Creative and arts graduates have the soft skills needed to make them ‘work ready’
Career inclination and employability skills have become an increasingly critical part of education. Employers are desperately seeking people with a mix of skills that seem to fall under this career readiness and employability umbrella which includes such things as soft skills, confidence, customer service skills and life skills to underpin academic or vocational qualifications.
Often, those from arts disciplines ar acquired with these skills in abundance as the nature of their degree balances their studies with extra-curricular activities that shape these all principal attributes. As such, arts graduates must utilize these skills to give them an edge over others when applying for various jobs. As per the report from Institute for Fiscal Studies ther is a growing desire for candidates who have exercised their social and communication skills that suggest their wage levels, such as an increase in the number of liberal arts degrees including those at benchmark universities such as Keele and Warwick.
Generally ‘blind’ assessment centres are run where candidates qualifications are not disclosed to the employer until after the interview which means candidates are judged solely on their performance in throughout the assessment. Employers select the people they wouldn’t have even considered in a traditional recruitment process due to their academic background. Using this style, it is often found that those with good communication and soft skills stand a better chance of success than others.
This trend highlights two points: first, that how significant soft skills are when it comes to employability. Second, it highlights the fact that there is still a stigma attached to some degree subjects which is causing some employers to overlook good candidates. To overcome this, we must educate prospective employers as well as job seekers on how to change the outlook of the overall recruitment process.
