The Cambridge

Employability Skills
Framework
Developing the skills needed to participate
effectively in the workplace and fulfil your
potential throughout your career.
Employability Skills
Employability is about more than having appropriate qualifications, technical skills or a specific
body of knowledge. To be able to participate effectively in the workplace and fulfil their potential
throughout their career, employees (and potential employees) also need to develop transferable
core skills and appropriate attitudes.

Many of these core skills (often referred to as ‘soft skills’) are social skills – the need to work well
with other people, with different backgrounds and potentially conflicting interests. There is also
an increasing need for higher level thinking skills – to be more critical of information and opinions,
to be able to make connections across complex ideas and data sets, and to think creatively to
solve problems. There is also the demand for more personal, emotional skills – the ability to
maintain motivation despite setbacks, to have a positive attitude when faced with challenges, and
to deal constructively with change and uncertainty.

Why are Employability Skills important?

Businesses around the world are finding that their future success depends on having a workforce
that has these kinds of social, cognitive and emotional skills, and the National Soft Skills
Association found that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills. Despite
the apparent need for employees to possess effective core skills, some evidence reveals large
mismatches between the actual supply and demand of key work-related skills. According to a
report by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the most common skills deemed to be
lacking among staff in UK companies are people and personal skills relating to workload
management and teamwork (Vivian et al., 2015). Around the world there is increasing demand
from businesses for employees with effective core skills, and education has a critical role to play in
helping people to develop these skills.

Why develop Employability Skills in an English language

programme?
Learning an additional language already involves many of these core skills, such as
communication, collaboration and critical thinking. This makes the development of these skills
especially suited to language learning, and there is lots of scope to develop these skills in an
integrated way through the English language programme.

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The Cambridge Employability
Framework
The Employability Framework is a way of making sense of the different skills employees and
Higher Education (HE) students need to develop, in addition to learning English. The framework is
based on extensive research into employer needs, and is aligned with the Cambridge Life
Competencies Framework. By providing a map of the most important employability skills, the
framework allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what each of the skills involve and
integrate them more systematically into your teaching.

The Cambridge Employability Framework groups employability skills into eight key areas of
competency that learners need to develop, if they are to be successful both in current
employment and throughout their future careers.

COLLABORATION Employees and HE students develop skills for successful group work, the
AND TEAMWORK management of collaborative tasks and projects, and delivering group tasks
effectively.

COMMUNICATION
Employees and HE students learn to understand others better, present their
views clearly and effectively, and adapt communication for different contexts.

INNOVATION AND
Employees and HE students develop a creative mindset, generate ideas, and
PROBLEM SOLVING
solve problems effectively.

CRITICAL THINKING
Employees and HE students learn to understand, analyse and evaluate
AND DECISION
information and arguments in order to make decisions.
MAKING
LEADERSHIP AND Employees and HE students demonstrate leadership skills, contribute to the
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP success of an organisation, and encourage and support the organisations
positive role in addressing global issues.

PERSONAL
Employees and HE students develop organisational skills to manage time, tasks
DEVELOPMENT AND
and information, and learn to manage their ongoing professional development.
MANAGEMENT
EMOTIONAL Employees and HE students develop self-awareness, learn to manage stressful
INTELLIGENCE situations and develop a positive attitude and work ethic, and demonstrate
positive relationship skills.

DIGITAL LITERACY
Employees and HE students learn to effectively use digital and online tools,
follow safe online practices, and behave appropriately with others online.

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Each Competency is divided into Core Areas - these are the broad skills and behaviours that make
up each competency. The Core Areas are then divided into Component skills - these give more
clarity to exactly what is meant by each core area.

Shown below are the Competencies, Core Areas and Components of the Cambridge Employability
Framework.

COLLABORATION Working well Establishing ways of working together

AND TEAMWORK together in a group
Responding constructively to others
Supporting others in their tasks
Managing Agreeing what needs to be done
collaborative tasks
Managing the distribution of tasks
and projects
Making use of the skills and knowledge of colleagues
Delivering a group Ensuring progress towards a goal
task effectively
Identifying challenges, problems and opportunities
Resolving issues
COMMUNICATION Understanding Listening actively to others speaking
others better
Identifying and managing communication barriers or
breakdowns
Presenting your Structuring information in spoken and written texts
views clearly and clearly
effectively
Speaking with confidence and fluency
Writing clearly and convincingly
Adapting the way Understanding the need for different communications
you communicate styles in different contexts
for different
Adjusting language for different contexts, purposes and
audiences and
people
purposes
Showing awareness of differences in communication
styles across cultures

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INNOVATION AND Developing a Showing interest in ideas and issues outside one’s
PROBLEM creative mindset immediate responsibilities
SOLVING Considering perspectives of other stakeholders –
colleagues, customers and suppliers
Finding connections between own work and
solutions in other teams or organisations
Generating Ideas Generating multiple ideas - e.g. through
brainstorming
Elaborating on and combining ideas from others
Developing alternative scenarios and proposals
Implementing ideas Developing and testing out new ideas
and solving
Implementing, presenting and explaining
problems
ideas and solutions
CRITICAL Understanding and Analysing data, identifying patterns and
THINKING AND analysing relationships
DECISION MAKING information and
Interpreting and drawing inferences from different
arguments
sources of data
Evaluating ideas and Evaluating arguments and proposals
arguments
Reaching conclusions from comparing different
arguments
Making decisions Identifying and understanding problems
Identifying, gathering and organising relevant
information
Evaluating options and recommendations to come
to a decision
Justifying decisions and solutions
Evaluating the effectiveness of implemented
solutions

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LEADERSHIP AND Contributing to the Fulfilling own responsibilities within the team
GLOBAL success of an
Understanding the role and responsibilities of the
CITIZENSHIP organisation
team within an organisation
Understanding and demonstrating an
organisation’s values and culture
Demonstrating Taking the initiative to address issues or pursue
leadership opportunities
Managing groups of people through clear and
practical techniques of delegation and task
management
Taking a strategic approach to one’s area of work,
considering an organisation's long-term objectives
Generating support for action through vision and
effective communication strategies
Contributing to an Supporting organisational initiatives to address
organisation’s global issues such as the environment, inclusivity,
positive role in equality, and exploitation
global issues
Encouraging new initiatives on global issues within
an organisation
Developing intercultural awareness of the
different beliefs, values and behaviours of other
people
PERSONAL Being organised Using a system to manage time and tasks
DEVELOPMENT
Using a system to manage information,
AND
documentation, contacts, etc
MANAGEMENT
Managing your Setting goals for professional development
professional
Taking action to develop new skills and knowledge
development
Using feedback to improve performance
EMOTIONAL Demonstrating self- Monitoring and reflecting on own emotions
INTELLIGENCE awareness
Acting with Managing stressful situations
resilience
Developing a positive attitude and work ethic
Demonstrating Establishing and maintaining positive
empathy and relationships
positive relationship
Showing empathy for the feelings of others
skills
Supporting others

DIGITAL LITERACY Using digital and Using digital tools required for one’s work role
online tools
Developing skills in using additional digital tools to
support one’s professional development
Following safe online Following an organisation’s guidelines for online
practices activity

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 Protecting secure information allowing access to
internal systems and data
Behaving Demonstrating respect to others online
appropriately with
Maintaining professional and personal
others online
confidentiality
Representing an organisation in a public forum

The Cambridge Employability Framework is constantly being reviewed and developed. We're
working with teachers and learners worldwide to understand more about how the Cambridge
Employability Competencies work in the classroom and beyond.

References and Further Reading

For further reading on this topic, please see:

Careers NZ. Skills employers are looking for. Available at: https://www.careers.govt.nz/plan-
your-career/not-sure-what-to-do/skills-employers-are-looking-for/

Collabera. What soft skills are employers looking for? Available at:
https://www.collabera.com/find-a-job/career-resources/what-soft-skills-are-employers-
looking-for/

Doyle, A. (2018) Top skills and attributes employers seek. The balance careers. 12 July, 2018.
Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-skills-employers-want-2062481

Mulholland, J. (2013) Why employers value intercultural skills. British Council. 4 March 2013.
Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/why-employers-value-
intercultural-skills

National Soft Skills Association. https://www.nationalsoftskills.org/

Vivian, D. et al. (2016) Employer Skills survey 2015: UK results. Evidence report 97. May 2016,
amended May 2018. UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_da
ta/file/704104/Employer_Skills_Survey_2015_UK_Results-Amended-2018.pdf.