Study On How To Cultivate The Basic Employability Of Undergraduates

With the rapid development of higher education and university enrollment continues to expand, the number of graduates far exceeds social needs. It's more and more difficult for graduates to find suitable jobs as the competition are becoming more and more intense. As the employment competition is ultimately the employability competition, all colleges and universities are making efforts to develop and improve the employability of students, hoping they could take some advantages in the competition and find suitable jobs. However, the universities pay much attention to the core competencies as professional skills, and ignore the basic employability. Basic employability refers to the universal abilities that are necessary for all graduates of every major and have nothing to do with professional knowledge. It is both the threshold of employment and the basis of career development. Survey shows that the basic employability is what the employers underline while at the same time the weakness of graduates. Therefore, the ignorance of basic employability will significantly weaken the graduates' competitiveness. How to cultivate the basic employability of college students? That is what this paper is to explore.Framed with the thesis of Marxist educational theory and values, relative human resources theory and career theory, this paper first divides the basic employability into three aspects of basic work ability, basic quality ability and basic job-hunting ability and then discusses how to cultivate these abilities. The paper includes the following four aspects:In the first part, this paper discusses the definition and contents of basic employability. Through literature search, this paper first sort out the definition and understanding on employability of domestic and foreign scholars and defines employability as the ability to gain and maintain a job. Then this paper discusses the comprehension on basic employability of domestic and foreign scholars, thinking that the basic employability includes three aspects:basic work ability, basic quality ability and basic job-hunting ability which are necessary for all graduates of every major. Then, the basic work ability includes basic work skills, communication skills and thinking skills; the basic quality ability includes abilities of work adaptability, communication and collaboration, and professionalism; and job-hunting ability includes the abilities to gain a job and self-develop. This is the framework of this paper. And what we are going to talk about is how universities should develop and improve these capabilities of students.The second part discusses how universities should cultivate the basic work ability of undergraduates. The basic work ability refers to the basic technician and other relative skills that all or the vast majority of undergraduates should have under normal circumstances. This paper discusses how to cultivate the basic work ability of undergraduates from three aspects. Firstly, develop the basic work skills which are divided into practicing, reading, writing and calculating. For practicing skill, universities should organize social activities, invite professional teachers, standardize the construction of social practice bases and establish inspiring social practice evaluation mechanism, etc; to develop and improve the reading skills, the universities should cultivate the reading habits of students, teach them how to learn and organize inspiring discussion activities; for writing skills, universities should establish the concept of lifelong writing and learning, open writing classes and hold all kinds of literary activities and so on; to improve the calculating skills, universities should strengthen the construction of computing-related courses and form reasonable cultivating system of computer application. Secondly, promote the basic communication skills of undergraduates which are divided into oral communication skills and listening skills. Universities should take more debates and speech-related courses and organize various activities which can enhance the oral expression abilities to develop oral communication skills. Besides, to improve the listening skills, universities should underscore the importance of listening skills, take listening-related courses and strengthen the practical teaching and learning and so on. Last, cultivate the work thinking ability which is further divided into problem solving thinking skills and innovative thinking skills. To improve the problem-analyzing-and-solving thinking skills, universities should set up special "problem-solving skills training" courses, deepen the reform of cultural and professional courses and strengthen student internships, training and social practical activities and so on; to develop innovative thinking ability, universities should foster innovation concept, provide a good platform for innovation, adjust curriculum and training program, take the participation mold of teaching and so on.The third part discusses how universities should improve the basic quality ability of undergraduates. The basic quality ability here is narrowly defined, namely a complex of personal values, professional values, moral conception and psychological characteristics. Since work abilities are some kind of abilities with outside tendency directly related with doing things, the quality ability is requirement of inside tendency. Quality refers to the inner cultivation of individuals. However, when individual quality has been required by almost all of the employers and society, it has become a means to get employed and promoted, and at the same time has become some kind of basic ability. This paper discusses how to cultivate the basic quality ability from three aspects. Firstly, how universities should cultivate the quality ability of undergraduates to adapt to society. This capability includes self-cultivation and psychological adjustment. To improve the self-cultivation, universities should promote ideological and moral training of undergraduates, guide students to learn self-criticism, self-evaluation and strengthen the scientific and cultural accomplishments; to improve psychological adjustment ability, universities should take courses as mental health education and cultivation of learning quality, and provide guidance on mental adjustment. Secondly, universities should cultivate the ability of interpersonal collaboration of undergraduates, which is divided into abilities of interpersonal communication and team cooperation. To develop the interpersonal skills, universities should improve the awareness of interpersonal skills of undergraduates, organize abundant cultural activities and establish trust and communication between teachers and students and so on; to improve the ability of communication and collaboration, universities should construct team culture, provide work-study opportunities, carry out special education programs and increase optional courses about management and communication.Thirdly, universities should develop and improve the professionalism of undergraduates, which includes three aspects as professional ethic, professionalism and sense of responsibility. To improve professional ethics, universities should change the inherent mode of professional ethics education, effectively connect the professional ethics education and culture of employers, and create a good atmosphere of professional ethics education; to develop the professionalism of undergraduates, universities should strengthen the learning of professionalism theory, set a model, carry out a variety of skills competitions and enhance awareness of professionalism; to improve the sense of responsibility of undergraduates, university should cultivate the sense of responsibility and gratitude.The fourth section discusses how to cultivate the basic job-hunting ability of undergraduates. Job-hunting ability refers to the capabilities of graduates to gain and maintain jobs. For graduates who get job through job markets, the indispensable ability acts as bridges leading to employers. This paper discusses the question from two aspects. Firstly, the ability to gain jobs, which includes the concept of employment and the natural selling ability. To cultivate the concept of employment, universities should cultivate the employment thinking that keeps pace with times, erect correct honor conception and inspire the entrepreneurship among undergraduates; to improve the natural selling ability, universities should implement the campaign and rotation system of student leaders, take promotion and interview skills training, and cultivate good personal images of undergraduates. Secondly, improve the self-development ability of undergraduates, which includes career planning capability and self-promotion capacity. To cultivate the career planning ability, universities should train undergraduates to design career reasonably, give them personalized guidance and take some figure interviews; to improve self-promotion ability, universities should develop the capabilities of self-control and life-long study.