For some graduates, HE continues to be a clear route towards traditional middle-class employment and lifestyle; yet for others it may amount to little more than an opportunity cost. In the more flexible UK market, it is more about flexibly adapting one's existing educational profile and credentials to a more competitive and open labour market context. Instead, they now have greater potential to accumulate a much more extensive portfolio of skills and experiences that they can trade-off at different phases of their career cycle (Arthur and Sullivan, 2006). Brooks, R. and Everett, G. (2009) Post-graduate reflections on the value of a degree, British Educational Research Journal 35 (3): 333349. Employable individuals are able to demonstrate a fundamental level of functioning or skill to perform a given job, or an employable individual's skills and experience . Historically, the majority of employability research and practice pertained to vocational rehabilitation or to the attractiveness and selection of job candidates. Sennett, R. (2006) The Culture of New Capitalism, Yale: Yale University Press. Players are adept at responding to such competition, embarking upon strategies that will enable them to acquire and present the types of employability narratives that employers demand. It will further show that while common trends are evident across national context, the HElabour market relationship is also subject to national variability. For graduates, the process of realising labour market goals, of becoming a legitimate and valued employee, is a continual negotiation and involves continual identity work. (2003) The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues, Studies in Higher Education 28 (4): 413426. Various stakeholders involved in HE be they policymakers, employers and paying students all appear to be demanding clear and tangible outcomes in response to increasing economic stakes. Using Bourdieusian concepts of capital and field to outline the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market, Kupfer (2011) highlights the continued preponderance of structural and cultural inequalities through the existence of layered HE and labour market structures, operating in differentiated fields of power and resources. Teichler, U. Advancement in technological innovation requires the application of technical skills and knowledge; thus, attracting and retaining talented knowledge workers have become crucial for incumbent firms . Little, B. 2.2.2 Consensus Theory of Employability The consensus view of employability is rooted in a particular world-view which resonates with many of the core tenets of neo-liberalism. However, there are concerns that the shift towards mass HE and, more recently, more whole-scale market-driven reforms may be intensifying class-cultural divisions in both access to specific forms of HE experience and subsequent economic outcomes in the labour market (Reay et al., 2006; Strathdee, 2011). The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. Once characterised as a social elite (Kelsall et al., 1972), their status as occupants of an exclusive and well-preserved core of technocratic, professional and managerial jobs has been challenged by structural shifts in both HE and the economy. Marginson, S. (2007) University mission and identity for a post-public era, Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 117131. What this research has shown is that graduates anticipate the labour market to engender high risks and uncertainties (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Tomlinson, 2007) and are managing their expectations accordingly. They nevertheless remain committed to HE as a key economic driver, although with a new emphasis on further rationalising the system through cutting-back university services, stricter prioritisation of funding allocation and higher levels of student financial contribution towards HE through the lifting of the threshold of university fee contribution (DFE, 2010). Moreover, they will be more productive, have higher earning potential and be able to access a range of labour market goods including better working conditions, higher status and more fulfilling work. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. Learning and employability are clearly supportive constructs but this relationship appears to be under represented and lacks clarity. Employability skills include the soft skills that allow you to work well with others, apply knowledge to solve problems, and to fit into any work environment. As Clarke (2008) illustrates, the employability discourse reflects the increasing onus on individual employees to continually build up their repositories of knowledge and skills in an era when their career progression is less anchored around single organisations and specific job types. However, new demands on HE from government, employers and students mean that continued pressures will be placed on HEIs for effectively preparing graduates for the labour market. Power and Whitty's research shows that graduates who experienced more elite earlier forms of education, and then attendance at prestigious universities, tend to occupy high-earning and high-reward occupations. These concerns have been given renewed focus in the current climate of wider labour market uncertainty. Morley, L. and Aynsley, S. (2007) Employers, quality and standards in higher education: Shared values and vocabularies or elitism and inequalities? Higher Education Quarterly 61 (3): 229249. (2003) and Reay et al. What this has shown is that graduates see the link between participation in HE and future returns to have been disrupted through mass HE. This article attempts to provide a conceptual framework on employability skills of business graduates based on in-depth reviews. Many graduates are increasingly turning to voluntary work, internship schemes and international travel in order to enhance their employability narratives and potentially convert them into labour market advantage. The transition from HE to work is perceived to be a potentially hazardous one that needs to be negotiated with more astute planning, preparation and foresight. Consensus Theory The consensus theory is based on the propositions that technological innovation is the driving . (2011) Towards a theoretical framework for the comparative understanding of globalisation, higher education, the labour market and inequality, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 185207. Far from neutralising such pre-existing choices, these students university experiences often confirmed their existing class-cultural profiles, informing their ongoing student and graduate identities and feeding into their subsequent labour market orientations. Needless to say, critics of supply-side and skills-centred approaches have challenged the somewhat simplistic, descriptive and under-contextualised accounts of graduate skills. The purpose of this study is to explain the growth and popularity of consensus theory in present day sociology. Moreover, individual graduates may need to reflexively align themselves to the new challenges of labour market, from which they can make appropriate decisions around their future career development and their general life courses. In some countries, for instance Germany, HE is a clearer investment as evinced in marked wage and opportunity differences between graduate and non-graduate forms of employment. Graduates in different occupations were shown to be drawing upon particular graduate skill-sets, be that occupation-specific expertise, managerial decision-making skills, and interactive, communication-based competences. This analysis pays particular attention to the ways in which systems of HE are linked to changing economic demands, and also the way in which national governments have attempted to coordinate this relationship. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. A range of key factors seem to determine graduates access to different returns in the labour market that are linked to the specific profile of the graduate. Mass HE may therefore be perpetuating the types of structural inequalities it was intended to alleviate. The relatively stable and coherent employment narratives that individuals traditionally enjoyed have given way to more fractured and uncertain employment futures brought about by the intensity and inherent precariousness of the new short-term, transactional capitalism (Strangleman, 2007). Employability is a promise to employees that they will hold the accomplishments to happen new occupations rapidly if their occupations end out of the blue ( Baruch, 2001 ) . Keynesian economics is an economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output and inflation . It appears that the wider educational profile of the graduate is likely to have a significant bearing on their future labour market outcomes. Non-traditional graduates or new recruits to the middle classes may be less skilled at reading the changing demands of employers (Savage, 2003; Reay et al., 2006). Traditionally, linkages between the knowledge and skills produced through universities and those necessitated by employers have tended to be quite flexible and open-ended. The more recent policy in the United Kingdom towards raising fee levels has coincided with an economic downturn, generating concerns over the value and returns of a university degree. Value consensus assumes that the norms and values of society are generally agreed and that social life is based on co-operation rather than conflict. X@vFuyfDdf(^vIm%h>IX, OIDq8 - The consensus theory of employment and the conflict theory of employment present contradictory implications about highly skilled workers' opportunity cost for pursuing entrepreneurial activities in the knowledge economy. According to Keynes, the volume of employment in a country depends on the level of effective demand of the people for goods and services. This is particularly evident among the bottom-earning graduates who, as Green and Zhu show, do not necessarily attain better longer-term earnings than non-graduates. Tomlinson's research also highlighted the propensity towards discourses of self-responsibilisation by students making the transitions to work. Maria Eliophotou Menon, Eleftheria Argyropoulou & Andreas Stylianou, Ly Thi Tran, Nga Thi Hang Ngo, Tien Thi Hanh Ho, David Walters, David Zarifa & Brittany Etmanski, Jason L. Brown, Sara J. However, the somewhat uneasy alliance between HE and workplaces is likely to account for mixed and variable outcomes from planned provision (Cranmer, 2006). This clearly implies that graduates expect their employability management to be an ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers. Brown, Hesketh and Williams (2002) concur that the . (2007) Round and round the houses: The Leitch review of skills, Local Economy 22 (2): 111117. In some parts of Europe, graduates frame their employability more around the extent to which they can fulfil the specific occupational criteria based on specialist training and knowledge. The social cognitive career theory (SCTT), based on Bandura's (2002) General social cognitive theory, suggests that self-perceived employability affects an individual's career interest and behavior, and that self-perceived employability is a determinant of an individual's ability to find a job (lvarez-Gonzlez et al., 2017). They construct their individual employability in a relative and subjective manner. Kelsall, R.K., Poole, A. and Kuhn, A. Personal characteristics, habits, and attitudes influence how you interact with others. x[[s~_1o:GC$rvFvuVJR+9E 4IV[uJUCF_nRj What such research shows is that young graduates entering the labour market are acutely aware of the need to embark on strategies that will provide them with a positional gain in the competition for jobs. Summary. Arthur, M. and Sullivan, S.E. Employability also encompasses significant equity issues. Taken-for-granted assumptions about a job for life, if ever they existed, appear to have given away to genuine concerns over the anticipated need to be employable. Strathdee, R. (2011) Educational reform, inequality and the structure of higher education in New Zealand, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 2749. Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. Studies of non-traditional students show that while they make natural, intuitive choices based on the logics of their class background, they are also highly conscious that the labour market entails sets of middle-class values and rules that may potentially alienate them. If initial identities are affirmed during the early stages of graduates working lives, they may well ossify and set the direction for future orientations and outlooks. Research into university graduates perceptions of the labour market illustrates that they are increasingly adopting individualised discourses (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Tomlinson, 2007; Taylor and Pick, 2008) around their future employment. Employability is sometimes discussed in the context of the CareerEDGE model. Argues that even employable people may fail to find jobs because of positional competition in the knowledge-driven economy. Smart et al. On the other hand, less optimistic perspectives tend to portray contemporary employment as being both more intensive and precarious (Sennett, 2006). In relation to the more specific graduate attributes agenda, Barrie (2006) has called for a much more fine-grained conceptualisation of attributes and the potential work-related outcomes they may engender. The extent to which future work forms a significant part of their future life goals is likely to determine how they approach the labour market, as well as their own future employability. Individual employability is defined as alumnus being able . poststructuralism, Positional Conflict Theory as well as liberalhumanist thought. Graduate employability has seen more sweeping emphasis and concerns in national and global job markets, due to the ever-rising number of unemployed people, which has increased even more due to . Employment in Academia: To What Extent Are Recent Doctoral Graduates of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada? Lessons from a comparative survey, European Journal of Education 42 (1): 1134. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge, pp. Research by both Furlong and Cartmel (2005) and Power and Whitty (2006) shows strong evidence of socio-economic influences on graduate returns, with graduates relative HE experiences often mediating the link between their origins and their destinations. This shows that graduates lived experience of the labour market, and their attempt to establish a career platform, entails a dynamic interaction between the individual graduate and the environment they operate within. Holden, R. and Hamblett, J. volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. Brown, P. and Hesketh, A.J. Graduates are therefore increasingly likely to see responsibility for future employability as falling quite sharply onto the shoulders of the individual graduate: being a graduate and possessing graduate-level credentials no longer warrants access to sought-after employment, if only because so many other graduates share similar educational and pre-work profiles. This will help further elucidate the ways in which graduates employability is played out within the specific context of their working lives, including the various modes of professional development and work-related learning that they are engaged in and the formation of their career profiles. Are evident across national context, the majority of employability research and practice to... An ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers and Kuhn, a on skills. Of graduate skills International Handbook of sociology of Education 42 ( 1 ) 229249. 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