1. The document discusses next steps for improving student employability from a university perspective.
2. It argues for a broader definition of employability that includes social and personal factors beyond just skills.
3. The author notes younger students are less likely to seek career help or pursue internships and many feel it will be difficult to get their desired job, showing need for improved student engagement.
4. Increased partnerships between employers and universities, like expanded work placements, are presented as a way to further develop student employability.
009 laura mac kenzie whatuni student insights day future employability final
1. What’s next for employability:
a campus view
Laura Mackenzie
The Careers Group, University of London
www.thecareersgroup.co.uk
2. Agenda: What’s next for student employability?
1. More than skills
– Re-engagement with the broader scope of ‘employability’
2. Ongoing work on student engagement
– Removing barriers as much as making things attractive
3. More discussion (& measurement) of ‘what counts’
– Outcomes, value-added or ‘learning gain’
4. Increased partnerships between employers and universities
– From micro-placements to global internships via degree apprenticeships
4. Employability v2
• Awareness of options & opportunities
• Skills
• Social capital
• Self-efficacy beliefs
• Attitudes & behaviours
• Emotional maturity & support networks
• Labour market structures
• Economic & geographical
factors
5. An employability spectrum
(Career)
Confidence &
self efficacy
‘Employability’
skills/attributes
Opportunity &
labour market
awareness
Contacts,
connections &
social capital
Experiential
learning:
Work
experience,
internships,
volunteering
Career
management
skills:
Self
awareness,
self
presentation
6. I. Student engagement
• Recent Unite survey of on-campus student attitudes:
– Younger students more positive than older students about accessing careers advice &
internships but ..
– 16-22-year-olds are half as likely as older students to seek help when they are “not yet
sure what career I want” (20% versus 40%).
– Younger students also appear less inclined to accept work placements
– Nearly half of current first year students (46%) believe getting the job they want at the
end of their degree will be either “challenging” or “impossible”. That pessimism has
almost doubled in two years.
• Individual differences still prevail, but trends in relation to level, and mode, of
engagement
• Greater disparity of school-level careers support for university entrants
http://www.unite-students.com/about-us/insightreport
7. RELEVANCE
Is it for people like
me?
EFFICACY
Do I feel confident
I have the actual or
relative ability?
SOCIAL CAPITAL
Can I see pathways
& possibilities?
Narrow focus or
paralysed by choice
Dismiss possible
relevance
Struggle to judge
ability objectively
Walling, M: Career Exploration Model, based on work by Archer, L. & Zecharia, A.
8. Potential barriers
• Lack of future-time perspective –
focus on short-term needs
• Unable to recognise breadth of
options or choice paralysis
• Unsure of relevance – seeking
confidence through peer-
recognition or association
Future-time perspective?
9. Takeaways for engagement:
• Attention-grabbing marketing not enough
– Is it relevant to me?
– Do I feel confident to engage?
– Is it normalised behaviour for my peer group?
• May need extra help to engage in future planning
– Make the learning part of core student experience
– Reinforce the value of exploration even if no future plan
• Recognising the influencers & removing barriers
– Behavioural insights & Nudge theory offer some pointers
– Make it easy to access and normalised for peer group
10. Measuring employability
“A set of attributes – skills, understandings and attitudes – that
enable students and graduates to manage, develop and be
successful in their chosen careers, within the context of
changing global workplaces”
• Learning gain – can we measure evolving career
development learning & employability?
• ‘Careers Registration’ – data tracking from ‘decide’ to
‘compete’
11. For HEIs?
What does ‘employability’
mean in our context?
For students:
How can we support you to
engage in the learning &
development process?
For employers:
How can we make the
partnerships meaningful &
outcomes-focused?
Introductions – self and institution
Member of TCG
Perspective based on leading a large CS for 5 years as well as more recent work designed to increase student engagement with career-development learning
Employability:
What is it, really?
How do we engage students in it?
How do we measure it?
How do we measure institutions on it?
‘Employability’ captures our sense of people being able to:
Understand the world of work & their place in it
Develop a range of skills & attitudes that make them successful in a range of workplaces
Understand their skills & strengths & how to adapt these to different work environments, and present these to employers
Manage their own career and find fulfilment through work/further study
Be able to demonstrate what they have to offer beyond formal qualifications
King’s definition of employability: “A set of attributes – skills, understandings and attitudes – that enable students and graduates to manage, develop and be successful in their chosen careers, within the context of changing global workplaces”
