Abstract: Universities’strategies to improve English major graduates’s employability are as follows: update teaching concept, optimize the arrangement of majors, improve teaching methods and increase educational efficiency, strengthen career guidance, ect. Students should improve their employability through making career planning，renewing employment idea and change employment psychology，enhance their own core competitiveness as well as grasp job-hunting skills, ect.
Key words: strategies; English major graduates ；employability
With the increasing number of college graduates, the harsh situation of employment of English major graduates has become an urgent problem. However, the development of employability of English major graduates is a complex and systematic project in which English major students and universities makes two important components.
1. Universities’ strategies to improve graduates’ employability
(1) Update teaching concept
English major students need not only English skills but also interdisciplinary ability and innovation ability. To this end , university should update teaching concept and make specific measures as below
(a) Change talent training mode, aiming at cultivating talents with wide range of knowledge and interdisciplinary ability.
(b) Strike a balance between language learning and language practice and take knowledge of other subjects into account.
(c) Help students develop English ideations and improve practical ability to use English freely.
(d) Regard English as a skill as well as a carrier of culture and increase courses relevant to foreign culture.
(e) Improve students’ social adaptability.
(2) Optimize the arrangement of majors
University should take talent market demand into consideration and set up interdisciplinary compounding majors to cultivate talents with interdisciplinary ability. Interdisciplinary compounding major means compounding English with another major (such as English and literature, English and business, English and finance, English and management, etc.).
Except for English curriculum, university can offer optional courses relevant to other subjects. All the efforts should target forming inter-disciplinary talent training patterns.
(3) Improve teaching methods and increase educational efficiency
University should change the teacher-centered teaching model and encourage students to participate in the teaching process by taking part in classroom discussion, English report, English drama contest and English speech contest. Besides, university should combine classroom instruction with extracurricular practice to enhance students" practice ability. Teachers should learn to make full use of multimedia teaching means to improve teaching quality and increase educational efficiency. (4) Strengthen career guidance
University plays an important role in developing English major students’ employability. For freshmen, career guidance should be carried out to help students understand their weaknesses and advantages, establish scientific career values, make preliminary career planning. For senior students, university should offer the supply and demand information of the labor market, suggest students to do part-time job and social practice. Furthermore, university should run psychological consultation through the whole process of students’ campus life, from their entrance to the academy to their graduation
2. Students’ strategies to improve their employability
(1)Make career planning
To English major students, making reasonable career planning is the first step to success. In school undergraduates should learn to get basic information about English major’s career information through multiple ways and make initial evaluation about their potential and advantages. More over, students can adjust the career planning according to social demand and their hobbies and interests. Career planning can serve as a goal of learning and practice, provide motivation to personal study and help students realize their career dream.
(2)Renew employment idea and change employment psychology
English major students must understand the harsh current situation of employment, adjust career expectations, make reasonable self-orientation and not be too idealistic. They should stop blind waiting, actively cater to market demand and try to find a suitable job. Moreover, it is important for them to be flexible in hunting a job, for example, pay attention to medium-sized and small enterprises rather than large state-owned enterprise where competition is violent. Beyond that, entrepreneurship is also recommended to those who cannot find jobs.
(3)Enhance one’s own core competitiveness
Except for English skills, English major students should have a general knowledge of other subjects (such as business, finance, management, literature, linguistics, etc.) in order to expand one"s scope of knowledge. Equally important is that they should improve psychological quality, interpersonal skill and social adaptability, which is helpful for them to integrate into society. Furthermore, students should cultivate strong sense of responsibility and upward mobility so as to be more qualified and competitive.
(4) Grasp job-hunting skills
Job-hunting skills include Interview Etiquette, interview tips and method to write attractive cover letter and resume. By mastering these skills, students can be more confident and leave a remarkable impression to interviewer, thus help them hunt jobs successfully without too much stress.
3. Conclusion
Accordingly, the development of employability of English major graduates is very important in which universities and English major students makes two important components. Besides, as the ultimate goal of development of employability is to help students find ideal job, the employers’ demand for employers is also important. Only with joint effort made by students, universities and employers can we radically improve the current situation. From this perspective, we still need to go through a continuous improving and developing process.
