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unication skills. Billing (2003) adds employers want employees who are “effective communicators, problem solvers and critical thinkers, and can work well within a team”. (Billing, 2003)

To understand employability requires a consideration of the various component parts and the different ways in which it is described and evaluated, the generic transferable skills nurtured through university, through to competencies required for employment.

This suggests that employability is likely to be less about nurturing attributes, techniques or experiences just to enable a student to get a job; it is about learning with less emphasis on ‘employ' and more on ‘ability'. The prominence is on developing critical and reflective skills, with a view to empowering and enhancing the learner. Employment is a by-product of this enabling process (Harvey, 2003; Lees, 2002; Knight and Yorke, 2002).

Therefore if employability is defined as the ‘set of personal attributes acquired by the under-graduate as a result of their investment in higher education', then what are the attributes that make graduates employable?

Much of the literature broadly defines employability attributes as: key, core, generic, personal transferable skills, work/employment related skills (Holmes 2001). However Lees (2002) suggests this imprecision makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what is meant by the term ‘employability skills'. It can be argued, it is where various employers' needs and individuals' attributes meet.

2.3 What are employability skills?

Competencies such as ability, aptitude and qualities developed in context that can be applied to an occupation or career can be identified as employability skills. These competencies might develop employability skills as a result of the teaching and learning process in higher education or from work experience. Employers generally see a good degree as an essential entry requirement to any graduate position. It is widely accepted for graduates to be competitive in the labour market, which is seeing a massive reduction in recruitment numbers due to the economic situation; they need to have additional skills to complement their academic achievement. Surveys by AGR, an independent voice of UK-based graduate recruiters, highlighted the following deficiencies in employability skills:

‘Softer' skills such as team-working, leadership and project management

Awareness of their chosen industry sector; commercial awareness and business/organisation understanding. (AGR, 2007)

AGR state that more than 70% of their members use competency-based selection methods. They further suggest that graduates lacking these qualities, or evidence that they have them, will find it more difficult to secure graduate jobs.

It is seen as one of the toughest challenges for employers to recruit from an increasing number of graduates, with employers realising that the future of their organisation depends on the selection of the best candidates to add value. The CIPD reports that since the 1980's the number of students entering HE has significantly increased by more than double, but further states, that even with this increase employers still have difficulty in recruiting the types of employees they need. (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2007a, b, c)

It is recognized that having a degree will no