Kortext graduate toolkit – an open access collection

As graduation season sweeps across the UK and students proudly celebrate their academic milestones, we’re excited to introduce our brand-new graduate toolkit collection.

Carefully curated from 37,000+ eBooks in our Kortext Open Resources Collection, we’ve compiled a list of titles about soft skills like critical thinking, management, public speaking, conflict resolution and more, to equip graduates with the skills and knowledge to support them on their journey into the job market.

We’ve chosen five titles from our new collection to get you started:

1. Emotion and Proactivity at Work by Kelly Z. Peng and Chia-Huei Wu (eds.) 

This book reframes the conversation on proactivity to focus on the role of emotions as workplace motivators. This relationship is explored as bidirectional, with research demonstrating the impact of high proactivity in increasing positive affect with feelings of wellbeing and accomplishment at work. 

This interesting read can help individuals to understand and control factors that impact on their ability to be proactive and limit their exposure to negativity. It can also demonstrate to leaders how their emotions can impact their staff wellbeing and proactivity.

2. Six Steps to Job Search Success by Caroline Ceniza-Levine and Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio 

A practical guide to job hunting, written by recruiters with decades of experience in the field. They simplify the job-hunting process by breaking the process down into six easy-to-follow stages. 

With university finished, emerging into the job market can be very daunting. Using this free eBook as a resource can prepare graduates for what to expect in the recruitment process and how to make themselves stand out amongst other candidates.

3. Soft Skills for the 21st Century by Jaroslava Kubátová, Michal Müller, David Kosina, Ondřej Kročil and Pavla Slavíčková 

With the proliferation of technological advancements in recent years, this book explores and identifies 30 soft skills that remain valuable and relevant in the rapidly evolving modern workforce. 

Further to academic knowledge and skills that graduates have spent their years at university building, this title focuses on the untaught skills that employers strive to find, that can improve career opportunities and enhance personal and professional growth for all individuals at any stage in their professional career.

4. Rethinking Graduate Employability in Context by Päivi Siivonen, Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret, Michael Tomlinson, Maija Korhonen and Nina Haltia (eds.) 

Looking beyond the basic skills and attributes that graduates require to apply for roles, this title discusses employability at every level, exploring policy, and the impact of the institution and of the individual on employability. 

Authors challenge the commonly held assumption that all employment competition is skills-based, by highlighting social positioning, norms, and class-based value as being factors impacting likelihood of employment. Employability is not merely about skills but about how candidates fit the mould of ‘desirable employee’. 

5. Fomenting Friendship by Andrea Chandler 

The author addresses the intersection of friendship and politics, suggesting that political ideologies can be a huge factor in bringing individuals together, and in driving them apart. Chandler explores the modern perception of friendship and the barriers to it that can be perpetuated by leaders and role models.  

Looking forward, Chandler recommends policy changes that will encourage friendship creation, with the aim of improving public outcomes for mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. Suggestions include nurturing inclusive political cultures, designing spaces to connect, supporting healthy work-life balance and teaching social skills in education. 

As demonstrated by the diversity of our choices, our graduate toolkit collection demonstrates a broad subject matter, covering a variety of support and insight that we hope will be valuable for individuals making the jump from university into the job market. 

To access our new collection, please contact your Kortext Account Manager for more information. 

You don’t have to be an existing Kortext customer to benefit from our Open Resources Collection. To find out more, talk to us today.