What’s next for employability: a campus view

Laura Mackenzie The Careers Group, University of London

www.thecareersgroup.co.uk

Agenda: What’s next for student employability? 1. More than skills

– Re-engagement with the broader scope of ‘employability’

2. Ongoing work on student engagement – Removing barriers as much as making things attractive

3. More discussion (& measurement) of ‘what counts’ – Outcomes, value-added or ‘learning gain’

4. Increased partnerships between employers and universities – From micro-placements to global internships via degree

apprenticeships

Employability

Employability v2

• Awareness of options & opportunities

• Skills • Social capital • Self-efficacy beliefs • Attitudes & behaviours• Emotional maturity & support

networks

• Labour market structures • Economic & geographical

factors

An employability spectrum

(Career) Confidence

& self efficacy

‘Employability’

skills/attributes

Opportunity & labour market

awareness

Contacts, connections

& social capital

Experiential learning:

Work experience, internships, volunteerin

g

Career managemen

t skills: Self

awareness, self

presentation

I. Student engagement • Recent Unite survey of on-campus student attitudes:

– Younger students more positive than older students about accessing careers advice & internships but ..

– 16-22-year-olds are half as likely as older students to seek help when they are “not yet sure what career I want” (20% versus 40%).

– Younger students also appear less inclined to accept work placements – Nearly half of current first year students (46%) believe getting the job they want

at the end of their degree will be either “challenging” or “impossible”. That pessimism has almost doubled in two years.

• Individual differences still prevail, but trends in relation to level, and mode, of engagement

• Greater disparity of school-level careers support for university entrants http://www.unite-students.com/about-us/insightreport

RELEVANCEIs it for people like

me?

EFFICACYDo I feel

confident I have the actual or

relative ability?

SOCIAL CAPITALCan I see

pathways & possibilities?

Narrow focus or paralysed by

choice Dismiss possible relevance

Struggle to judge ability objectively

Walling, M: Career Exploration Model, based on work by Archer, L. & Zecharia, A.

Potential barriers• Lack of future-time

perspective – focus on short-term needs

• Unable to recognise breadth of options or choice paralysis

• Unsure of relevance – seeking confidence through peer-recognition or association

Future-time perspective?

Takeaways for engagement:

• Attention-grabbing marketing not enough – Is it relevant to me? – Do I feel confident to engage? – Is it normalised behaviour for my peer group?

• May need extra help to engage in future planning – Make the learning part of core student experience – Reinforce the value of exploration even if no future plan

• Recognising the influencers & removing barriers – Behavioural insights & Nudge theory offer some pointers – Make it easy to access and normalised for peer group

Measuring employability “A set of attributes – skills, understandings and attitudes

– that enable students and graduates to manage, develop and be successful in their chosen careers, within

the context of changing global workplaces”

• Learning gain – can we measure evolving career development learning & employability?

• ‘Careers Registration’ – data tracking from ‘decide’ to ‘compete’

For HEIs? What does ‘employability’

mean in our context?

For students:How can we support you to engage in the learning & development process?

For employers:How can we make the

partnerships meaningful & outcomes-focused?

The Careers Group believes that all information provided in this publication is correct at the time of publication.

April 2016© The Careers Group, University of London

Contact: Laura.mackenzie@careers.lon.ac.uk

www.thecareersgroup.co.uk