Do employability skills really matter in the UK graduate labour market? The case of business and management graduates

Abstract

Two dominant rationales are offered by UK policymakers for the continued expansion of higher education: to service the high-skill labour requirements of a knowledge economy, and to increase educational and employment opportunities for under-represented groups. The discourse of employability connects these two rationales in a simplistic manner. Individual employability is described as both the means by which to obtain and maintain high-quality employment and to eradicate the social reproduction of inequality. However, evidence drawn from a survey of graduate careers suggests that for a cohort of recent business and management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is far from straightforward. The data suggest that traditional labour market disadvantage still appears to be an impediment to achievement, regardless of the extent to which graduates develop employability skills during their undergraduate studies.

Student Perceptions of the Importance of Employability Skill Provision in Business Undergraduate Programs

“…The plethora of employer statements on what they need in graduates, and to which curricula and pedagogy are being constructively aligned, may not in fact be reflected in their recruitment and selection practices (Tymon, 2011). Essentially, students and higher education may be engaging with industry's skills agenda yet other factors -such as the awarding institution's reputation (Wilton, 2011) -may influence selection more than a candidate's own attention to employability and documented skills repertoire. This study's evidence of a strong desire for employability skill development offers promise to employers that future graduates will engage with the employability agenda yet may not necessarily narrow gaps between industry expectations and graduate outcomes.…”

“…Evidence from Wilton (2011) suggests that although the newer universities emphasise employability skills provision, their graduate's employment prospects are actually worse than traditional universities. The lack of substantive empirical evidence of the benefits of skill development in higher education, in terms of improved graduate employment prospects, is problematic yet often attributed to inappropriate measures.…”

“…Employability skills typically considered important in developed economies are team working, communication, self-management, and analysis and critical thinking (Business, Industry and Higher Education Collaboration Council (BIHECC), 2007;Lowden, Hall, Elliot & Lewin, 2011). Governments and employers across developed economies increasingly call for higher education providers to prepare graduates for the workplace (Confederation of British Industry (CBI), 2010; Wilton, 2011). Universities have duly responded with considerable efforts on clarifying which employability skills are most required in undergraduates and, more recently, identifying ways of successfully embedding, developing, and assessing these skills in higher education.…”

The impact of university students’ commitment on in- and extra-role performance

“…In some circumstances, for example with business degrees, employment prospects are a key reason for students when choosing their degree subject (Jackson, 2009). Indeed it is hard to decide whether the rise in the number of vocational degrees seen in the last three decades (Wilton, 2011) is a driver or consequence of this instrumentalism. There are those who believe that these changes are not necessarily good, that vocational subjects are over-emphasized and that they threaten academic freedom and curiosity driven learning (Bowers-Brown & Harvey, 2004;Kreber, 2006;Moreau & Leathwood, 2006).…”

Programme recruitment and evaluation: the effect of an employability enhancement programme on the general self-efficacy levels of unemployed graduates

“…In the last thirty years the expansion of the UK HE system has transformed the graduate labour market from being relatively small in scale and homogenous (generally involving large company graduate schemes and the public sector); to large in size and diverse in occupational opportunities (Wilton, 2011). This has led to a graduate labour market in which subject-specific skills are no longer enough to secure employment, and where personal attributes are directly related to the employability of individual graduates (Harvey and Howard, 1999).…”