Students’ perceptions of education and employability

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to understand how students perceive their future careers and how university has prepared them to enter the global labor market; student perceptions regarding benefits vs associated costs of pursuing higher education (HE) on employability and earnings; and the anticipated barriers and how to overcome these in pursuit of career sustainability within a career ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach -The authors adopted a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews on a small sample of 38 final year students from a UK university who were also participants in an earlier two-wave quantitative survey, which was conducted with 387 penultimate and final year undergraduates from the same UK-based University. Findings -Findings revealed that undergraduates perceive their investment in HE to offer a net financial gain; however, this is narrowing due to increased tuition fees, associated student debt and interest payments eroding earning premiums. As undergraduates progress, they feel more employable from a personal perspective, but less employable from a market perspective due to competition for graduate jobs and the cost/benefit conflict of resources. Practical implications -The authors provide nine opportunities for enhancing the employability of graduates collaborating with graduate employers, providing a timely contribution to the social, political and economic debate on the funding of HE. Originality/value -The authors advance career theory via the new perspective of Career Ecosystem Theory by: explaining student career perceptions in terms of how university has prepared them for the global labor market; exploring the perceived costs vs benefits of pursuing HE in relation to employability; suggesting a two-dimensional model of personal and market factors of employability; providing a model of careers advice from employers and universities for supporting students' careers; and offering policy implications in relation to the future funding of HE and employability of future graduates.

Supporting Employability by a Skills Assessment Innovative Tool—Sustainable Transnational Insights from Employers

“…The overall perception of the employers from the present study confirm that all of the stakeholders may benefit from these results for acontinuous assessment of graduates and undergraduates skills to build strategies for attracting and retaining graduates [58] for a well-qualified labour force.…”

“…Lack of employability skills is one of the problems employers face with graduates or their future employees [58]. Candidates may have the qualifications and hard skills needed to be able to manage the job but, without a well-honed set of soft skills, employers are less inclined to hire.…”

Responsibility of the University in Employability: Development and validation of a measurement scale across five studies

“…Literature suggests that universities are associated with increased employability (Donald, Ashleigh, & Baruch, 2018). However, embedding employability in the core of higher education is still an open issue (Sin & Amaral, 2017).…”

Stakeholder Relationships within Educational Ecosystems – a Literature Review

“…Therefore, the authors constructed a career advised model to show the complexity and interrelations between stakeholders. Furthermore, the authors found out that it is important for the government to work together with organizations in order to address the market requirements and create new jobs (Donald, Ashleigh, & Baruch, 2018).…”