vital role in accomplishing the goals. A regular assessment of employability skills can only help both the students and employers.

However, employability continues to be a major concern for every society. The quality and skill of the pass-outs from colleges and universities, never hit the set-parameters of the employers across the sectors. Therefore, international bodies and countries had designed plans and programmes to improve the employability of youth and the workforce in order to support both the candidates and employers.

The effort of the European Union (EU) is a notable attempt in this regard. The EU considers employability as the prime function of education and set the development of transversal competencies as the objective for achieving employability. Accordingly, European countries have adopted various mechanisms to improve the employability of its young generation and prepare them for employment as soon as they graduate from educational institutions. Students and individuals must undergo periodic institution-level assessments to test their skills and implement training plans to achieve the desired result. 

 defined transversal competencies as “specific skills increase the value of a person only within the company where he/she has acquired it; leaving the company leads to devaluation of all the specific skills since they do not apply in other companies, sectors and occupations”.

In 2014, European Union launched a programme with a whopping budget of EUR 16.45 billion named  to support in the field of education and training, youth and sports to strengthen the competencies among the young generation.

Erasmus+ aims to touch over four million persons by helping the European countries to modernise their education and training system as well as their youth and sports policies to bolster their growth, employment, competitiveness, innovation and social cohesion by 2020. The mid-term evaluation found the programme is par with the objectives and has a desired growth among the stakeholders.

Apart from Erasmus+, there are many sector-wise programs to help skill development and employability including European Social Fund (ESF),  European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), and European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). All these EU projects and programs aids upskilling of individuals.

European assessment tools

As per European Union guidelines, various organisations as well as countries have developed tools to assess skill, education and other qualities required for employment.

The major tool is the Education & Skills Online Assessment tool, which was jointly developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union. As the name denotes, the tool helps to assess individual-level cognitive skills like literacy, numeracy and problem solving as well as non-cognitive skills like skill use, career interest, health and well-being and behavioural competencies in a tech-rich environment. This multi-lingual online assessment tool is available for institutions, organisations and local government, this tool is useful to assess youth and adult of all ages in order to develop training for them or research purpose. 

EU Skill Profile Tool is designed to assess the skill and employability of the non-EU country nationals, who land in the EU for jobs. This tool is also multi-lingual including all the European languages and selected non-European languages. Skill Profile Tool streamlines the assessment of skills in order to aid the migrants /refugees /citizens from non-EU countries to choose potential employment or training. European Commission mandates to use this tool "in an interview situation to get to know the individual, their skills, qualifications and experiences". By this tool, an individual can understand their skill and at the same time, an adviser can identify the strength and weakness of the individual and suggests a suitable job or taking further steps for upskilling if required. This is being used by both government and non-governmental organisations, who deal with refugees and migrants.

Apart from these, all countries in the EU have programs and plans to upskill their workforce and the youth. The above-mentioned tools as well as other country-specific assessment tools are used to evaluate the individuals. Career Centre website in France lists jobs and suggest transversal skills. In the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Academy has a whole department dedicated to employability. Germany includes 'key skills' in university education. Likewise, all European countries have policies for improving employability.

Indian scenario

When comes to India, a flagship scheme called Skill India under National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), which aims to improve the skill development of youths and to prepare them to fit for jobs. According to the reports, annually more than ten million youths are getting benefitted by this free skill development scheme. The training is given in 221+ job roles - offering short term training between 2 months to 6 months. Those who complete the course can get a certificate, that has great value in various industries.

Apart from this, educational institutions like universities and colleges have included soft skills and skill development in their syllabuses. Many non-governmental organisations are also working for the same purpose. However, these have not contributed much to reduce unemployment, in fact, it grows further, as per reports.

Miles to go...

We can easily find the absence of an effective assessment tool to test the employability of individuals, who pass out the educational institutions or enter the job market. Unlike European countries, India has not designed a unified assessment tool for both students and organisations. 

AceTrac, a leading assessment tool from MeritTrac, fill this vacuum helping students, educational institutions and corporate organisations to assess the employability skill including cognitive, communication skills, personality, problem-solving etc. The result will help students to improve their skills to jump into the job market as soon as they finish college or university. While AceTrac is useful for educational institutions to design employability and skill training for the students, corporates can use this tool to easily find job-ready fresh talents without investing much for training and upskilling.

A regular assessment is required to improve the employability level of youths and workforce. An assessment tool like AceTrac can be used for furnishing the student for job market and thus making the industry to select the talent effortlessly. This is a win-win situation for job seekers and employers.