Meaning & use
employable
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Meaning
adjectivenot comparable
having the skills, experience, or qualities that make an employer likely to hire you
Grammar: Used to describe people or their qualities, not jobs: an employable graduate. It is not usually used with 'very' or in comparisons.
Patterns
- be employable
- make someone employable
- highly employable
The course is designed to make students more employable.
After two years of experience, she felt much more employable.
Employers say that good communication skills make a candidate highly employable.
Common combinations
- highly employable
- Graduates in data science are highly employable right now.
- make someone employable
- Internships can make you employable even before you finish your degree.
- employable skills
- The workshop focuses on employable skills such as teamwork and time management.
- remain employable
- To remain employable, workers need to keep learning new technology.
Synonyms and how they differ
- marketable
- Marketable focuses on what you can sell or offer to employers; employable is broader and covers your whole ability to get hired.
- qualified
- Qualified means you meet the formal requirements for a specific job; employable means an employer is likely to want you, even if no specific job is open.
- hirable
- Hirable is less common and simply means 'able to be hired'; employable often suggests desirable skills and attitude.
Opposites
Word family
- employ verb
- to give someone a paid job
- employment noun
- the state of having paid work, or the work itself
- employer noun
- a person or company that pays others to work
- employee noun
- a person who is paid to work for someone
- employability noun
- the quality of having skills that make you likely to get hired
Commonly confused: employable or employed? employable or unemployable?
employable vs employed
Employed means you currently have a job; employable means you have the qualities to get one. You can be employable but not employed.
employable vs unemployable
Unemployable is the opposite: it means an employer is unlikely to hire you, often because of poor skills or attitude.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'employable' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Employable describes a person or their skills, so 'make you more employable' is correct. Option A wrongly describes a job (say 'a job with good prospects'). Option B uses it as a verb and mixes tenses. Option D confuses it with the verb 'employ'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “employable”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.