As Teichler (1999) points out, the increasing alignment of universities to the labour market in part reflects continued pressures to develop forms of innovation that will add value to the economy, be that through research or graduates. 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. 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). (2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. known as "Graduate Employability" (Harvey 2003; Yorke 2006). Skills formally taught and acquired during university do not necessarily translate into skills utilised in graduate employment. Such changes have inevitably led to questions over HE's role in meeting the needs of both the wider labour market and graduates, concerns that have largely emanated from the corporate world (Morley and Aynsley, 2007; Boden and Nedeva, 2010). Chapter 2 is to refute the Classical theory of employment and unemployment on both empirical and logical grounds. Morley (2001) however states that employability . Graduate employability is a multifaceted concept considering the Sustainable Development Goals. 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. Research has tended to reveal a mixed picture on graduates and their position in the labour market (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Elias and Purcell, 2004; Green and Zhu, 2010). Historically, the majority of employability research and practice pertained to vocational rehabilitation or to the attractiveness and selection of job candidates. While some graduates have acquired and drawn upon specialised skill-sets, many have undertaken employment pathways that are only tangential to what they have studied. Perhaps more positively, there is evidence that employers place value on a wider range of softer skills, including graduates values, social awareness and generic intellectuality dispositions that can be nurtured within HE and further developed in the workplace (Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011). Recent comparative evidence seems to support this and points to significant differences between graduates in different national settings (Brennan and Tang, 2008; Little and Archer, 2010). (2011) Towards a theoretical framework for the comparative understanding of globalisation, higher education, the labour market and inequality, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 185207. This tends to be mediated by a range of contextual variables in the labour market, not least graduates relations with significant others in the field and the specific dynamics inhered in different forms of employment. 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. This changing context is likely to form a significant frame of reference through which graduates understand the relationship between their participation in HE and their wider labour market futures. (2009) Over-education and the skills of UK graduates, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 172 (2): 307337. Bridgstock, R. (2009) The graduate attributes weve overlooked: Enhancing graduate employability through career management skills, Higher Education Research and Development 28 (1): 3144. In contrast to conflict theories, consensus theories are those that see people in society as having shared interests and society functioning on the basis of there being broad consensus on its norms and values. These changes have had a number of effects. This again is reflected in graduates anticipated link between their participation in HE and specific forms of employment. 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 relation to the more specific graduate attributes agenda, Barrie (2006) has called for a much more fine-grained conceptualisation of attributes and the potential work-related outcomes they may engender. 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 . The underlying assumption of this view is that the The study explores differences in the implicit employability theories of those involved in developing employability (educators) and those selecting and recruiting higher education (HE) students and graduates (employers). The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. Morley (2001) however states that employability is not just about . (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. These risks include wrong payments to staff due to delay in flow of information in relation to staff retirement, death, transfers . It is also considered as both a product (a set of skills that enable) and as a . volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. (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 consensus theory is one which believes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability. 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. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the department had reached a "low confidence" conclusion supporting the so-called lab leak theory in a classified finding shared with the White . Employment in Academia: To What Extent Are Recent Doctoral Graduates of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada? 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. What such research has shown is that the wider cultural features of graduates frame their self-perceptions, and which can then be reinforced through their interactions within the wider employment context. . Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). 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. 2003) and attempts to seek integrate them by formulating a model of explanatory form together with the existing empirical literature. What this has shown is that graduates see the link between participation in HE and future returns to have been disrupted through mass HE. The shift to wards a knowledge econo my where k nowledge workers As HE's role for regulating future professional talent becomes reshaped, questions prevail over whose responsibility it is for managing graduates transitions and employment outcomes: universities, states, employers or individual graduates themselves? 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 theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. Careerist students, for instance, were clearly imaging themselves around their future labour market goals and embarking upon strategies in order to maximise their future employment outcomes and enhance their perceived employability. Driven largely by sets of identities and dispositions, graduates relationship with the labour market is both a personal and active one. Research into university graduates perceptions of the labour market illustrates that they are increasingly adopting individualised discourses (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Tomlinson, 2007; Taylor and Pick, 2008) around their future employment. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specically their skill development (Selvadurai et al.2012). 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. Throughout, the paper explores some of the dominant conceptual themes informing discussion and research on graduate employability, in particular human capital, skills, social reproduction, positional conflict and identity. Fevre, R. (2007) Employment insecurity and social theory: The power of nightmares, Work, Employment and Society 21 (3): 517535. Tomlinson, M. (2007) Graduate employability and student attitudes and orientations to the labour market, Journal of Education and Work 20 (4): 285304. Intentionally avoiding the term employability (because of a lack of consensus on the specific meaning and measurement of this concept), they instead define movement capital as: 'skills, knowledge, competencies and attitudes influencing an individual's career mobility opportunities' (p. 742). Furthermore, this relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding employment. Keynes' theory of employment is a demand-deficient theory. Little and Arthur's research shows similar patterns among European graduates, there are generally higher levels of graduate satisfaction with HE as a preparation for future employment, as well as much closer matching up between graduates credentials and the requirements of jobs. A range of other research has also exposed the variability within and between graduates in different national contexts (Edvardsson Stiwne and Alves, 2010; Puhakka et al., 2010). Graduate employability and skills development are also significant determinants for future career success. This tends to be reflected in the perception among graduates that, while graduating from HE facilitates access to desired employment, it also increasingly has a limited role (Tomlinson, 2007; Brooks and Everett, 2009; Little and Archer, 2010). In effect, individuals can no longer rely on their existing educational and labour market profiles for shaping their longer-term career progression. 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). Consensus Theory. Mass HE may therefore be perpetuating the types of structural inequalities it was intended to alleviate. It appears that students and graduates reflect upon their relationship with the labour market and what they might need to achieve their goals. Debates on the future of work tend towards either the utopian or dystopian (Leadbetter, 2000; Sennett, 2006; Fevre, 2007). 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). Savage, M. (2003) A new class paradigm? British Journal of Sociology of Education 24 (4): 535541. They also include the professional skills that enable you to be successful in the workplace. 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). 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. Personal characteristics, habits, and attitudes influence how you interact with others. Kirton, G. (2009) Career plans and aspirations of recent black and minority ethnic business graduates, Work, Employment and Society 23 (1): 1229. Expands the latter into positional conflict theory, which explains how the market for credentials is rigged and how individuals are ranked in it. European-wide secondary data also confirms such patterns, as reflected in variable cross-national graduate returns (Eurostat, 2009). Understanding both of these theories can help us to better understand the complexities of society and the various factors that shape social relationships and institutions. Ideally, graduates would be able to possess both the hard currencies in the form of traditional academic qualifications together with soft currencies in the form of cultural and interpersonal qualities. %PDF-1.7 These concerns seem to be percolating down to graduates perceptions and strategies for adapting to the new positional competition. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output and inflation . Various analysis of graduate returns (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Green and Zhu, 2010) have highlighted the significant disparities that exist among graduates; in particular, some marked differences between the highest graduate earners and the rest. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. What this research has shown is that graduates anticipate the labour market to engender high risks and uncertainties (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Tomlinson, 2007) and are managing their expectations accordingly. 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. Again, there appears to be little uniformity in the way these graduates attempt to manage their employability, as this is often tied to a range of ongoing life circumstances and goals some of which might be more geared to the job market than others. This is most associated with functionalism. A Social Cognitive Theory. 229240. They see society like a human body, where key institutions work like the body's organs to keep the society/body healthy and well.Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general moral values of their society. 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. For much of the past decade, governments have shown a commitment towards increasing the supply of graduates entering the economy, based on the technocratic principle that economic changes necessitates a more highly educated and flexible workforce (DFES, 2003) This rationale is largely predicated on increased economic demand for higher qualified individuals resulting from occupational changes, and whereby the majority of new job growth areas are at graduate level. It also introduces 'positional conflict theory' as a way of The purpose of this article is to show that the way employability is typically defined in official statements is seriously flawed because it ignores what will be called the 'duality of employability'. Collins, R. (2000) Comparative and Historical Patterns of Education, in M. Hallinan (ed.) According to conflict theory, employability represents an attempt to legitimate unequal opportunities in education, labour market at a time of growing income inequalities. (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. This article attempts to provide a conceptual framework on employability skills of business graduates based on in-depth reviews. Ainley, P. (1994) Degrees of Difference, London: Lawrence Washart. 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. Less positively, their research exposed gender disparities gap in both pay and the types of occupations graduates work within. In section 6, an holistic framework for under- 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. (1972) Graduates: The Sociology of an Elite, London: Methuen. 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. (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? 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. In sociology, consensus theory is a theory that views consensus as a key distinguishing feature of a group of people or society. As a wider policy narrative, employability maps onto some significant concerns about the shifting interplays between universities, economy and state. Employers and Universities: Conceptual Dimensions, Research Evidence and Implications, Reconceptualising employability of returnees: what really matters and strategic navigating approaches, Relations between graduates learning experiences and employment outcomes: a cautionary note for institutional performance indicators, The Effects of a Masters Degree on Wage and Job Satisfaction in Massified Higher Education: The Case of South Korea. Far from neutralising such pre-existing choices, these students university experiences often confirmed their existing class-cultural profiles, informing their ongoing student and graduate identities and feeding into their subsequent labour market orientations. Prior to this, Harvey ( 2001 ) has defined employability in assorted ways from single and institutional positions. The downside of consensus theory is that it can be less dynamic and more static, which can lead to stagnation. This agenda is likely to gain continued momentum with the increasing costs of studying in HE and the desire among graduates to acquire more vocationally relevant skills to better equip them for the job market. The paper considers the wider context of higher education (HE) and labour market change, and the policy thinking towards graduate employability. (2010) Overqualifcation, job satisfaction, and increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education, Oxford Economic Papers 62 (4): 740763. Consensus is the collective agreement of individuals. If the occupational structure does not become sufficiently upgraded to accommodate the continued supply of graduates, then mismatches between graduates level of education and the demands of their jobs may ensue. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Applying a broad concept of 'employability' as an analytical framework, it considers the attributes and experiences of 190 job seekers (22% of the registered unemployed) in two contiguous travel-to-work areas (Wick and Sutherland) in the northern Highlands of Scotland. Overall, consensus theory is a useful perspective for understanding the role of crime in society and the ways in which it serves as a means of defining and enforcing social norms and values. Young, M. (2009) Education, globalisation and the voice of knowledge, Journal of Education and Work 22 (3): 193204. the focus of many studies but it's difficult to find consensus due to different learning models and approaches considered. As Little and Archer (2010) argue, the relative looseness in the relationship between HE and the labour market has traditionally not presented problems for either graduates or employers, particularly in more flexible economies such as the United Kingdom. Lessons from a comparative survey, European Journal of Education 42 (1): 1134. In countries where training routes are less demarcated (for instance those with mass HE systems), these differences are less pronounced. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. Research by Tomlinson (2007) has shown that some students on the point of transiting to employment are significantly more orientated towards the labour market than others. Brooks, R. and Everett, G. (2009) Post-graduate reflections on the value of a degree, British Educational Research Journal 35 (3): 333349. research investigating employability from the employers' perspective has been qualitative in nature. Brennan, J., Kogan, M. and Teichler, U. 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). However, these three inter-linkages have become increasingly problematic, not least through continued challenges to the value and legitimacy of professional knowledge and the credentials that have traditionally formed its bedrock (Young, 2009). Reducing the system/structure down to the graduate labour market, there are parallels between Archer's work and consensus theory (Brown et al. The concerns that have been well documented within the non-graduate youth labour market (Roberts, 2009) are also clearly resonating with the highly qualified. Ball, S.J. Harvey, L., Moon, S. and Geall, V. (1997) Graduates Work: Organisational Change and Students Attributes, Birmingham: QHE. 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. New class paradigm for England ( HEFCE ) in flow of highly qualified people..., this relationship was marked by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their.! And Work 22 ( 1 ): 1134 ) and attempts to provide a conceptual on!: to what Extent are Recent Doctoral graduates of Various Fields of Study Permanent... Society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability ), these differences are less (... 2001 ) however states that employability is a multifaceted concept considering the Sustainable Goals... Together to maintain social cohesion and stability new positional competition by sets of identities dispositions... 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