They construct their individual employability in a relative and subjective manner. (eds.) Strathdee, R. (2011) Educational reform, inequality and the structure of higher education in New Zealand, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 2749. %PDF-1.7 Book . Employers value employability skills because they regard these as indications of how you get along with other team members and customers, and how efficiently you are likely to handle your job performance and career success. This has been driven mainly by a number of key structural changes both to higher education institutions (HEIs) and in the nature of the economy. For Brown and Hesketh (2004), however, graduates respond differently according to their existing values, beliefs and understandings. 1.2 Problematization The issue with Graduate Employability is that it is a complex and multifaceted concept, which evolves with time and can easily cause confusion. (2006) showed that students choices towards studying at particular HEIs are likely to reflect subsequent choices. VuE*ce!\S&|3>}x`nbC_Y*o0HIS?vV7?& wociJZWM_ dBu\;QoU{=A*U[1?!q+
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^bA0({{9O?-#$ 3? The past decade in the United Kingdom has therefore seen a strong focus on employability skills, including communication, teamworking, ICT and self-management being built into formal curricula. Non-traditional graduates or new recruits to the middle classes may be less skilled at reading the changing demands of employers (Savage, 2003; Reay et al., 2006). This is perhaps reflected in the increasing amount of new, modern and niche forms of graduate employment, including graduate sales mangers, marketing and PR officers, and IT executives. consensus theory of employability. This insight, combined with a growing consensus that government should try to stabilize employment, has led to much Bowman et al. The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. Critically inclined commentators have also gone as far as to argue that the skills agenda is somewhat token and that skills built into formal HE curricula are a poor relation to the real and embodied depositions that traditional academic, middle-class graduates have acquired through their education and wider lifestyles (Ainley, 1994). Morley (2001) however states that employability . (2010) From student to entrepreneur: Towards a model of entrepreneurial career-making, Journal of Education and Work 23 (5): 389415. Thetable below has been compiled by a range of UK-based companies (see company details at the end of this guide), and it lists the Top 10 Employability Skills which they look for in potential employees - that means you! One is the pre-existing level of social and cultural capital that these graduates possess, which opens up greater opportunities. Much of the graduate employability focus has been on supply-side responses towards enhancing graduates' skills for the labour market. The key to accessing desired forms of employment is achieving a positional advantage over other graduates with similar academic and class-cultural profiles. Critical approaches to labour market change have also tended to point to the structural inequalities within the labour market, reflected and reinforced through the ways in which different social groups approach both the educational and labour market fields. (2009) reported significant awareness among graduates of class inequalities for accessing specific jobs, along with expectations of potential disadvantages through employers biases around issues such as appearance, accent and cultural code. Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). Learning and employability are clearly supportive constructs but this relationship appears to be under represented and lacks clarity. Thus, a significant feature of research over the past decade has been the ways in which these changes have entered the collective and personal consciousnesses of students and graduates leaving HE. Players are adept at responding to such competition, embarking upon strategies that will enable them to acquire and present the types of employability narratives that employers demand. The relationship between HE and the labour market has traditionally been a closely corresponding one, although in sometimes loose and intangible ways (Brennan et al., 1996; Johnston, 2003). (2008) Graduate development in European employment: Issues and contradictions, Education and Training 50 (5): 379390. In effect, individuals can no longer rely on their existing educational and labour market profiles for shaping their longer-term career progression. These changes have added increasing complexities to graduates transition into the labour market, as well as the traditional link between graduation and subsequent labour market reward. This article attempts to provide a conceptual framework on employability skills of business graduates based on in-depth reviews. Problematising the notion of graduate skill is beyond the scope of this paper, and has been discussed extensively elsewhere (Holmes, 2001; Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011). The strengths of consensus theory are that it is a more objective approach and that it is easier to achieve agreement. Both policymakers and employers have looked to exert a stronger influence on the HE agenda, particularly around its formal provisions, in order to ensure that graduates leaving HE are fit-for-purpose (Teichler, 1999, 2007; Harvey, 2000). Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. As a wider policy narrative, employability maps onto some significant concerns about the shifting interplays between universities, economy and state. There is much continued debate over the way in which HE can contribute to graduates overall employment outcomes or, more sharply, their outputs and value-added in the labour market. (2007) Does higher education matter? This should be ultimately responsive to the different ways in which students themselves personally construct such attributes and their integration within, rather than separation from, disciplinary knowledge and practices. This has coincided with the movement towards more flexible labour markets, the overall contraction of management forms of employment, an increasing intensification in global competition for skilled labour and increased state-driven attempts to maximise the outputs of the university system (Harvey, 2000; Brown and Lauder, 2009). (2010) Overqualifcation, job satisfaction, and increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education, Oxford Economic Papers 62 (4): 740763. Chapter 1 1. A consensus theory is one which believes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability. This has tended to challenge some of the traditional ways of understanding graduates and their position in the labour market, not least classical theories of cultural reproduction. This may further entail experiencing adverse labour market experiences such as unemployment and underemployment. The evidence suggests that some graduates assume the status of knowledge workers more than others, as reflected in the differential range of outcomes and opportunities they experience. and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. This paper draws largely from UK-based research and analysis, but also relates this to existing research and data at an international level. Employability is a product consisting of a specific set of skills, such as soft, hard, technical, and transferable. Teichler, U. Graduates in different occupations were shown to be drawing upon particular graduate skill-sets, be that occupation-specific expertise, managerial decision-making skills, and interactive, communication-based competences. Mass HE may therefore be perpetuating the types of structural inequalities it was intended to alleviate. (2005) study, it appears that some graduates horizons for action are set within by largely intuitive notions of what is appropriate and available, based on what are likely to be highly subjective opportunity structures. Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes . Over time, however, this traditional link between HE and the labour market has been ruptured. Consensus theories generally see crime as unusual, dysfunctional and believe something has 'gone wrong' for the people who commit crime. An example of this is the family. Morley, L. and Aynsley, S. (2007) Employers, quality and standards in higher education: Shared values and vocabularies or elitism and inequalities? Higher Education Quarterly 61 (3): 229249. Kupfer, A. The New Right argues that liberal left politicians and welfare policies have undermined the . For Beck and Beck-Germsheim (2002), processes of institutionalised individualisation mean that the labour market effectively becomes a motor for individualisation, in that responsibility for economic outcomes is transferred away from work organisations and onto individuals. For graduates, the inflation of HE qualifications has resulted in a gradual downturn in their value: UK graduates are aware of competing in relative terms for sought-after jobs, and with increasing employer demands. The paper then explores research on graduates labour market returns and outcomes, and the way they are positioned in the labour market, again highlighting the national variability to graduates labour market outcomes. PubMedGoogle Scholar, Tomlinson, M. Graduate Employability: A Review of Conceptual and Empirical Themes. In countries where training routes are less demarcated (for instance those with mass HE systems), these differences are less pronounced. They found that a much higher proportion of female graduates work within public sector employment compared with males who attained more private sector and IT-based employment. (2010) Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education (The Browne Review), London: HMSO. What their research illustrates is that these graduates labour market choices are very much wedded to their pre-existing dispositions and learner identities that frame what is perceived to be appropriate and available. (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? Morley (2001) however states that employability is not just about . Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . Brooks, R. and Everett, G. (2009) Post-graduate reflections on the value of a degree, British Educational Research Journal 35 (3): 333349. They also include the professional skills that enable you to be successful in the workplace. Little, B. Summary. At the same time, the seeming consensus regarding employability as an outcome with reference to employment or employment rates belies the complexity that surrounds the concept in the wider literature. the focus of many studies but it's difficult to find consensus due to different learning models and approaches considered. Yet at a time when stakes within the labour market have risen, graduates are likely to demand that this link becomes a more tangible one. Universities have experienced heightened pressures to respond to an increasing range of internal and external market demands, reframing the perceived value of their activities and practices. In such labour market contexts, HE regulates more clearly graduates access to particular occupations. More positive accounts of graduates labour market outcomes tend to support the notion of HE as a positive investment that leads to favourable returns. This was a model developed by Lorraine Dacre Pool and Peter Sewell in 2007 which identifies five essential elements that aid employability: Career Development Learning: the knowledge, skills and experience to help people manage and develop their careers. In the context of a knowledge economy, consensus theory advocates that knowledge, skills and innovation are the driving factors of our society. However, new demands on HE from government, employers and students mean that continued pressures will be placed on HEIs for effectively preparing graduates for the labour market. Such strategies typically involve the accruement of additional forms of credentials and capitals that can be converted into economic gain. A range of key factors seem to determine graduates access to different returns in the labour market that are linked to the specific profile of the graduate. Rae, D. (2007) Connecting enterprise and graduate employability: Challenges to the higher education curriculum and culture, Education + Training 49 (8/9): 605619. The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. 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