Does university prepare students for employment? Alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria

Abstract

One of the primary goals of tertiary education is to prepare students for employment. There is debate as to whether university courses adequately provide students with 21st century workplace skills (Kaminski, Switzer, & Gloeckner, 2009; Kivunja, 2014). In a rapidly changing workforce, institutions must constantly adapt to maintain the practical utility of their courses. A thematic analysis was conducted to explore the degree of alignment between graduate attributes, accreditation requirements and industry employability criteria in nursing, psychology and education courses at an Australian University. Graduate attributes were obtained from the Course Approval and Management System. Relevant accreditation requirements were sourced from the respective bodies. A search of advertised job positions for the three discipline fields was conducted from a popular job-search engine (SEEK) to ascertain employability criteria. This analysis identified clear alignment between the university’s graduate attributes and the standards articulated by accreditation bodies for psychology, nursing and education. However, there were differences between graduate attributes and the employability criteria identified by job searches across the three disciplines. Analysis of the employability criteria suggest that employers seek and prioritise graduates who possess practical competencies and 21st century skills such as problem solving and communication. However, there was little to no mention of cultural understandings and attitudes towards inclusion and diversity, both a core graduate attribute and an aspect of professional accreditation. The findings of this study may inform the development of future graduate attributes that better reflect preparedness for the workforce. Alternatively, a reflection on graduate attributes and professional accreditation criteria might produce job advertisements that better reflect work contexts in an increasingly diverse society.

Transitioning from University to Working Life: A Comparison of Business Graduates’ Perceptions of Skills before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…For instance, it was found that non-IT skills such as listening, interpersonal, and verbal communication were important for graduates' employability [45] and soft skills are important for accounting students' employability [8]. Employers prioritized graduates who possess skills such as problem solving and communication [36]. Communication, listening, and interpersonal skills were also recognized by managers as highly desired skills for business graduates in the banking industry [31] and graduates of management sciences [29].…”

“…Similarly, from the employers' perspectives, importance of soft skills was found to be important when recruiting business graduates [29]. Finally, studies on the employers' views of how well university graduates are prepared for the workplace as well as the alignment between university graduate attributes and accreditation requirements have been widely explored [20,31,34,35,36]. Therefore, the first hypothesis states that:…”

Graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Australian example.

“…The current emphasis on skills development to enhance graduate employability by institutions is suggested by Clark et al (2011) and Jackson (2016) as being too narrow and insufficient to capture the full complexity of the task of preparing students to be purpose focussed in their working life. Many institutions have utilised the professional placement (internship or work placement) to provide students with the opportunity to develop their professional purpose toolkit as a key purpose to their graduate attributes (Rowe & Zegward, 2017;Oraison et al, 2019). This has enabled graduates the opportunity to mature their professional networks, understand their self and social awareness in relation to their chosen discipline, and provide insight into navigating their professional environment -opportunities that are difficult to replicate in a classroom (Bates et al, 2019;Moore & Morton, 2017).…”

Employability tautological trauma

“…Jollands et al (2015) found that maintaining partnerships with professional associations strengthened employability. Universities that boast high graduate employment rates focus on industry links and career development, and maintain ties with industry accrediting bodies, as the market increasingly favours industry-specific certifications, especially in the technical and financial arena (Oraison et al , 2019). Engaging Academics with industry experience to strengthen industry ties was evidenced in the findings of Rees (2019) as well as Santos (2020) and Belwal et al (2017).…”