Employability: Definition, Challenges, and Levers to Strengthen It
12 June 2025 · 3 min reading time
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See job offersIn a constantly evolving professional world, employability has become a major issue for both individuals and businesses. It's no longer limited to the simple ability to get a job but extends to the aptitude to grow, adapt to market changes, and secure one's professional journey. Understanding employability, its determinants, and the levers to strengthen it has become essential to anticipate transformations in the world of work and foster career fulfillment.
What is Employability?
Employability refers to an individual's ability to find, keep, and progress in a job throughout their professional life. This concept goes beyond merely seeking a position; it encompasses adaptability to market changes, mastery of key skills, and the ability to bounce back from economic uncertainties.
We often distinguish between absolute employability, which refers to all skills and qualities sought by employers, and relative employability, which is defined according to a specific job market or geographical location.
The Challenges of Employability Today
In a context where professions are rapidly evolving and career transitions are multiplying, employability has become a strategic pillar. For employees, it's a way to secure their path and anticipate changes in the labor market. For companies, it's an indispensable lever to have qualified, engaged employees capable of evolving with the organization's needs.
Investing in employability fosters competitiveness and helps limit the risks associated with skill obsolescence.
An Asset for Companies and Employees
Employability represents a key advantage for both employees and companies. For employees, it allows them to gain autonomy and confidence, ensuring greater professional security. For employers, it guarantees a pool of talent able to meet new challenges, especially during periods of economic or technological change.
Adaptability, versatility, and professional curiosity have thus become essential values in the working relationship.
Employability and the Job Market: An Essential Link
Employability is closely linked to labor market dynamics. In an environment where companies seek to remain competitive, professionals who can update their skills and adapt to new needs are the most sought after.
The ability to train and adapt to technological or organizational changes determines not only job security but also career progression opportunities within companies.
Factors Influencing Employability
Employability isn't static; it relies on a set of factors that evolve with individual careers and market needs. These include technical and behavioral skills, the ability to train, professional experience, and the aptitude to collaborate and integrate into a changing work environment.
Understanding these determinants is crucial to identify one's strengths and areas for improvement in order to build a solid and agile professional career.
Technical Skills and Soft Skills
Skills form the basis of employability. Technical skills (know-how, professional expertise, certifications) allow individuals to meet the specific needs of a position or sector of activity. Soft skills (communication, teamwork, creativity, resilience) are just as crucial: they facilitate integration, adaptability, and initiative in a changing work environment.
The balance between these two types of skills is now a major criterion for employers.
Continuous Training and Adaptation to Professional Changes
Continuous training is an essential lever for maintaining and developing employability. In a context where professions are rapidly transforming, it's crucial to update one's skills and open up to new learning.
This adaptability is at the heart of employability: it allows one to better anticipate market evolutions and increase professional opportunities, even during periods of change or crisis.
Professional Network and Experience
The professional network plays a key role in maintaining employability. It allows for sharing experiences, seizing new opportunities, and staying informed about developments in one's sector.
In parallel, the professional experience – completed assignments, projects led, varied contexts – is an undeniable asset for showcasing one's skills and strengthening one's attractiveness in the job market.
How to Improve Your Employability?
Employability is built and enriched throughout one's professional life. It's not fixed and can be strengthened through concrete and continuous actions. Identifying one's strengths and areas for improvement, training regularly, valuing one's experiences, and developing adaptability are all levers to remain attractive in the job market and seize new opportunities.
Identify Your Strengths and Areas for Improvement
The first step to strengthening your employability is to assess your skills and assets. This allows you to better target areas for development and to highlight what already constitutes a professional strength.
Regular evaluation of your strengths and areas for improvement helps you stay ahead in a competitive job market.
Lifelong Learning
Continuous training is an indispensable pillar for developing and maintaining your employability. Taking courses, staying informed about developments in your sector, or acquiring new skills allows you to remain competitive and adapt to changes in the labor market.
This proactive approach to training is also a sign of dynamism and openness, qualities particularly valued by employers.
Highlight Your Experiences and Career Path
To optimize your employability, it's essential to know how to showcase your professional experiences, even the shortest or most varied ones. Every assignment or project can illustrate skills, qualities, and an ability to adapt.
Presenting your career path – through a clear resume and adapted communication – is a crucial tool for standing out to recruiters and seizing new opportunities.
Develop Your Adaptability
In a constantly changing professional environment, adaptability has become an essential skill. It involves knowing how to adjust work methods, quickly integrate new skills, and be open to new practices or sectors of activity.
Developing this agility helps you remain competitive and strengthens your long-term employability.
Employability and Career Change
Career change is a powerful lever to strengthen your employability. It involves changing sectors or professions to better align with one's aspirations, evolving market needs, or personal constraints.
Far from being a hindrance, career change is often seen as a sign of dynamism, agility, and the ability to reinvent oneself to thrive professionally.
Career Change and Employability: A Virtuous Cycle
Career change is often perceived as an ambitious and courageous endeavor. It allows for the development of new skills, broadening one's knowledge, and strengthening one's adaptability.
In this sense, it directly fuels employability: by embarking on a new project, one positions oneself as a versatile professional capable of taking on new challenges.
Examples of Successful Career Changes
Numerous inspiring career change journeys exist: an accountant becoming a cybersecurity consultant, a salesperson venturing into social animation, an engineer reorienting towards teaching.
These examples show that employability is an evolving concept and that anyone can, by building on their acquired knowledge and accepting to train, pivot towards new professional opportunities.
Employability at the Heart of HR Policies
Given the rapid changes in the market, companies are increasingly integrating employability into their HR policies. They've understood that supporting their employees in developing their skills is a strategic imperative to remain competitive.
This approach is part of a win-win scenario: employees develop their potential, and the company retains and motivates its teams by preparing them for future challenges.
Employability Support Programs
Many programs exist to support employee employability: skills assessments, training plans, validation of acquired experience (VAE), and career change support.
These tools enable the construction of coherent career paths and strengthen employees' agility in the face of economic, technological, or organizational changes.
The Role of Companies in Maintaining Employability
Companies have a central role to play in supporting the employability of their employees. Beyond existing training and programs, they must create an environment conducive to learning, internal mobility, and skill development.
By adopting a proactive approach, employers contribute to securing career paths and the collective performance of the organization.
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