Re-conceptualising graduate employability: the importance of pre-professional identity

Abstract

Despite efforts to broaden the concept of graduate employability, there remains an overarching focus on developing industry-relevant employability skills. The skills-based approach is, however, too narrow and does not fully capture the complexity of graduate workreadiness. This paper argues for the redefining of graduate employability by embracing preprofessional identity formation. Pre-professional identity relates to an understanding of and connection with the skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of a student's intended profession. The 'communities of practice' model is drawn upon to demonstrate how preprofessional identity can be developed during university years. Here, a student makes sense of his/her intended profession through multiple memberships and differing levels of engagement with various communities within higher education's 'landscape of practice'. Example communities include professional associations, student societies, careers services and employers. Implications for stakeholders are discussed.

Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM)

“…On the other hand, the way of working at UOC could be different to that of other open universities. Moreover, this questionnaire was aimed to find out several e-learning and employability skills' latent variables in alumni, but future research on the pre-professional identity of graduates must also be conducted for employability estimations [227].…”

Does it do what it says on the tin? – Evaluation of an established UK University Employability Enhancement Award.

“…It is also possible that the award scheme may encourage a shift in graduate identity which is then confirmed and recognised by the granting of an award by the university, thus enabling the student to more confidently approach an 'agreed identity' as explicated in Holmes, 2013, or, as proposed earlier, it may contribute to a graduate's pre-professional identity (Jackson, 2016). As Tomlinson (2012) notes, how employable a graduate is tends to be subjective and can be dependent on their perception of themselves in relation to the world of work.…”

“…This complex cognitive process may be difficult to measure, thus we find non-significant quantitative results alongside clear differences in qualitative data. The description of a process, in terms of how award students describe themselves and their ability to learn and grow, may also link to the graduate identity approach to employability as advocated by Holmes (2001) or perhaps the award may be considered as a contributing community of practice in Jackson's (2016) pre-professional identity model.…”

Graduate Employment among Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria

“…It can also consist of an individual's propensity to gain and maintain employment, and be effective in the workplace to the benefit of themselves, their employer, and the broader economy (Wilton, 2011). Employability is conceptualized as the skills and personal attributes considered important by industry and needed by graduates in order to secure employment (Holmes, 2013;Jackson, 2016). The expression employability is often used interchangeably with the notion of work readiness (Rowe & Zegwaard, 2017).…”