What more recent research on the transitions from HE to work has further shown is that the way students and graduates approach the labour market and both understand and manage their employability is also highly subjective (Holmes, 2001; Bowman et al., 2005; Tomlinson, 2007). This may be largely due to the fact that employers have been reasonably responsive to generic academic profiles, providing that graduates fulfil various other technical and job-specific demands. This clearly implies that graduates expect their employability management to be an ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers. Thus, graduates successful integration in the labour market may rest less on the skills they possess before entering it, and more on the extent to which these are utilised and enriched through their actual participation in work settings. While in the main graduates command higher wages and are able to access wider labour market opportunities, the picture is a complex and variable one and reflects marked differences among graduates in their labour market returns and experiences. The problem of graduate employability and skills may not so much centre on deficits on the part of graduates, but a graduate over-supply that employers find challenging to manage. Employability is a concept that has attracted greater interest in the past two decades as Higher Education (HE) looks to ensure that its output is valued by a range of stakeholders, not least Central . Morley (2001) however states that employability . For instance, non-traditional students who had studied at local institutions may be far more likely to fix their career goals around local labour markets, some of which may afford limited opportunities for career progression. The challenge, it seems, is for graduates to become adept at reading these signals and reframing both their expectations and behaviours. Consensus v. conflict perspectives -Consensus Theory In general, this theory states that laws reflect general agreement in society. 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! This has illustrated the strong labour market contingency to graduates employability and overall labour market outcomes, based largely on how national labour markets coordinate the qualifications and skills of highly qualified labour. The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. Bowman, H., Colley, H. and Hodkinson, P. (2005) Employability and Career Progression of Fulltime UK Masters Students: Final Report for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, Leeds: Lifelong Learning Institute. Prior to this, Harvey ( 2001 ) has defined employability in assorted ways from single and institutional positions. 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). The consensus theory of employment argues that technological innovation is the driving force of social change (Drucker, 1993, Kerr, 1973). This research showed the increasing importance graduates attributed to extra-curricula activities in light of concerns around the declining value of formal degrees qualifications. . The purpose of this paper is to adopt the perspective of personal construct theory to conceptualise employability. This review has highlighted how this shifting dynamic has reshaped the nature of graduates transitions into the labour market, as well as the ways in which they begin to make sense of and align themselves towards future labour market demands. Power, S. and Whitty, G. (2006) Graduating and Graduations Within the Middle Class: The Legacy of an Elite Higher Education, Cardiff: Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences. Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute for Employment Research. Power and Whitty's research shows that graduates who experienced more elite earlier forms of education, and then attendance at prestigious universities, tend to occupy high-earning and high-reward occupations. and Leathwood, C. (2006) Graduates employment and discourse of employability: A critical analysis, Journal of Education and Work 18 (4): 305324. For graduates, the process of realising labour market goals, of becoming a legitimate and valued employee, is a continual negotiation and involves continual identity work. These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. This is further raising concerns around the distribution and equity of graduates economic opportunities, as well as the traditional role of HE credentials in facilitating access to desired forms of employment (Scott, 2005). Perhaps increasingly central to the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market has been the issue of graduate employability. It seeks to explore shortcomings in the current employment of the concept of consensus, and in so doing to explain the continued relevance of conflict theory for sociological research. Bowers-Brown, T. and Harvey, L. (2004) Are there too many graduates in the UK? Industry and Higher Education 18 (4): 243254. The new UK coalition government, working within a framework of budgetary constraints, have been less committed to expansion and have begun capping student numbers (HEFCE, 2010). Yet the position of graduates in the economy remains contested and open to a range of competing interpretations. Individual employability is defined as alumnus being able . Graduates are perceived as potential key players in the drive towards enhancing value-added products and services in an economy demanding stronger skill-sets and advanced technical knowledge. Puhakka, A., Rautopuro, J. and Tuominen, V. (2010) Employability and Finnish university graduates, European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 4555. develop the ideas in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Similar to Holmes (2001) work, such research illustrates that graduates career progression rests on the extent to which they can achieve affirmed and legitimated identities within their working lives. Employer perceptions of graduate employment and training, Journal of Education and Work 13 (3): 245271. Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . What such research shows is that young graduates entering the labour market are acutely aware of the need to embark on strategies that will provide them with a positional gain in the competition for jobs. Reay, D., Ball, S.J. The problem of graduates employability remains a continuing policy priority for higher education (HE) policymakers in many advanced western economies. Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. Green, F. and Zhu, Y. Employment in Academia: To What Extent Are Recent Doctoral Graduates of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada? As a wider policy narrative, employability maps onto some significant concerns about the shifting interplays between universities, economy and state. The theory of employability refers to the concept that an individual's ability to secure and maintain employment is not solely dependent on their technical skills and job-specific knowledge, but also on a set of broader personal attributes and characteristics. Argues that even employable people may fail to find jobs because of positional competition in the knowledge-driven economy. HE systems across the globe are evolving in conjunction with wider structural transformations in advanced, post-industrial capitalism (Brown and Lauder, 2009). However, conflict theorists view the . Expands the latter into positional conflict theory, which explains how the market for credentials is rigged and how individuals are ranked in it. and Soskice, D.W. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graduate Employability has come to mean many different things. While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. Handbook of the Sociology of Education, New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. (1999) Higher education policy and the world of work: Changing conditions and challenges, Higher Education Policy 12 (4): 285312. Crucially, these emerging identities frame the ways they attempt to manage their future employability and position themselves towards anticipated future labour market challenges. This study has been supported by related research that has documented graduates increasing strategies for achieving positional advantage (Smetherham, 2006; Tomlinson, 2008, Brooks and Everett, 2009). Google Scholar. 2.1 Theoretical Debate on Employability This section examines the contemporary consensus and conflict theory of employability of graduates (Brown et al. The inter-relationship between HE and the labour market has been considerably reshaped over time. In all cases, as these researchers illustrate, narrow checklists of skills appear to play little part in informing employers recruitment decisions, nor in determining graduates employment outcomes. Such dispositions have developed through their life-course and intuitively guide them towards certain career goals. Wolf, A. This paper reviews some of the key empirical and conceptual themes in the area of graduate employability over the past decade in order to make sense of graduate employability as a policy issue. Graduate Employability: A Review of Conceptual and Empirical Themes, Managing the link between higher education and the labour market: perceptions of graduates in Greece and Cyprus, Graduate employability as a professional proto-jurisdiction in higher education, Employability-related activities beyond the curriculum: how participation and impact vary across diverse student cohorts, Employability in context: graduate employabilityattributes expected by employers in regional Vietnam and implications for career guidance. Moreover, this may well influence the ways in which they understand and attempt to manage their future employability. The New Right argument is that a range of government policies, most notably those associated with the welfare state, undermined the key institutions that create the value consensus and ensure social solidarity. In the context of a knowledge economy, consensus theory advocates that knowledge, skills and innovation are the driving factors of our society. Tomlinson's research also highlighted the propensity towards discourses of self-responsibilisation by students making the transitions to work. The neo-Weberian theorising of Collins (2000) has been influential here, particularly in examining the ways in which dominant social groups attempt to monopolise access to desired economic goods, including the best jobs. Some graduates early experience may be empowering and confirm existing dispositions towards career development; for others, their experiences may confirm ambivalent attitudes and reinforce their sense of dislocation. Collins, R. (2000) Comparative and Historical Patterns of Education, in M. Hallinan (ed.) Studies of non-traditional students show that while they make natural, intuitive choices based on the logics of their class background, they are also highly conscious that the labour market entails sets of middle-class values and rules that may potentially alienate them. Such strategies typically involve the accruement of additional forms of credentials and capitals that can be converted into economic gain. Department for Education (DFE). One is the pre-existing level of social and cultural capital that these graduates possess, which opens up greater opportunities. Again, graduates respond to the challenges of increasing flexibility, individualisation and positional competition in different ways. This again is reflected in graduates anticipated link between their participation in HE and specific forms of employment. According to Keynes, the volume of employment in a country depends on the level of effective demand of the people for goods and services. Present study overcomes this issue by introducing a framework that clearly They also include the professional skills that enable you to be successful in the workplace. The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. (2010) Overqualifcation, job satisfaction, and increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education, Oxford Economic Papers 62 (4): 740763. Structural Functionalism/ Consensus Theory. As a mode of cultural and economic reproduction (or even cultural apprenticeship), HE facilitated the anticipated economic needs of both organisations and individuals, effectively equipping graduates for their future employment. Avoid the most common mistakes and prepare your manuscript for journal Thus, HE has been traditionally viewed as providing a positive platform from which graduates could integrate successfully into economic life, as well as servicing the economy effectively. Policy responses have tended to be supply-side focused, emphasising the role of HEIs for better equipping graduates for the challenges of the labour market. Employability is a key concept in higher education. These attributes, sometimes referred to as "employability skills," are thought to be . It now appears no longer enough just to be a graduate, but instead an employable graduate. A consensus theory approach sees sport as a source of collective harmony, a way of binding people together in a shared experience. The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. Yet research has raised questions over employers overall effectiveness in marshalling graduates skills in the labour market (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Morley and Aynsley, 2007). Furthermore, as Bridgstock (2009) has highlighted, generic skills discourses often fail to engage with more germane understandings of the actual career-salient skills graduates genuinely need to navigate through early career stages. ISSN 2039-9340 (print) ISSN 2039-2117 (online) Return to Article Details Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF Lessons from a comparative survey, European Journal of Education 42 (1): 1134. The expansion of HE, and the creation of new forms of HEIs and degree provision, has resulted in a more heterogeneous mix of graduates leaving universities (Scott, 2005). The literature review suggested that there is a reasonable degree of consensus on the key skills. %PDF-1.7 Little, B. However, other research on the graduate labour market points to a variable picture with significant variations between different types of graduates. Introduction. This is particularly evident among the bottom-earning graduates who, as Green and Zhu show, do not necessarily attain better longer-term earnings than non-graduates. (2008) Graduate development in European employment: Issues and contradictions, Education and Training 50 (5): 379390. Longitudinal research on graduates transitions to the labour market (Holden and Hamblett, 2007; Nabi et al., 2010) also illustrates that graduates initial experiences of the labour market can confirm or disrupt emerging work-related identities. Strathdee, R. (2011) Educational reform, inequality and the structure of higher education in New Zealand, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 2749. Moreover, they will be more productive, have higher earning potential and be able to access a range of labour market goods including better working conditions, higher status and more fulfilling work. Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. Leadbetter, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air, London: Penguin. Young, M. (2009) Education, globalisation and the voice of knowledge, Journal of Education and Work 22 (3): 193204. Increasingly, graduates employability needs to be embodied through their so-called personal capital, entailing the integration of academic abilities with personal, interpersonal and behavioural attributes. The final aim is to logically distinguish . Structural functionalists believe that society tends towards equilibrium and social order. 229240. If individuals are able to capitalise upon their education and training, and adopt relatively flexible and proactive approaches to their working lives, then they will experience favourable labour market returns and conditions. While at one level the correspondence between HE and the labour market has become blurred by these various structural changes, there has also been something of a tightening of the relationship. The prominence is on developing critical and reflective skills, with a view to empowering and enhancing the learner. - 91.200.32.231. For some graduates, HE continues to be a clear route towards traditional middle-class employment and lifestyle; yet for others it may amount to little more than an opportunity cost. (2011) The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs and Incomes, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2005) Empowering participants or corroding learning: Towards a research agenda on the impact of student consumerism in higher education, Journal of Education Policy 20 (3): 267281. A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). 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. Morley (2001) however states that employability . The underlying assumption of this view is that the Teichler, U. Brown, P. and Hesketh, A.J. More positive accounts of graduates labour market outcomes tend to support the notion of HE as a positive investment that leads to favourable returns. The extent to which future work forms a significant part of their future life goals is likely to determine how they approach the labour market, as well as their own future employability. Reviews for a period of 20 years between 1994 and 2013 have been assimilated and categorized into two propositions. They nevertheless remain committed to HE as a key economic driver, although with a new emphasis on further rationalising the system through cutting-back university services, stricter prioritisation of funding allocation and higher levels of student financial contribution towards HE through the lifting of the threshold of university fee contribution (DFE, 2010). It first relates the theme of graduate employability to the changing dynamic in the relationship between HE and the labour market, and the changing role of HE in regulating graduate-level work. Summary. It also introduces 'positional conflict theory' as a way of Similar to the Bowman et al. Wilton, N. (2008) Business graduates and management jobs: An employability match made in heaven? Journal of Education and Work 21 (2): 143158. The consensus theory emphasizes that the social order is through the shared norms, and belief systems of people. Consensus Theory. Mass HE may therefore be perpetuating the types of structural inequalities it was intended to alleviate. (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. 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. Brown, P., Lauder, H. and Ashton, D.N. Consequently, they will have to embark upon increasingly uncertain employment futures, continually having to respond to the changing demands of internal and external labour markets. Of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada of graduates labour market outcomes to! Again is reflected in graduates anticipated link between their participation in HE and specific of! R. ( 2000 ) Living on Thin Air, London: Penguin, quot. 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