There are increasingly less generalist degrees that
leave career options open and less generalist years in structured
professional degrees whereby students can enroll in diverse electives,
test the waters and make informed decisions upon knowing what the
curriculum really means. In reviewing current practice in the
development of employability skills (Thompson, Clark, Walker &
Whyatt 2013; Hinchcliffe & Jolly, 2011). The Higher Education
Academy (2014) pointed to a widely accepted definition of employability
as a set of achievements, - skills, understandings and personal
attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be
successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the
workforce, the community and the economy. This suggested that such
‘achievements’ may be quantifiable, yet the definition provided
immediately after this in the same report hinted at complexity in its
acknowledgement that “the emphasis is on developing critical, reflective
abilities, with a view to empowering and enhancing the learnerâ€
(Harvey, 2003: 3). In other words, it is difficult (and perhaps not
desirable) to reduce employability skills to a checklist of attributes.
This shift to viewing employability less as a set of clear-cut
attributes and more as a complex form of learning development is
summarized by Hinchcliffe & Jolly (2011). They argued for a
four-stranded concept of identity that comprises value, intellect,
social engagement and performance in preference to the traditional model
(Hinchcliffe & Jolly, 2011, p.1).
Knight and Yorke (2004)
wrote that employability can be and in fact, needs to be understood as a
concern with learning that has benefits for citizenship, continued
learning and life in general. Holmes (2013) described the knowledge,
skills and attributes definition of graduate employability as possession
that can be acquired as a commodity, through personal effort and
supports of others, much like a degree itself. Holmes (2013) contrasted
this with an understanding of graduate employability and social
positioning whereby there is recognition that there are classes, power
imbalances, privileged populations and status-ranked occupations. These
factors are stronger and more culturally persuasive and controlling than
the personal determination and ability to achieve and overcome. The
third framework is graduate employability as processual. This
understanding does not frame employability as short-term cause and
effect or linear.
According to Lees (2002), there is the need
to establish clear mechanisms by which students can develop their
abilities to use and deploy a wide range of skills and opportunities to
enhance their own academic learning and enable them to become more
employable because employment and employability are not the same thing
and should be differentiated. Lees (2002) explained that being employed
means having a job, being employable means having the qualities needed
to maintain employment and progress in the workplace. Employability,
from the perspective of Higher Education Institutions, is therefore
about producing graduates who are capable and able to impact upon all
areas of university life, in terms of the delivery of academic
programmes and extra curricula activities. Fundamentally, employability
is about learning: learning how to learn; not a product but a process
(Lees, 2002). Harvey (2001) mentioned in his report titled
“Employability and Diversity†that employability has many definitions
but they are broken down into two broad groups. The first relate to the
ability of the student to get retained and developed in a job after
graduation. The other set is concerned with enhancing the students’
attributes (skills, knowledge, attitudes and abilities) and ultimately
with empowering the student as a critical life-long learner (Hillage
& Pollard, 1998; Harvey, 2001).
Barnett (1994, 2003), for
example, explained that employability and the promotion of key or core
skills are similar set of achievements, understanding and personal
attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be
successful in their chosen occupations. Commenting on current issues of
graduate employment and work in France, Paul and Murdoch (2000) noted
that recent studies have tended to concentrate on the latter focus. In
the Netherlands, these same shifts on emphasis have become apparent in
research findings in the last decade (Allen, Boezerooy & Van der
Velden, 2001). However, there are now some signs that the emphasis may
be shifting towards the role of more general knowledge, attitudes and
subject discipline of the graduate and some programme areas tend to be
more active in promoting employability.
Employability is about
having the capability to gain initial employment, maintain employment
and obtain new employment if required. For the individual, employability
depends upon assets in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, the
way these assets are used and deployed, presentation of assets to
potential employers and the context within which the individual works
such as labour market and personal circumstances. In a similar vein,
Fugate, Kinicki and Ashforth (2004) defined employability as a form of
an active adjustment of individuals towards certain occupations until
they could identify and recognize existing career opportunities in the
work place. Employability could also assist employees to adjust
themselves towards various changes and to increase working abilities
which suit the working environmental needs. Brown & Hesketh (2004)
described employability as the relative chances of getting and
maintaining different kinds of employment while most people view
employability in absolute terms, focusing on the need for individuals to
obtain credentials, knowledge and social status. The concept of
employability can be seen as subjective and dependent on contextual
factors. It does not only depends on whether one is able to fulfill the
requirements of specific jobs but also depends on how one stands
relative to others within a hierarchy of job seekers (Brown and Hesketh,
2004). Taking the supply and demand of labour into the idea that
credentials, knowledge and social status alone will guarantee a good
position in the labour market.
Human resource development
literature has continued to use employability as an important
explanatory and descriptive concept with which employer–employee
relation is no longer seen as being based on the traditional model of
reciprocal loyalty (Baruch, 2001). Instead, it involves a form of
personal, psychological contract from which the individual seeks a sense
of balance between personal time and work; a form of work organisation
that allows autonomy to concentrate on specifically defined objectives
and personal development made possible through continuous learning that
adds to individual employability. From a business perspective, the
promotion of employability both within and beyond the organisation has
therefore become increasingly viewed as the key to developing a
‘flexible and adaptable’ workforce. Employability is the capability to
move into and within labour markets and to realize potential through
sustainable and accessible employment. For the individual, employability
depends on the knowledge and skills they possess, their attitudes; the
way personal attributes are presented in the labour market; the
environmental and social context within which work is sought and the
economic context within which work is sought (Department of higher and
further Education, training and Employment (DHFETE) (2002).
Employability is the capability to move self-sufficiently within the
labour market to realize potential through sustainable employment. For
the individual, employability depends on the knowledge, skills and
attitudes they possess, the way they use those assets and present them
to employers and the context (for example, personal circumstances and
labour market environment) within which they seek work (Hillage and
Pollard, 1998).
