5. Final Reflection and Summary
The objective of this study is to explore ways in which fashion graduates can acquire transferable skills and enhance their individual competency to improve their employability and career prospects. The primary research question of this study is “how do fashion graduates effectively reap transferable skills?” and “how these learned transferable skills help them future job seeking?” The study aims to identify the most efficient approaches for fashion graduates to develop transferable skills and examine the impact of these skills on their employability and career growth. By addressing these questions, the project seeks to offer valuable insights into how fashion graduates can increase their employability and advance their careers in the competitive job market.
To deal with the research question, this study conducts 3 interventions. The first intervention creates an online platform for independent fashion designers and fashion graduates to present their designs based on second-hand clothes and accessories. The website allows designers to learn from each other and gain inspiration, while also providing online customers with access to their fashion items. Following-up interviews were conducted to allow the participants share their experiences and opinions of the platform’s impact on their transferable skills. I learned the basic website design skills and performed a needs analysis to create a website that would meet the needs of fashion designers. I also drew inspiration from the fashion website Farfetch and researched its business model and legal issues related to domain name copyright. I assume that the website can facilitate the exchange of transferrable skills among fashion designers. Furthermore, I think there should be a standardized assessment and operational model to measure the effectiveness of such exchanges.
The second intervention refers to an offline skills exchange experiment. In the second intervention, I exchanged transferable skills with two fashion graduates. I taught Nai how to create a CV and in exchange, Nai taught me photography skills and retouching techniques. I also learned how to create new outfit styles from Maggie and uploaded resulting photos on their social media. After conducting a skills exchange with Nai and Maggie, I interviewed each of them to gather their feedback within a 25-minute interview. Nai was grateful for the technical support I provided in creating a CV and helping her apply for an internship, and felt that the offline skills exchange was a better way to learn in detail compared to the online exchange. She would love to continue teaching me more techniques to retouch and embellish my images in the future. As for me, I believed that offline skills exchange was an excellent way to improve my photography, editing, and styling skills. However, there are safety concerns when meeting strangers, which must be taken into account. I think online fashion websites can be used to connect participants for offline skills exchange, which would be beneficial for career hunting. Maggie found the offline skills exchange beneficial in improving her communication and styling skills and believed that a combination of online and offline exchange could better consolidate transferable skills among participants. She thought the skills she acquired would be useful in her future career.
The third intervention is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the first two interventions. In the third intervention, I conducted a role-playing simulation for a fashion job interview with four participants from the previous interventions (Xiaoyao, Adrianm Maggie, and Hichen) and Nai, who helped design the questions. The participants acted as interviewers and job applicants in one-on-one sessions, then switched roles. And a focus-on group discussion was followed. They all agreed that the simulation helped them acquire important interview skills for pursuing fashion industry jobs. Xiaoyao reflected on her previous interview mistakes and appreciated the opportunity to prepare more specifically for future interviews, but suggested the questions could be more straightforward. Adrian found the simulation helpful in improving his interview skills, but thought some questions should be more specific to each position. Maggie appreciated the chance to practice her on-the-spot response skills but felt she needed more preparation. Hichen found the simulation useful for identifying his skill deficiencies and potential areas for growth. Overall, participants agreed that the simulation improved their interview skills, but suggested more specific questions for each position. During the role-playing mock interview, I learned various foundational transferable skills that will be beneficial to me in my future career, including listening, writing, communication, public speaking, time management, and interpersonal skills. We also recognized the importance of research and planning skills, as well as computer and technological skills, for future employment. I believe that these skills can be applied to various work areas in the future. However, I doubt that all transferable skills learned can be utilized in a role-playing interview simulation.
From this study, I found out that the fashion industry as a creative industry that is highly competitive and dynamic, it requires transferable skills to distinguish myself from the peers. Transferable skills are general abilities that can be utilized in various industries, roles, and environments (Díaz-García et al., 2021). I as well as the participants of the study believe that transferable skills is important that could be applied in different contexts and would enhance the personal competitive advantages For example, in the second intervention, I found that the CV writing skills I obtained from business experience, could also be applied in fashion industry and help others to introduce themselves in a better way to gain more opportunities. Also, I learned photography skills and retouching skills from others gained from other area which also contributed to my styling skills in the fashion industry. The result could show that possessing transferable skills can enhance graduates’ employability and competitiveness, allowing them to navigate different contexts, industries, and roles (Liu & Ko, 2021). Díaz-García et al. (2004) also support that transferable skills could provide the graduates with limited industry-specific experience more opportunities.
An important contribution of this study is that I conducted three interventions for fashion industry graduates, which is an innovation as previous interventions were focused on management fields. The creative industry field has not been explored well enough. I find it is useful to learn transferable skills from online and offline ways. The online learning platform such as the website project, and the offline transferable skills exchange activity would be useful while role-play employment interviews would be a good way to practice the transferable skills. This is supported by Eby et al. (2003) that developing transferable skills is important to reduce “boundaryless careers” and the role-playing job interviews is an effective way for individuals to practice and develop these skills, including communication, problem-solving, and teamwork. In the future, I may take more online and offline activities to learn transferable skills and make practices about the skills
However, I have noticed that there are many challenges in this study. Firstly, the participants, including myself, have found that acquiring transferable skills is not always easy, and people may encounter various challenges while gaining them. For example, Intervention 2 found that offline learning about transferable skills would be useful. This is supported by Intervention 1’s following-up interviews and the intervention’s results. Nevertheless, people may be very cautious about offline learning with strangers.
Secondly, considering the limitations and challenges of the three interventions, one limitation noticed is that the sample size of this study is small. For example, in the three interventions, a limited number of participants resulted in limited visibility and evaluation. In Intervention 2, limited skills could be presented and exchanged among participants, which would reduce the validity and reliability of the study. Furthermore, although the literature review examines how transferable skills can aid fashion graduates in exploring diverse career paths within and outside the fashion industry and developing a strong personal brand, this study did not find relevant results about this part. Because all of the participants in this study are fashion designers or graduates of the fashion industry, none of them switched their career direction outside of the fashion industry. This is also a limitation of this study. In the future, the study should involve participants who are currently or were in the fashion industry but now are planning or have changed their work to other industries. Therefore, the study could gain an in-depth understanding of the importance of transferable skills for fashion graduates planning to work in other industries.
Moreover, the study has limited the acquisition of transferable skills through online and offline activities and the need for further time and accumulation of skills to apply them in job search. For example, in Intervention 1 and 2, the participants have gained transferable skills from other participants, but they need more time to master and practice the skills to effectively use them in job hunting. This cannot be achieved within a limited time duration. In future studies, I will extend the time duration to gather more valid data for this study to analyze.
Additionally, I lacked experience conducting interviews. I thought it would be easy to conduct following-up interviews, but I found it challenging at times to let the interviewee follow my thoughts, and I also found it hard to catch their ideas. This phenomenon was evident in the 25-minute interview in Intervention 2. Therefore, I believe the interview questions need to be more specific and related to specific fashion skills. In the interview, reference answers might be provided for the interview questions to avoid misunderstanding the question and give a brief guide for the interviewee. Kropp and McShane (2014) support that the use of reference answers in interviews can be useful in avoiding misunderstandings and guiding the interviewee.
In future studies, I would increase the sample size and involve more types of workers, ex-workers, or potential workers in the fashion industry. Furthermore, I would give a longer time duration for this study to gain relevant long-term following-up research to gather more accurate results.
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