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    Introduction to the Module This Module is designed to help you to assess your own skills, attitudes and development need when considering your opportunities for employment in conjunction with reading and researching articles provided. The term ‘employability’ is becoming increasingly important. Employability means being aware of your attitudes, developing behaviours appropriate for employers, and having a mindset of continuous improvement. Employers are looking for flexible people, take the initiative and have the ability to undertake a variety of tasks in different environments. Employability skills are now more ‘ service oriented’ making information and social skills increasingly important. As the labour market is intensely competitive, and employers in private, public and the third sector are all seeking the best talent, it makes sense to explore how you can become ‘ your best.’ That doesn’t mean you have to be overly competitive as that might put employers off, but being aware of your capabilities and developing both areas of strength and weakness. This Module should take between 10-12 hours to complete.The key learning objectives will be shown as in-depth as part of each section. Overall learning outcomes are to: Develop your personal self-awareness and how to apply that understanding to the workplace. Understand the meaning of personal confidence and self-awareness, your current level of confidence and how to further develop this. Set yourself personal development goals. Understand the processes involved in applying for a job, including interview preparation, performance and reflection afterwards. Understanding how to develop within a career. Understand the importance of interpersonal skills and team competences, such as communication, working in teams, within customer service and when networking. Understand the need for digital skills and how to apply them. Apply problem-solving techniques to aid decision-making and judgement. Understand the role of equality and diversity and to develop relevant attitudes and behaviours to demonstrate awareness. As part of the Module, you’ ll needs to complete exercises and read through case studies. It would be helpful to keep paper and pen to hand to jot down your thoughts. Now we’ ll move onto the first section which explores personal awareness. Section1 - Personal Awareness As part of your portfolio of employability skills, your level of self-awareness is pivotal in your development. Self Awareness is having a clear perception of yourself, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them at the moment. This section will help you to develop: Understand how emotional intelligence works in the workplace. Understand how to harness the key concepts. Understand the meaning of personal confidence and self-awareness. Know current levels of personal/self-confidence. Be able to develop personal confidence and self-awareness. Understand how attitudes can influence actions. Emotional Intelligence. Having self-awareness allows you to see where your thoughts and emotions are taking you. It also allows you to take control of your emotions, behaviour, and personality so you can make changes you want. Until you are aware in the moment of your thoughts, emotions, words, and behaviour, you will have difficulty making changes in the direction of your life. Self-awareness is developed through practices in focusing your attention on the details of your personality and behaviour. Emotional intelligence is probably more important than general IQ. Employers like to recruit people who join in activities, can work both individually and in a team, show a capacity for personal leadership and initiative, and demonstrate a willingness to experience new situations and cultures. Whilst basic literacy, numeracy, technical skills craft skills remain vital, today’s economy and society increasingly demand people with an ability to cope with change and adapt quickly to new environments and people. Emotional intelligence is noticing patterns of thought and small triggers that build up towards positive and negative emotions. This heightened awareness can make better choices in your thought process long before an emotional reaction or destructive behaviour. That is applying self-awareness and it increases behavioural competence. As an employee, your attitude at work contributes to your work environment and how you get along with your fellow team members and supervisors. A positive attitude is a part of applying emotional intelligence. It can improve morale and increase productivity for all. A poor attitude will impact your performance. A job of any kind means you have to apply yourself, so if you go into work thinking you can text your friends throughout your working day; that will only result in someone else having to do your work, you staying behind to finish off what you should have been doing, or even worse, you may be dismissed. Developing Personal Confidence and Self-Esteem. Self-esteem goes a long way to personal success and success in a job. However, comparing yourself to others can be extremely detrimental to building healthy self-esteem. In our society, it is quite easy to compare ourselves to others, but it is something we must learn to move away from. We start to feel that we are just not good enough. Instead of comparing yourself to others, it is important to remind yourself of all the positive qualities you possess. When you recognize that you are a unique person who has a lot to offer to the world, you will feel your sense of self-esteem rising. Comparing yourself to others is often linked to negative self-talk, which is another thing you must be mindful of. Let&rsquo's look at how this works: Negative self-talk: I’m hopeless at finding a jobPositive self-talk: I will find the right job for me Becoming aware of our body language is an important realisation we must make if we want to develop healthy self-esteem. It is important to walk and sit with your posture upright, with your shoulders rolled back. You should also try not to cross your arm when speaking to others because this can make you appear guarded. With positive body language, not only will you appear more confident, but you will also feel more confident. Eye contact is something else that will help you to develop healthy self-esteem. Low self-esteem is often connected with looking away from others when speaking. Don’t worry if you struggle with this now— it is something you can learn to do overtime. To begin with, you can start to maintain eye contact with close friends and colleagues you are comfortable with. Over time it will become a natural habit. Maintaining eye contact will make you appear more confident to others, which should help you to feel more confident about yourself as well. Building confidence is the key to success, peace of mind and well-being. Having self-confidence boosts your self-esteem and helps you achieve your goals. Self-confidence is all about having faith in your own abilities. By trusting these abilities, you will be able to deal with anything. It is not something you are necessarily born with, but it is a way of approaching things that can be learned. Building Confidence Very few people can claim to be totally self-confident and most would like to be more confident in certain areas of their lives. You are likely to feel confident: when you know what you’ re talking about. when you do something you’ ve did well before. when you are with people you trust. So thinking about a new job may just add to anxiety, but employers will realise that and will help you. It is in their interests to see you succeed! Whenever you are faced with a new challenge or are asked to do something you don’t like, you may feel a lack of confidence. You may worry that it won’t go well, that your performance will be disappointing, and you will come out of it with a poor image. There are several ways you can build up your confidence to deal with these types of situation. The first step is to decide what your lack of confidence is about. It could be due to:a lack of information. a lack of preparedness. a need to discuss your ideas with someone else who has more knowledge than you. All of these are easily dealt with – you can work on finding out more information, you can be prepared and you should be able to find someone who will go through your ideas with you. Finding ConfidenceHowever, sometimes it is not easy to define where your lack of confidence comes from. All you know is that the thought of doing something or making a change fills you with dread, making you shrink back into your comfort zone. However, there are ways of dealing with this: As mentioned already, Look at, and challenge your beliefs about yourself. The biggest barrier to self-confidence is the belief “I’m not a confident person” or “I’m not able to do this”. Confront your fears and ask what you are so afraid of. When you break it down, it may be something you can deal with. However, you have to try to succeed. Recognising your abilities, talents and successes - Some people are so good at telling themselves about their weaknesses, that they have lost the ability to recognise their strengths and successes, however small. Focusing on and highlighting your strengths helps you achieve more personal satisfaction and helps others build their confidence in your abilities. Achieving small challenges - Push yourself a little, and make progress in small steps will increase your confidence, sometimes very considerably. You need to take small risks to gain huge rewards. For example, offer to organise a social event to test your planning and organising skills. Setting Goals. Setting goals for yourself will allow you to reach milestones in your life that will help you to feel more confident and inspired. When we reach goals, we can foster a positive belief in ourselves which in turn helps us to boost our self-esteem. It is important, however, that we set realistic goals that we can achieve. By making your goals realistic and specific, you are setting yourself up for success and ultimately boosting your self-esteem. Look at GROW as an example. This is a tool more commonly used in coaching, but others, but you can use if yourself.Goal: I want to be more confident, self-aware and respond to situations effectively inside and outside of the workplaceReality: How do you see yourself right now? Describe his. Ask others for their perception and examples Options: What can you try out to develop these needs? Ideas should be recorded here. Will: How will you commit to developing yourself? What will the difference be? How will others be able to tell? Being Prepared for Recruitment