ABSTRACT This paper focuses on how generic skills can be developed to enable young adults to best utilise them in making transitions into the labour market. Drawing on the literature and a Commercial Education Trust study of practices which encourage employer engagement in skills development, it is argued that ‘putting skills to work’ is not automatic or unproblematic. It is not simply a matter of ‘skills transfer’, but a ‘continuous, contextually-embedded and transformative process’ during which individuals, supported by partners, learn how to recontextualise skills to suit different activities and environments. It may be tempting to distil employability into a list of so-called ‘soft skills’, but context matters. It requires more than that which can be taught in Education. Support is needed in the workplace through mentoring, for example, to help recruits acquire knowledge of workplace culture, norms and practices, situational understanding, and apply metacognitive strategies for bringing together this knowledge and a range of different skills and personal attributes in productive application. Further research is needed to explore the inter-relationships between skills supply, demand and utilisation, including ways in which employers can better recognise young recruits’ skills and provide ‘expansive’ working environments that maximise their capabilities and potential for development.

中文翻译：

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使技能发挥作用：与其说是什么，甚至不是原因，不如说是……

摘要本文着重介绍如何开发通用技能，以使年轻人能够最好地利用它们来过渡到劳动力市场。根据文献和商业教育基金会对鼓励雇主参与技能开发的实践的研究，有人认为“使技能投入工作”不是自动的或没有问题的。这不仅仅是一个“技能转移”问题，而是一个“连续的，因地制宜的，变革性的过程”，在此过程中，个人在合作伙伴的支持下学习如何重新配置​​技能以适应不同的活动和环境。将可雇佣性分散到所谓的“软技能”列表中可能很诱人，但是上下文很重要。它所需要的不仅仅是在教育中可以教的。在工作场所需要通过指导来提供支持，例如，帮助应聘者获得有关工作场所文化，规范和实践，情境理解的知识，并应用元认知策略将这些知识以及一系列不同的技能和个人属性整合到生产应用中。需要进一步研究以探索技能供应，需求和利用之间的相互关系，包括雇主可以更好地认识年轻应聘者的技能并提供“扩展”工作环境以最大程度地发挥其能力和发展潜力的方式。