Finnish University Students Constructing Their Ideal Employable Identities: A Case Study of Top Performing Experts

Abstract

The society has a great impact on defining what is a successful employable identity. This means that the construction of employable identity has become crucial to pursuing opportunities in the competitive labour market. In this article, employability is seen as a process where Finnish university students play out an identity project and construct their future-oriented employability. By applying narrative thematical analysis, the study shows that students constructed an ideal employable identity, designated as a Top Performing Expert. The process of constructing this identity contained three phases: 1. employability as a long-term goal, 2. constructing employability in a specific field, and 3. harnessing personality to strengthen employability. The authors suggest that identity process requires each individual’s own activity and problem-solving.