(2003) The Future of Higher Education, London: HMSO. Career choices tend to be made within specific action frames, or what they refer to as horizons for actions. 229240. However, further significant is the potential degrading of traditional middle-class management-level work through its increasing standardisation and routinisation (Brown et al., 2011). This may further entail experiencing adverse labour market experiences such as unemployment and underemployment. 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. Bowers-Brown, T. and Harvey, L. (2004) Are there too many graduates in the UK? Industry and Higher Education 18 (4): 243254. Bridgstock, R. (2009) The graduate attributes weve overlooked: Enhancing graduate employability through career management skills, Higher Education Research and Development 28 (1): 3144. Argues that even employable people may fail to find jobs because of positional competition in the knowledge-driven economy. Furthermore, HEIs have increasingly become wedded to a range of internal and external market forces, with their activities becoming more attuned to the demands of both employers and the new student consumer (Naidoo and Jamieson, 2005; Marginson, 2007). Moreau, M.P. (2006) showed that students choices towards studying at particular HEIs are likely to reflect subsequent choices. Teichler, U. A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). On the other hand, less optimistic perspectives tend to portray contemporary employment as being both more intensive and precarious (Sennett, 2006). 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! 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. Moreover, in terms of how governments and labour markets may attempt to coordinate and regulate the supply of graduates leaving systems of mass HE. 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. 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.) Employability depends on your knowledge, skills and attitudes, how you use those assets, and how you present them to employers. 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). Instead, they now have greater potential to accumulate a much more extensive portfolio of skills and experiences that they can trade-off at different phases of their career cycle (Arthur and Sullivan, 2006). 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. (1972) Graduates: The Sociology of an Elite, London: Methuen. Wider critiques of skills policy (Wolf, 2007) have tended to challenge naive conceptualisations of skills, bringing into question both their actual relationship to employee practices and the extent to which they are likely to be genuinely demand-led. The functionalism perspective is a paradigm influenced by American sociology from roughly the 1930s to the 1960s, although its origins lay in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the end of the 19th century. [PDF] Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and 02 May 2015 Education is vital in the knowledge economy as the commodity of . Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. 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. (2010) Higher Education Funding for Academic Years 200910 and 201011 Including New Student Entrants, Bristol: HEFCE. In the flexible and competitive UK context, employability also appears to be understood as a positional competition for jobs that are in scarce supply. This study examines these two theories and makes competing predictions about the role of knowledge workers in moderating the . 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. A consensus theory is one which believes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability. The construction of personal employability does not stop at graduation: graduates appear aware of the need for continued lifelong learning and professional development throughout the different phases of their career progression. 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. Moreover, in the context of flexible and competitive globalisation, the highly educated may find themselves forming part of an increasingly disenfranchised new middle class, continually at the mercy of agile, cost-driven flows in skilled labour, and in competition with contemporaries from newly emerging economies. Ainley, P. (1994) Degrees of Difference, London: Lawrence Washart. Well-developed and well-executed employability provisions may not necessarily equate with graduates actual labour market experiences and outcomes. The decline of the established graduate career trajectory has somewhat disrupted the traditional link between HE, graduate credentials and occupational rewards (Ainley, 1994; Brown and Hesketh, 2004). Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). 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. Keynes' theory of employment is a demand-deficient theory. Employability. 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. Smart, S., Hutchings, M., Maylor, U., Mendick, H. and Menter, I. How employable a graduate is, or perceives themselves to be, is derived largely from their self-perception of themselves as a future employee and the types of work-related dispositions they are developing. Knight, P. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education, London: Routledge Falmer. Rather than being insulated from these new challenges, highly educated graduates are likely to be at the sharp end of the increasing intensification of work, and its associated pressures around continual career management. 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. Elias, P. and Purcell, K. (2004) The Earnings of Graduates in Their Early Careers: Researching Graduates Seven Years on. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in 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. Wider structural changes have potentially reinforced positional differences and differential outcomes between graduates, not least those from different class-cultural backgrounds. Rae, D. (2007) Connecting enterprise and graduate employability: Challenges to the higher education curriculum and culture, Education + Training 49 (8/9): 605619. 2003). Crucially, these emerging identities frame the ways they attempt to manage their future employability and position themselves towards anticipated future labour market challenges. Young, M. (2009) Education, globalisation and the voice of knowledge, Journal of Education and Work 22 (3): 193204. (2009) Over-education and the skills of UK graduates, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 172 (2): 307337. Hodkinson, P. and Sparkes, A.C. (1997) Careership: A sociological theory of career decision-making, British Journal of Sociology of Education 18 (1): 2944. The research by Archer et al. 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. 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 relates largely to the ways in which they approach the job market and begin to construct and manage their individual employability, mediated largely through the types of work-related dispositions and identities that they are developing. Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes . 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. Avoid the most common mistakes and prepare your manuscript for journal Slider with three articles shown per slide. editors. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specifically their skill development . Despite the limitations, the model is adopted to evaluate the role of education stakeholders in the Nigerian HE. Learning and employability are clearly supportive constructs but this relationship appears to be under represented and lacks clarity. The global move towards mass HE is resulting in a much wider body of graduates in arguably a crowded graduate labour market. This article attempts to provide a conceptual framework on employability skills of business graduates based on in-depth reviews. By reductio ad absurdum, Keynes demonstrates that the predictions of Classical theory do not accord with the observed response of workers to changes in real wages. In light of HE expansion and the declining value of degree-level qualifications, the ever-anxious middle classes have to embark upon new strategies to achieve positional advantages for securing sought-after employment. Arthur, M. and Sullivan, S.E. The key to accessing desired forms of employment is achieving a positional advantage over other graduates with similar academic and class-cultural profiles. (2011) The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs and Incomes, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar. This will help further elucidate the ways in which graduates employability is played out within the specific context of their working lives, including the various modes of professional development and work-related learning that they are engaged in and the formation of their career profiles. The perspective gained much currency in the mid 20th century in the works of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, for whom . The problem of graduates employability remains a continuing policy priority for higher education (HE) policymakers in many advanced western economies. Englewood Cliffs . In more flexible labour markets such as the United Kingdom, this relationship is far from a straightforward one. It is also considered as both a product (a set of skills that enable) and as a . However, the somewhat uneasy alliance between HE and workplaces is likely to account for mixed and variable outcomes from planned provision (Cranmer, 2006). <>stream Indeed, there appears a need for further research on the overall management of graduate careers over the longer-term course of their careers. and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. 2.1 Theoretical Debate on Employability This section examines the contemporary consensus and conflict theory of employability of graduates (Brown et al. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. Becker, G. (1993) Human Capital: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (3rd edn), Chicago: Chicago University Press. This paper draws largely from UK-based research and analysis, but also relates this to existing research and data at an international level. Graduate Employability has come to mean many different things. This may well confirm emerging perceptions of their own career progression and what they need to do to enhance it. known as "Graduate Employability" (Harvey 2003; Yorke 2006). 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 consensus and the conflict theory on graduate employability . (2006) The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: Examining the physical and psychological mobility, Journal of Vocational Behavior 69 (1): 1929. Cardiff School of Social Sciences Working Paper 118. Findings from previous research on employability from the demand side vary. Hall, P.A. 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). Their location within their respective fields of employment, and the level of support they receive from employers towards developing this, may inevitably have a considerable bearing upon their wider labour market experiences. However, this raises significant issues over the extent to which graduates may be fully utilising their existing skills and credentials, and the extent to which they may be over-educated for many jobs that traditionally did not demand graduate-level qualifications. % There are many different lists of cardinal accomplishments . Dearing, R. (1997) The Dearing Report: Report for the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education: Higher Education in the Learning Society, London: HMSO. (2010) Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education (The Browne Review), London: HMSO. 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. (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage, London: Routledge. In some parts of Europe, graduates frame their employability more around the extent to which they can fulfil the specific occupational criteria based on specialist training and knowledge. The end of work and its commentators, The Sociological Review 55 (1): 81103. (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. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, You can also search for this author in 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). 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. Conflict theory in sociology. 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. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. The consensus theory of employment and the conflict theory of employment present contradictory implications about highly skilled workers' opportunity cost for pursuing entrepreneurial activities in the knowledge economy. Employability skills include the soft skills that allow you to work well with others, apply knowledge to solve problems, and to fit into any work environment. An expanded HE system has led to a stratified and differentiated one, and not all graduates may be able to exploit the benefits of participating in HE. The problem has been largely attributable to universities focusing too rigidly on academically orientated provision and pedagogy, and not enough on applied learning and functional skills. A more specific set of issues have arisen concerning the types of individuals organisations want to recruit, and the extent to which HEIs can serve to produce them. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. This is most associated with functionalism. In the context of a knowledge economy, consensus theory advocates that knowledge, skills and innovation are the driving factors of our society. Expands the latter into positional conflict theory, which explains how the market for credentials is rigged and how individuals are ranked in it. 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. Hassard, J., McCann, L. and Morris, J.L. 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. The purpose of this study is to explain the growth and popularity of consensus theory in present day sociology. 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. 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. However despite there being different concepts to analyse the make up of "employability", the consensus of these is that there are three key qualities when assessing the employability of graduates: These . Kupfer, A. 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. 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'. 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. 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. Relatively high levels of personal investment are required to enhance one's employment profile and credentials, and to ensure that a return is made on one's investment in study. Much of this is likely to rest on graduates overall staying power, self-efficacy and tolerance to potentially destabilising experiences, be that as entrepreneurs, managers or researchers. Consensus theories generally see crime as unusual, dysfunctional and believe something has 'gone wrong' for the people who commit crime. The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. In effect, market rules dominate. (2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. It is clear that more coordinated occupational labour markets such as those found in continental Europe (e.g., Germany, Holland and France) tend to have a stronger level of coupling between individuals level of education and their allocation to specific types of jobs (Hansen, 2011). Smart et al. Structural functionalists believe that society tends towards equilibrium and social order. (2003) and Reay et al. The more recent policy in the United Kingdom towards raising fee levels has coincided with an economic downturn, generating concerns over the value and returns of a university degree. If we were to consider the same scenario mentioned above, conflict theorists would approach it much more differently. Greenbank, P. (2007) Higher education and the graduate labour market: The Class Factor, Tertiary Education and Management 13 (4): 365376. Traditionally, linkages between the knowledge and skills produced through universities and those necessitated by employers have tended to be quite flexible and open-ended. Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). 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). 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. Positional differences and differential outcomes between graduates, not least those from different class-cultural.! 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Use those assets, and how you present them to employers, H. and Menter, I constructs but relationship... Likely to reflect subsequent choices of this study is to explain the and! ; there can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of employable! Knowledge-Driven economy markets such as unemployment and underemployment examines the contemporary consensus and conflict..., S., Hutchings, M. ( 2006 ) showed that students choices towards at! Well confirm emerging perceptions of their own career progression and what they refer to as horizons for.... That students choices towards studying at particular HEIs are likely to reflect choices! Clearly supportive constructs but this relationship is far from a straightforward one consensus and the market! Variations in graduates labour market outcomes tend to be quite flexible and open-ended Future employability and position towards...
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