What Skills do I Need for the Workplace?

Setting the Stage

Employability skills and transferable skills are skills that help people obtain and maintain jobs. These skills are also necessary to for people to be competitive in the evolving workforce.  Having an awareness of the different types of skills valued in the workplace, and how these skills may fit the job requirements for different careers, will help students make informed decisions for their future career options.  
 

Material & Preparation

• Arrange for computer and internet access for students working in pairs or groups.
• Ensure that students have a good understanding of employability skills and how these skills support aspects of a person’s work life
• What skills do I need? reproducible [Google Doc] [Word Doc] [PDF] - 1 per student

What to Do

Teachers could begin this lesson with a short discussion of what skills are important in various occupations. For example, teachers could ask students to suggest the skills that a person would need in each of the following occupations: Truck Driver, Financial Advisor, Carpenter, Computer Programmer, Nurse. For each career, teachers could make a list of skills suggested by the students, adding any provide important skills that are missed. The difference between the skills a person brings to the workplace from their education and training and those they developed elsewhere should be emphasized.

In this activity, students will explore career profiles to determine the employability skills possessed by the person profiled. They will then identify the corresponding duties/responsibilities the person has at work that are supported by each employability skill. Working in pairs or a team of three or four, students will select 3-5 career profiles from the Let’s Talk Science careers resource. Each student should include at least one profile from a career area of interest to them. Alternatively, teachers could select specific profiles for each group to use.

For each profile, students will identify and record three employability skills needed for the career. They will also note the specific duties reported in the career profile.  To help them recognize that employability skills are not specific to a particular occupation, students will also indicate the other duties that are supported by each of the employability skills they identify. 

To conclude this lesson, teachers could make a list of the different employability skills the students observed and the different duties those skills support. Questions to guide a wrap-up discussion may include: 

• Which skill seemed to be the most important?
• Which skills come up the most often? 
• What makes a particular skill an “employability” skill?
• How could you develop these employability skills in yourself? 

Teachers could use the following cross-section of occupations to create student-specific profile collections. 

• Meredith-Ann Epp - Communications & Marketing Manager
• Schuyler Kahgee – Industrial Millwright Apprentice
• Maya Bankovic – Cinematographer
• Sasha Strong – Scheduling Analyst
• Lorraine Gouin – Social Media Officer
• Erin Gonzalez – Cake Designer & Bakery Chef
• Greta Chiu – Technical Writer
• Leigha Mitchell – Software Engineer at Hubba
• Clarence Synard – VP of Construction Company
• Kaylyn Roloson – Metal Fabricator
• Kelsey Privett – Geologist
• Shane Monaghan – Product Line Manager
• Patrick Leclair – Bridge CADD Technician
• Kristina Barranca – Hair Colour Technician
• Simon Cooke – Physiotherapist
• Timea Filer – Urban Forestry Field Technologist
• Shane Chambers – Pilot
• Ethan Martin – Welder
• Adam Walsh – Journalist
• Lacey Rose – County Forester, County of Renfrew
• Jackie Frampton – Electrician
• Christina Passfield – Elevator and Amusement Device Inspector
• Victor Matos – Foreman
• Katharine Scotton – Environmental Consultant, PGL Environmental Consultants