How can students demonstrate their entrepreneurial skills to potential employers?

Well first see how entrepreneurial your students are by encouraging them to take a test. The UK Centre for Bioscience employability pages contain information and resources which can be used to encourage students to become more aware of their skills and to present themselves to employers, for example the employability card sort and a variety of audit tools.

Students often overlook the extra curricular activities they undertake at university. Were they the front person in arranging the summer ball, were they involved in moving the rowing club to new premises, did they buy and sell bicycles to earn a little extra cash? These are all activities which will allow them to demonstrate that they have entrepreneurial skills.

It is also important to highlight within the curriculum where such skills are being taught and an employability audit can help in this respect. In some cases students may already be able to give examples of or demonstrate how they have developed some of the skills recognised as being important for entrepreneurs, for example:

• Effective communication skills – both written and verbal through the production or reports and oral presentations
• Effective team players – working in lab groups, tutorial groups or when doing fieldwork to achieve a common aim
• Self motivated – solo project or lab work

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