The Challenges of Employability: How should they be addressed?

The obstacles that businesses and prospective employees encounter seem to be increasing with time. Why is it difficult for businesses or recruiting managers to produce a skilled workforce? Why do highly competent candidates fail to acquire a position in their chosen sector of interest?

Let us explore some of the major issues faced by both parties in terms of employment:

Problems Faced by Freshers/Aspiring Workers:

Lack of real-world experience

Our education focuses on theoretical knowledge, academic experiences and methodologies that are often too outdated. While candidates are qualified enough, they lack the skills and the practical field knowledge required.

Failure of getting recognized

Individuals find it hard to get and progress in rewarding work due to the increased competition and limited number of opportunities. Even the most qualified students fail to get recognized despite performing well, due to their lack of field experience.

Limited number of vacancies

With the UK’s ever-growing and expanding economy, there have been many new businesses emerging. However, the question of having a well-functioning workforce remains. Employers are unable to scout the right talents and hire the right people. This is an unfair advantage to those who possess the necessary qualifications.

Corruption/Bribery related to employment

This goes both ways. Not only does corruption related to the workplace affect the organization, but it affects the right candidates too. Qualified and well-deserving candidates fail to get discovered and rewarded.

Problems Faced by the Employers/Hiring Managers:

Not being able to scout the right talent

With an increasing demand for vacancies and a limited supply of talented or skilled individuals, employers fail to scout the right talent. Employers look for the right skills and most educational institutions focus on scholastic experiences alone. This makes it harder for employers to make well-informed hiring decisions.

Missing skills in employees

Regardless of formal schooling, employability skills are critical for securing suitable employment. However, developing them is difficult since traditional education concentrates on technical and academic knowledge rather than practical knowledge. As a result, there is a significant talent gap that candidates are unable to fill.

Increased training costs

Because the applicants are unable to satisfy the organization's criteria, the majority of them go through training programmes and have chances for assessment and integration. Employers provide such applicants with training/probationary periods to ensure that they gain the skills necessary for the post. This increases the cost of applicant recruitment.

Corruption/Bribery in the hiring process

Due to the lack of skills and qualifications required, many candidates resort to falsification of documents or lying on their resumes. Moreover, situations like student-teacher politics, nepotism, etc., add on to this. All these ultimately hinder the organization’s growth as the employer fails to hire the most suitable candidate. Educational verification, social media screening, document verification, and ID verification may assist organizations in hiring a trustworthy individual.

How do we address these issues?

There are a couple of precautions and measures that both parties can take. While the focus lies on the employers in hiring the right talent, candidates can try to gain or build employability skills by taking up work experiences, courses and trainings related to their field.

Additionally, educational institutions can also help with this. Providing students with action-learning opportunities and putting emphasis on trial-and-error methods would prepare them for the real world. Work placements or internships are other helpful tools.

As an employer or hiring manager, there are a variety of steps you can take to ensure that your organization is able to achieve all its productivity goals by making sure you hire the right people. How to do that?

Access to untapped talent pools – Select a reliable source of finding candidates with the necessary skills.

Invest in capacity building and resources – Providing training programs pre-employment or probationary periods is beneficial to the organization.

Identifying the right person to hire – It is important to vet the candidates before hiring them to make sure they have the right qualifications and expertise or affinity in the subject matter.

Thoroughly screening the candidate to curb corruption – Background checks helps you select the right candidate in a fair way. Through the means of pre employment screening check, Identity verifications, employment references, and education verifications, it is possible to hire the right talent using existing evidence.

Complygate background Checks uk offers robust pre employment screening to help you make the right hiring decision and overcome the challenges of employability.