Attributes and communication
Employability
What is an attribute and what are the specifics?
When it comes to attributes in employability, employers are mainly interested in certain attributes of a person for a specific job roll. An attribute is a personal feature of a person or in an employers case a skill than may be required.
Specific skills in employability
Specific skills will be needed for different fields of work whether it's from behind a desk or in person physically. However, some knowledge is needed and therefore Qualifications will be a required attribute.
- Experience
If you are not desirably Qualified for a job which requires knowledge of functions needed in In hardware engineering ( E.g you must know how wires connect to the motherboard to ensure power runs through it ) this will cause a risk to not you but to others, also there sometimes will be a specific time frame in work experience. Some will require 2-5 years or others will require 5-7 years.
This is their preferred skills for you to be employed and this is their required terms to make their business successful on a more professional level.
- Health and safety
You must know of the risks that could cause harm to you and others, but mainly you need prioritize the health and safety of other individuals before your own. You may work in a certain department that has 25 people in the room, you must be away of the fire exits for people to access if others cannot.
General attributes in employability
A company will require general attributes, these general attributes will be used in your day to day life or at some point in your life when needed.
- Time management skills
Many jobs do require communication and therefore you will need verbal skills. If you cannot communicate to other employees, it will cause a problem because you will needed to communicate during discussions, when helping and when you are motivating them in their work .
Jobs also require time management. Without good time management you won't be as reliable for your job, many jobs consist of different fields and will need a length of time during each activity to complete. Paper work could be involved and a time limit may of been issued for you to hand it in, it is essential that you manage your time before or on that specific day and time so you don't go over the hand in date.
- Organisation skills
This will also mean you will need to have a good organized plan in place. Setting up a plan in a diary to organize your work will make you more reliable on when it comes to being employed, it gives you routine to work towards and helps you progress.
- Team work
Being able to work in a group and help in each others participation, working with 3 or more people and building on each others skills is teamwork and this will be needed in job roles that will need to involve more than 1 or 2 people.
Attitudes in employability
- Positive attitude
When applying for any job and during an interview, you must show a positive attitude towards the employer and your time. Turning up late doesn't show a positive attitude, you must show you are determined for and interested in the role to give them sense that you can be depended on and are suitable for this specific job.
- Confidence
You must show confidence in yourself and the way you present yourself and must show good motivation, this can give them a sense of leadership and may allow promotion in the future. The confidence you bring will be one of the skills that help Assure them and their decision on if they would like to hire you and help make up their final answer.
Principles of effective communication
- General communication skills
When communicating generally to an audience you must be aware of and adapt to their age and culture and allow yourself to take opinions into thought.
When there is a cultural difference in an audience words and signals may be misunderstood as this person may not understand this term or may find it offensive, therefore different terms/gestures will be needed.
It can also be a benefit during session of questions and answering, this is taking the persons answer to understand where they have misunderstood or have missed information in a discussion/presentation and allowing more time to discuss in detail for them to have a better understanding. This will also give a change to be given feedback from the audience to improve on the presentation for the next discussion.
- interpersonal communication skills
The bodily and facial attitudes towards the audience and the way have chosen to engage with them. A raised voice would suggest anger where a quiet voice would suggest fear.
Positive language, saying yes shows positivity to a question from someone in the audience as it shows a good response. Expressions such as a smile and nodding your head shows a positive reaction and agreement to what is or has been said.
Negative language can cause a barrier in communication. This barrier can occur if someone has cut into a conversation and may indicate insensitivity to the audience, remaining impassive to the audience gives a clear negative message and tells the speaker you have no interest in what has been said and the use of closed body language and a stance of aggression would be less likely to persuade any of the audience to open-up.
- Written communication skills
The way a sentence or paragraph is written in terms of grammar, spelling and how it's structured.
In a professional email, letter or report emoticons wouldn't be used. Emoticons are often used on social media such as Facebook, even though they are used for expression they would not be suitable for a serious conversation.
Proof reading, allows you to read over a written conversation and locate any errors in the email, report ,etc before sending to receiver. Employers find it essential for you to review your work for accuracy, a first written document/ draft gives you space to proof read and correct any errors and allows you to go back and add or take out any parts that is needed
Note taking is also skill that can be put to good use, during a long presentation writing down key notes is helpful when it comes to needing information. It is also helpful to annotate your notes to link build it into a definition of conclusion that for accuracy.
Barriers to effective communication
There are often be barriers that can cause communication between others from being prevented. Whether its in the environment you are in or a certain thing that distracts you or the person or it can be something physical like the location a presentation is being specifically held at.
Background noise
Many times before background noise has effected us and our environment, it has often caused a distraction or delayed communication from getting across to and from people.
Mostly because they are too loud for people to talk over.
The background noise I am talking about is Construction, cars, conversations, mobile, etc. It is hard to talk over a car and it's distracting when talking and another conversation is taking place near you.
- Distractions
Distractions can be annoying sometimes, it can be more annoying when someone doesn't stop texting you or calls you in the middle of a lesson or presentation.
It can be more distracting if you can't stand the sound a pen makes when it scribbles onto a piece of paper in a quiet room and makes you lose focus.
physical barriers
Open work spaces can be a physical problem, in open work spaces more and more vents can take place and this can result in a big distraction. If 2 or more presentations are taking place in the same room, the presenter will talk over each other and confuse the audience because they may have caught onto what another person has said or may have not heard them from the sound of someone else talking.
location
The location can cause problem if it is not safe to use, a room with broken chairs could not be considered as suitable and therefore the presentation may need to be moved to a more safe environment. Health and safety issues must be taken into account before a presentation starts and this will cause a barrier if this space and other spaces to move the presentation to are unavailable.
lack of concentration
Not paying attention to what the presenter is saying shows you don't want to be there and will make you lack in concentration. If you are more focussed on what someone else is doing or what is happening outside you won't be able to learn on what is being said in the presentation.
- Language
There may be a culture difference in the group and the audience may not understand most terms or some people may be deaf and aren't unable to lip read. This can cause a barrier as they won't be able to understand you and won't learn anything from this .
Mechanisms
Here are some mechanisms that can stop the distractions from happening and will allow the communication between you and your audience to improve.
To remove a distraction is putting away and asking the person/people to leave or stop talking. Putting away your phone and keeping it on silent will stop the distraction as you will be able to focus entirely on what is being said.
Finding a closed room where you can close the doors and windows will be better, this way there will be little or no background noise that will be loud enough to cause a distraction and there will be no people to talk over than when there was in an open space.
inviting a translator or someone who is experienced in sign language to the presentation to translate and sign to the people who won't understand will help them learn and will give prevent the barrier.