Business Student's Handbook : Learning Skills for Study and Employment (2nd ed)

In an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world, graduates and job applicants need more than just subject expertise to succeed.

Employers complain of a shortage of suitable applicants because graduates often lack key skills.

Students also often fail to achieve their potential on courses because they fail to manage their learning.

The focus of this book is on developing key transferable skills, learning to use these skills more effectively, and developing a portfolio of skills so that a potential employer has a way of measuring these skills.

By applying a management approach to the whole process of being a student, the reader will get real practice in applying the management concepts they learn, and in making these demonstrable to a future employer.

Key features: *Addresses a broad range of key learning skills including: communication, writing and basic number skills, IT skills, and issues such as problem solving, creativity, working with case studies, project management and group working - providing students with a broad introduction to the wide range of skills they will use throughout their student careers, and beyond.*Pays specific attention to improving results in course assessment and exams, and the final chapter deals with finding and successfully applying for work - providing students with practical information and advice that they can apply to their own academic and professional pursuits. *Uses an interactive approach linked to students' own learning experience involving a range of exercises, action planning guidelines, and numerous activities to test understanding and skills acquisition - encouraging students to test their own understanding of the material, to put the theory to practice, and to develop a skills portfolio for assessment or employment.

NEW to the second edition: *More emphasis on managing conflict, with particular reference to group working - of particular relevance to the increasing emphasis placed on group working in further and higher education, and in the workplace itself. *Greater coverage of valuing difference and appreciating different perspectives in the workplace - of great relevance to students, who will increasingly work with people from different cultural backgrounds.*Increasing range of hot topics including the latest developments in IT; managing conflict; valuing difference in the workplace; ethics and research; and plagiarism - introducing students to a variety of contemporary topics in the field of business studies that they are likely to encounter in other courses they will take. *Level of language has been simplified to make the book even more accessible to those seeking to develop these key transferable skills. *Supplement download site with resources for lecturers including instructors' notes, PowerPoint slides, activity sheets and weblinks.Sheila Cameron is a senior lecturer and regional manager at the Open University Business School.