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Reflections on Influencing Students Employability: an Example of Student Association

The contribution of higher education to social and economic prosperity can also be observed through the role of university in increasing the employability of its students, i.e. through university efforts to increase students’ competitiveness on the labor market. The issue of employability is a complex one, and is, among others, dealt with by students’ associations which are present at the university through various projects and initiatives. These associations raise the awareness about this issue among the student population. The term employability depends greatly on the context, and it is difficult to define. In this paper employability is defined as the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competences (Van Der Heijden et al., 2009.). Senior students possess distinct knowledge, skills and attitudes, and employability, in particular, deals with ways of including these students into the national and international labor market. The objective of this paper is to present what university can do to increase the employability of its students. In the first part of the paper the role of university programs in it is examined. In the second part attention is given to a project of a students’ association Entrepreneurs without borders (EWoB), active at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek. The project, during the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2013, dealt with the issue of youth employability and their competitiveness on the labor market after finishing formal university education. Apart from the literature review of the topic, the paper presents a real-life example. For research purposes, a qualitative research method, an interview, is used, and attitudes and perceptions of participants of the EWoB project on the topic of employability and the role of university are analyzed and preliminary findings provided.

employability ; university ; students’ associations ; labor market ; competitiveness

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