This has illustrated the strong labour market contingency to graduates employability and overall labour market outcomes, based largely on how national labour markets coordinate the qualifications and skills of highly qualified labour. This is most associated with functionalism. 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 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). Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . conventional / consensus perspective that places . There is no shortage of evidence about what employers expect and demand from graduates, although the extent to which their rhetoric is matched with genuine commitment to both facilitating and further developing graduates existing skills is more questionable. Nabi, G., Holden, R. and Walmsley, A. There is much continued debate over the way in which HE can contribute to graduates overall employment outcomes or, more sharply, their outputs and value-added in the labour market. Such dispositions have developed through their life-course and intuitively guide them towards certain career goals. Keynes' theory of employment is a demand-deficient theory. Graduate employability is clearly a problem that goes far wider than formal participation in HE, and is heavily bound up in the coordination, regulation and management of graduate employment through the course of graduate working lives. Both policymakers and employers have looked to exert a stronger influence on the HE agenda, particularly around its formal provisions, in order to ensure that graduates leaving HE are fit-for-purpose (Teichler, 1999, 2007; Harvey, 2000). Introduction. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specically their skill development (Selvadurai et al.2012). Conflict theory in sociology. (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The inter-relationship between HE and the labour market has been considerably reshaped over time. Consensus theory is a social theory that holds a particular political or economic system as a fair system, and that social change should take place within the social institutions provided by it .Consensus theory contrasts sharply with conflict theory, which holds that social change is only achieved through conflict.. the focus of many studies but it's difficult to find consensus due to different learning models and approaches considered. Rae, D. (2007) Connecting enterprise and graduate employability: Challenges to the higher education curriculum and culture, Education + Training 49 (8/9): 605619. These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. Career choices tend to be made within specific action frames, or what they refer to as horizons for actions. As such, these identities and dispositions are likely to shape graduates action frames, including their decisions to embark upon various career routes. For graduates, the inflation of HE qualifications has resulted in a gradual downturn in their value: UK graduates are aware of competing in relative terms for sought-after jobs, and with increasing employer demands. 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. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. Elias and Purcell's (2004) research has reported positive overall labour market outcomes in graduates early career trajectories 7 years on from graduation: in the main graduates manage to secure paid employment and enjoy comparatively higher earning than non-graduates. Hansen, H. (2011) Rethinking certification theory and the educational development of the United States and Germany, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29: 3155. 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. 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. This paper analyses the barriers to work faced by long- and short-term unemployed people in remote rural labour markets. For instance, non-traditional students who had studied at local institutions may be far more likely to fix their career goals around local labour markets, some of which may afford limited opportunities for career progression. Green, F. and Zhu, Y. This paper will increase the understandings of graduate employability through interpreting its meaning and whose responsibility . This relates largely to the ways in which they approach the job market and begin to construct and manage their individual employability, mediated largely through the types of work-related dispositions and identities that they are developing. Power, S. and Whitty, G. (2006) Graduating and Graduations Within the Middle Class: The Legacy of an Elite Higher Education, Cardiff: Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences. Graduates appear to be valued on a range of broad skills, dispositions and performance-based activities that can be culturally mediated, both in the recruitment process and through the specific contexts of their early working lives. Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes . In effect, market rules dominate. It first relates the theme of graduate employability to the changing dynamic in the relationship between HE and the labour market, and the changing role of HE in regulating graduate-level work. The purpose of this article is to show that the way employability is typically defined in official statements is seriously flawed because it ignores what will be called the 'duality of employability'. Skills formally taught and acquired during university do not necessarily translate into skills utilised in graduate employment. Hodkinson, P. and Sparkes, A.C. (1997) Careership: A sociological theory of career decision-making, British Journal of Sociology of Education 18 (1): 2944. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specifically their skill development . Graduate employability is a multifaceted concept considering the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet at a time when stakes within the labour market have risen, graduates are likely to demand that this link becomes a more tangible one. Indeed, there appears a need for further research on the overall management of graduate careers over the longer-term course of their careers. Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. HE systems across the globe are evolving in conjunction with wider structural transformations in advanced, post-industrial capitalism (Brown and Lauder, 2009). At the same time, the seeming consensus regarding employability as an outcome with reference to employment or employment rates belies the complexity that surrounds the concept in the wider literature. Brennan, J. and Tang, W. (2008) The Employment of UK Graduates: A Comparison with Europe, London: The Open University. Structural Functionalism/ Consensus Theory. (2009) The Bologna Process in Higher Education in Europe: Key Indicators on the Social Dimension and Mobility, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. editors. Research has continually highlighted engrained employer biases towards particular graduates, ordinarily those in possession of traditional cultural and academic currencies and from more prestigious HEIs (Harvey et al., 1997; Hesketh, 2000). of employability has been subjected to little conceptual examination. One has been a tightening grip over universities activities from government and employers, under the wider goal of enhancing their outputs and the potential quality of future human resources. Such graduates are therefore likely to shy away, or psychologically distance themselves, from what they perceive as particular cultural practices, values and protocols that are at odds with their existing ones. The role of employers and employer organisations in facilitating this, as well as graduates learning and professional development, may therefore be paramount. 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. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some of the dominant empirical and conceptual themes in the area of graduate employment and employability over the past decade. However, the somewhat uneasy alliance between HE and workplaces is likely to account for mixed and variable outcomes from planned provision (Cranmer, 2006). This means that Keynes visualized employment/unemployment from the demand side of the model. There are two key factors here. Warhurst, C. (2008) The knowledge economy, skills and government labour market intervention, Policy Studies 29 (1): 7186. Perhaps significantly, their research shows that graduates occupy a broad range of jobs and occupations, some of which are more closely matched to the archetype of the traditional graduate profession. 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. Department for Education Skills (DFES). At one level, there has been an optimistic vision of the economy as being fluid and knowledge-intensive (Leadbetter, 2000), readily absorbing the skills and intellectual capital that graduates possess. (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F. (2005) Graduates from Disadvantaged Backgrounds: Early Labour Market Experiences, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Employment in Academia: To What Extent Are Recent Doctoral Graduates of Various Fields of Study Obtaining Permanent Versus Temporary Academic Jobs in Canada? Thetable below has been compiled by a range of UK-based companies (see company details at the end of this guide), and it lists the Top 10 Employability Skills which they look for in potential employees - that means you! Graduate employability and skills development are also significant determinants for future career success. Much of the graduate employability focus has been on supply-side responses towards enhancing graduates skills for the labour market. In terms of social class influences on graduate labour market orientations, this is likely to work in both intuitive and reflexive ways. The subjective mediation of graduates employability is likely to have a significant role in how they align themselves and their expectations to the labour market. consensus theory of employability. Little and Arthur's research shows similar patterns among European graduates, there are generally higher levels of graduate satisfaction with HE as a preparation for future employment, as well as much closer matching up between graduates credentials and the requirements of jobs. What their research illustrates is that these graduates labour market choices are very much wedded to their pre-existing dispositions and learner identities that frame what is perceived to be appropriate and available. 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 relative symbolic violence and capital that some institutions transfer onto different graduates may inevitably feed into their identities, shaping their perceived levels of personal or identity capital. Fugate and Kinicki (2008, p.9) describe career identity as "one's self-definition in the career context."Chope and Johnson (2008, p. 47) define career identity in a more scientific manner where they state that "career identity reflects the degree to which individuals define themselves in terms of a particular organisation, job, profession, or industry". That graduates employability is intimately related to personal identities and frames of reference reflects the socially constructed nature of employability more generally: it entails a negotiated ordering between the graduate and the wider social and economic structures through which they are navigating. As Brown et al. The Varieties of Capitalism approach developed by Hall and Soskice (2001) may be useful here in explaining the different ways in which different national economies coordinate the relationship between their education systems and human resource strategies. The challenge for graduate employees is to develop strategies that militate against such likelihoods. While mass HE potentially opens up opportunities for non-traditional graduates, new forms of cultural reproduction and social closure continue to empower some graduates more readily than others (Scott, 2005). The study explores differences in the implicit employability theories of those involved in developing employability (educators) and those selecting and recruiting higher education (HE) students and graduates (employers). As HE's role for regulating future professional talent becomes reshaped, questions prevail over whose responsibility it is for managing graduates transitions and employment outcomes: universities, states, employers or individual graduates themselves? and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. Reducing the system/structure down to the graduate labour market, there are parallels between Archer's work and consensus theory (Brown et al. The most discernable changes in HE have been its gradual massification over the past three decades and, in more recent times, the move towards greater individual expenditure towards HE in the form of student fees. It seeks to explore shortcomings in the current employment of the concept of consensus, and in so doing to explain the continued relevance of conflict theory for sociological research. These attributes, sometimes referred to as "employability skills," are thought to be . (2009) Over-education and the skills of UK graduates, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 172 (2): 307337. . (2006) The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: Examining the physical and psychological mobility, Journal of Vocational Behavior 69 (1): 1929. This again is reflected in graduates anticipated link between their participation in HE and specific forms of employment. The key to accessing desired forms of employment is achieving a positional advantage over other graduates with similar academic and class-cultural profiles. This has some significant implications for the ways in which they understand their employability and the types of credentials and forms of capital around which this is built. This contrasts with more flexible liberal economies such as the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, characterised by more intensive competition, deregulation and lower employment tenure. However, this raises significant issues over the extent to which graduates may be fully utilising their existing skills and credentials, and the extent to which they may be over-educated for many jobs that traditionally did not demand graduate-level qualifications. 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