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. It also introduces 'positional conflict theory' as a way of However, while notions of graduate skills, competencies and attributes are used inter-changeably, they often convey different things to different people and definitions are not always likely to be shared among employers, university teachers and graduates themselves (Knight and Yorke, 2004; Barrie, 2006). The role of employers and employer organisations in facilitating this, as well as graduates learning and professional development, may therefore be paramount. 213240. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. The Varieties of Capitalism approach developed by Hall and Soskice (2001) may be useful here in explaining the different ways in which different national economies coordinate the relationship between their education systems and human resource strategies. 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. 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. Less positively, their research exposed gender disparities gap in both pay and the types of occupations graduates work within. Purpose. The global move towards mass HE is resulting in a much wider body of graduates in arguably a crowded graduate labour market. While investment in HE may result in favourable outcomes for some graduates, this is clearly not the case across the board. Naidoo, R. and Jamieson, I. This contrasts with more flexible liberal economies such as the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, characterised by more intensive competition, deregulation and lower employment tenure. (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? The social cognitive career theory (SCTT), based on Bandura's (2002) General social cognitive theory, suggests that self-perceived employability affects an individual's career interest and behavior, and that self-perceived employability is a determinant of an individual's ability to find a job (lvarez-Gonzlez et al., 2017). Consensus Vs. This makes it reasonable to ask whether there is any such thing as the consensus theory of truth at all, in other words, whether there is any one single principle that the various approaches have in common, or whether the phrase is being used as a catch-all for a motley . Prior to this, Harvey ( 2001 ) has defined employability in assorted ways from single and institutional positions. Consensus theories posit that laws are created using group rational to determine what behaviors are deviant and/or criminal to protect society from harm. The end of work and its commentators, The Sociological Review 55 (1): 81103. Morley (2001) however states that employability is not just about . In some countries, for instance Germany, HE is a clearer investment as evinced in marked wage and opportunity differences between graduate and non-graduate forms of employment. There has been perhaps an increasing government realisation that future job growth is likely to be halted for the immediate future, no longer warranting the programme of expansion intended by the previous government. 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. [PDF] Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and 02 May 2015 Education is vital in the knowledge economy as the commodity of . 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. 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). Little (2001) suggests, that it is a multi-dimensional concept, and there is a need to distinguish between the factors relevant to the job and preparation for work. 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. 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. Taylor, J. and Pick, D. (2008) The work orientations of Australian university students, Journal of Education and Work 21 (5): 405421. Nabi, G., Holden, R. and Walmsley, A. 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). It would appear from the various research that graduates emerging labour market identities are linked to other forms of identity, not least those relating to social background, gender and ethnicity (Archer et al., 2003; Reay et al., 2006; Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Kirton, 2009) This itself raises substantial issues over the way in which different types of graduate leaving mass HE understand and articulate the link between their participation in HE and future activities in the labour market. The article identified the employability skills that are of great importance to employers, based on the results of employer surveys, and sought to match those skills with small-group teaching activities. PubMedGoogle Scholar, Tomlinson, M. Graduate Employability: A Review of Conceptual and Empirical Themes. 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). Using Bourdieusian concepts of capital and field to outline the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market, Kupfer (2011) highlights the continued preponderance of structural and cultural inequalities through the existence of layered HE and labour market structures, operating in differentiated fields of power and resources. Research done over the past decade has highlighted the increasing pressures anticipated and experienced by graduates seeking well-paid and graduate-level forms of employment. Employment in Academia: To What Extent Are Recent Doctoral Graduates of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada? Graduates appear to be valued on a range of broad skills, dispositions and performance-based activities that can be culturally mediated, both in the recruitment process and through the specific contexts of their early working lives. volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. Such graduates are therefore likely to shy away, or psychologically distance themselves, from what they perceive as particular cultural practices, values and protocols that are at odds with their existing ones. 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. Dominant discourses on graduates employability have tended to centre on the economic role of graduates and the capacity of HE to equip them for the labour market. Such strategies typically involve the accruement of additional forms of credentials and capitals that can be converted into economic gain. 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. For other students, careers were far more tangential to their personal goals and lifestyles, and were not something they were prepared to make strong levels of personal and emotional investment towards. This is further reflected in pay difference and breadth of career opportunities open to different genders. 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 relative symbolic violence and capital that some institutions transfer onto different graduates may inevitably feed into their identities, shaping their perceived levels of personal or identity capital. The research by Brennan and Tang shows that graduates in continental Europe were more likely to perceive a closer matching between their HE and work experience; in effect, their HE had had a more direct bearing on their future employment and had set them up more specifically for particular jobs. Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. Future research directions on graduate employability will need to explore the way in which graduates employability and career progression is managed both by graduates and employers during the early stages of their careers. Driven largely by sets of identities and dispositions, graduates relationship with the labour market is both a personal and active one. These negotiations continue well into graduates working lives, as they continue to strive towards establishing credible work identities. Accordingly, there has been considerable government faith in the role of HE in meeting new economic imperatives. Consensus theories include functionalism, strain theory and subcultural theory. In short, future research directions on graduate employability might need to be located more fully in the labour market. The most discernable changes in HE have been its gradual massification over the past three decades and, in more recent times, the move towards greater individual expenditure towards HE in the form of student fees. According to Keynes, the volume of employment in a country depends on the level of effective demand of the people for goods and services. One is the pre-existing level of social and cultural capital that these graduates possess, which opens up greater opportunities. 9n=#Ql\(~_e!Ul=>MyHv'Ez'uH7w2'ffP"M*5Lh?}s$k9Zw}*7-ni{?7d The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specifically their skill development . Brown and Hesketh's (2004) research has clearly shown the competitive pressures experienced by graduates in pursuit of tough-entry and sought-after employment, and some of the measures they take to meet the anticipated recruitment criteria of employers. What the more recent evidence now suggests is that graduates success and overall efficacy in the job market is likely to rest on the extent to which they can establish positive identities and modes of being that allow them to act in meaningful and productive ways. 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. (2008) Graduate development in European employment: Issues and contradictions, Education and Training 50 (5): 379390. 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. Research in the field also points to increasing awareness among graduates around the challenges of future employability. Graduates increasing propensity towards lifelong learning appears to reflect a realisation that the active management of their employability is a career-wide project that will prevail over their longer-term course of their employment. Brown, P. and Lauder, H. (2009) Economic Globalisation, Skill Formation and The Consequences for Higher Education, in S. Ball, M. Apple and L. Gandin (eds.) Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualization, London: Sage. 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. This also extends to subject areas where there has been a traditionally closer link between the curricula content and specific job areas (Wilton, 2008; Rae, 2007). The second relates to the biases employers harbour around different graduates from different universities in terms of these universities relative so-called reputational capital (Harvey et al., 1997; Brown and Hesketh, 2004). 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 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). conventional / consensus perspective that places . At one level, there has been an optimistic vision of the economy as being fluid and knowledge-intensive (Leadbetter, 2000), readily absorbing the skills and intellectual capital that graduates possess. 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. Needless to say, critics of supply-side and skills-centred approaches have challenged the somewhat simplistic, descriptive and under-contextualised accounts of graduate skills. A common theme has been state-led attempts to increasingly tighten the relationship and attune HE more closely to the economy, which itself is set within wider discourse around economic change. Universities have typically been charged with failing to instil in graduates the appropriate skills and dispositions that enable them to add value to the labour market. Structural Functionalism/ Consensus Theory. Similar to the Bowman et al. Based on society's agreement - or consensus - on our shared norms and values, individuals are happy to stick to the rules for the sake of the greater good.Ultimately, this helps us achieve social order and stability. (2003) The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues, Studies in Higher Education 28 (4): 413426. The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. Brennan, J., Kogan, M. and Teichler, U. Employability is a promise to employees that they will hold the accomplishments to happen new occupations rapidly if their occupations end out of the blue ( Baruch, 2001 ) . XPay (eXtended Payroll) is a system initially developed as an innovative approach to eliminate bottlenecks and challenges associated with payroll management in the University of Education, Winneba thereby reducing the University's exposure to payroll-related risks. Slider with three articles shown per slide. Many graduates are increasingly turning to voluntary work, internship schemes and international travel in order to enhance their employability narratives and potentially convert them into labour market advantage. The employability and labour market returns of graduates also appears to have a strong international dimension to it, given that different national economies regulate the relationship between HE and labour market entry differently (Teichler, 2007). (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smart, S., Hutchings, M., Maylor, U., Mendick, H. and Menter, I. Harvey, L., Moon, S. and Geall, V. (1997) Graduates Work: Organisational Change and Students Attributes, Birmingham: QHE. The underlying assumption of this view is that the The issue of graduate employability tends to rest within the increasing economisation of HE. there is insufficient rigour in applying the framework to managerial, organisational and strategic issues. Smart et al. What has perhaps been characteristic of more recent policy discourses has been the strong emphasis on harnessing HE's activities to meet changing economic demands. The purpose of this study is to explain the growth and popularity of consensus theory in present day sociology. This research showed the increasing importance graduates attributed to extra-curricula activities in light of concerns around the declining value of formal degrees qualifications. Moreau, M.P. The perspective gained much currency in the mid 20th century in the works of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, for whom . research investigating employability from the employers' perspective has been qualitative in nature. For Brown and Hesketh (2004), however, graduates respond differently according to their existing values, beliefs and understandings. Little (2001) suggests, that it is a multi-dimensional concept, and there is a need to distinguish between the factors relevant to the job and preparation for work. Present study overcomes this issue by introducing a framework that clearly Barrie, S. (2006) Understanding what we mean by generic attributes of graduates, Higher Education 51 (2): 215241. 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. 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Policymakers continue to emphasise the importance of employability skills in order for graduates to be fully equipped in meeting the challenges of an increasingly flexible labour market (DIUS, 2008). Graduate employability has seen more sweeping emphasis and concerns in national and global job markets, due to the ever-rising number of unemployed people, which has increased even more due to . Smetherham, C. (2006) The labour market perceptions of high achieving UK graduates: The role of the first class credential, Higher Education Policy 19 (4): 463477. Boden, R. and Nedeva, M. (2010) Employing discourse: Universities and graduate employability, Journal of Education Policy 25 (1): 3754. These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. In flexible labour markets, such as the United Kingdom this remains high. The paper explores some of the conceptual notions that have informed understandings of graduate employability, and argues for a broader understanding of employability than that offered by policymakers.