Employability capitals as essential resources for employment obtainment and career sustainability of international graduates

ABSTRACT

This study deployed a mixed-method approach to explore how international graduates identified and strategically utilised their resources to negotiate employability in the host country. One hundred and eighty international graduates from Australian universities participated in a survey and in-depth interviews. Findings revealed that employability was determined by various forms of capital including human, cultural social, identity and psychological. More importantly, the graduates had to develop ‘agentic capital’ to decide how to utilise these forms of capital appropriately. Social and cultural capitals emerged as the crucially important elements when the graduates looked for opportunities to get a foot into the labour market. These forms of capital enabled the graduates to mobilise their human capital. However, to navigate barriers in the workplace, the articulation of a sound understanding about the working culture became a ‘must’ because the graduates found it hard to understand hidden rules and conventions in the labour market. Results from the study indicate that graduate employability should not just be measured right after students’ graduation because different forms of capital play their significant roles at different stages of the graduates’ career development. Besides, higher education should equip students with various forms of capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• Australia
• international students
• employability
• capital
• agency

Introduction

International education has brought huge economic benefits to Australia (A$40.4 billion in 2019 and $25.5 billion and students studying online adding a further $3.5 billion in 2022) (Universities Australia 2023). COVID-19 has reinforced this argument evidenced by a range of businesses and thousands of jobs having either badly been impacted or gone due to the decline in international students’ enrolments (Coates et al. 2023). Since international students could bring about both short- and long-term economic benefits (Trevena 2019), it is clear that Australia needs to not only attract but also retain international students. To achieve these goals, Australia needs to enhance international graduates’ employability outcomes because post-study career prospects have become an influencing factor in international students’ decision to study and retain (Department of Education 2018; Pham 2020).

Unfortunately, low employment outcomes of international graduates are a long-standing concern in Australia (Coates et al. 2023). Despite such a big number, there are limited insights about the employability of international graduates, with several surveys only measuring employment outcomes. For example, GOS (2022) reported that the overall employed percentage of international postgraduate coursework in 2021 was 70.1 and 75.9 in 2022; and that of postgraduate research in 2021 was 82.2 and in 2022 was 85.6. However, full-time employment of international postgraduate coursework was only 43.9 in 2021 and 57.9 in 2022, and that of international postgraduate research was 69.4 in 2021 and 76.0 in 2022. These unsatisfactory outcomes have threatened Australia’s position in the international education market because both traditional (Canada, New Zealand, the US, the UK) and non-traditional (European and Asian countries) immigration countries have actively implemented a range of national and regional policies aiming at attracting or retaining high skilled migrants (Trevena 2019).

To become more competitive in the international education market, Australia needs to better ensure international graduates’ employability because acquiring work experience has become a key goal for many international students (Department of Education 2018). Unfortunately, very little is known about international graduates’ post-study career trajectories, although a growing body of research has shown that this cohort faced a range of employment issues.

What determines international graduates’ employability?

Employability has been defined differently in the literature depending on researchers’ disciplinary background and underlying philosophy. However, there are currently two main schools of thought. The first mainly focuses on short-term and immediate employment outcomes although employability could be interpreted as either individuals’ responsibilities or consequences of external factors. When employability is seen as an individual characteristic, it depends on the knowledge, skills and attitudes individuals possess and how they use those assets and present them to employers and the context within which they seek work (Hillage and Pollard 1998). When employability is perceived as a result of external forces, it is claimed to be determined by ‘demand-side’ factors, structure of the labour market, competition for graduate-level work (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005) and reputation of the institution (Karmel and Carroll 2016).

Recent changes in the labour markets like globalisation, technological disruptions, restructuring, delayering and downsizing, casualisation, lack of job security and harsh working conditions have created a scarcity of full-time work, an increase in the casualisation of the workforce, prevalence of short-term work and self-employment, as well as rising job and occupation mobility (Oliver 2015). In such uncertain labour markets, the capacity that individuals develop to negotiate and sustain employability has become crucially important (Pham 2023b). Therefore, more enthusiasm has been shown to the second school of thought which sees employability as the responsibility of the individual to develop and utilise a range of resources like human, cultural, social, identity and psychological capital to obtain and sustain their employment (Donald, Baruch, and Ashleigh 2023; Holmes 2013; Pham 2023b).

Although Australia has well established the international education sector and heavily depends on this industry, surprisingly very little is known about international graduates’ post-study life including their career trajectories. What contributes to international graduates’ unsatisfactory employment outcomes has been continuously under researched (Pham 2023b). Efforts made by Australia have, therefore, only stopped at granting generous visa schemes (Nous Report 2020) and embedding employability skills in teaching programmes (Barrie 2006). These activities have insufficiently prepared international graduates for the workforce because many needed to use social capital to mobilise qualifications (Pham 2023b). Also, limited understanding of practices and rules, especially hidden cultural norms at the workplace could cause international graduates many issues that could slow down their career progress (Tang 2023). Similarly, many international graduates showed great resilience in navigating obstacles to obtain permanent residency (PR) and immediate employment (Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson 2019). But at the same time an increasing number have decided to return to their home countries because of pressures of life and work in the residing country (Pham 2020). As such, psychological capacities could have an impact on their career fulfilments.

Besides, it is also noted when transiting from education to work, although holding a number of limitations like limited communication skills, international graduates have their own strengths like positive qualities (e.g. diligence, flexibility, resilience), multiple linguistic skills and knowledge of different cultures (Pham 2021a, 2023b). Pham (2020, 2023b) and Pham and Jackson (2020) have, therefore, found that if international graduates were able to develop and utilise agentic capital – that is ‘the capacity to develop strategies to use various forms of capital effectively and strategically depending on one’s ethnic background, areas of expertise, career plans, contexts, and personal qualities’ (Pham 2020, 4) – to strategise their capitals, they were more likely to succeed in obtaining employment, satisfaction and sustainability. Given the current literature dominated by research exploring problems and challenges facing international graduates, leading to little solution offered to existing problems, it is very crucial for more research to document the development and utilisation of agentic capital so that more real-life strategies could be generated. Moreover, it is often viewed that international graduates would have little difficulty in integrating into the local labour markets as they would be accustomed to the social and cultural norms of their host country and master the language associated with their degree (Pham 2021a). However, migrants’ career is increasingly featured as staggered and spatial trajectories due to constraints of their wider life aspirations like family commitments and personal growth desires (Robertson 2019; Tan and Hugo 2017). To fully reflect international graduates’ post-study career experiences, there is, therefore, a need to explore their long-term employability outcomes.

To fill these gaps, this study aimed to unpack how international graduates utilised a range of capitals to both obtain and sustain employment. The overarching research question guiding this study was: How do capitals contribute to international graduates’ employability outcomes? To answer this overarching question, the study was guided by the sub-questions as follows:

• To what extent do human, social, cultural, psychological, identity and agentic capitals contribute to international graduates’ entrance and thriving in the labour market?

• What kind of social networks do international graduates use for employability negotiation?

• What kind of cultural barriers do they face at the workplace?

Theoretical frameworks

This study deployed multiple theoretical developments to build new perspectives on the complexity of interactions between capitals and international graduates’ employability. First, it drew on Bourdieu’s theory which claims that individuals possess four forms of capital: economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1986). How they access these forms of capital depends on their habitus and the field. Habitus serves as ‘internalised schemes through which the world is perceived, understood, appreciated and evaluated’ (Tholen 2015, 777). More explicitly, habitus could be seen as attitudes, beliefs and values that individuals develop and possess based on their own experiences and influences of external factors like their family background and parents’ expectations. Field is the social and institutional grounds where individuals develop their habitus with the interplay of human action and societal structure (Bourdieu 1990). Positions of individuals in each field are not equal but range from dominant to subordinate levels because people have different access to capital.

A distinct feature of Bourdieu’s theory is the connections between different forms of capital and, in particular, the possibility of converting them into one another. For instance, possessing cultural capital could enable individuals to access or broaden their social networks since social capital is built on ‘long-lasting dispositions’ such as ways of thinking and acting; when people become familiar with particular behaviours and expectations, they have a better chance of enriching their social networks (Bourdieu 1986). In return, joining social networks could create opportunities for individuals to understand ways of doing things, facilitating the enriching of cultural capital. However, the transmutation from one capital to another capital does not automatically and always progress positively (Maclean and Harvey 2008). The positive transmutation of different forms of capital tends to occur when individuals exercise agency to make their capital recognised or gain symbolic capital (Noordegraaf and Schinkel 2010). Another distinct feature of Bourdieu’s theory is the exclusion of capital: according to him, people possess and can access different levels of capital depending on their backgrounds and positions in society. Inequality occurs because cultural capital carries both standardised values, which are legalised and institutionalised, and embodied values, which refer to one’s preferences or perceived ‘correct’ ways of doing things (Bourdieu 1986). People may possess the same standardised values but it is very often that only the dominant groups’ embodied values are acknowledged and validated. Subsequent research built on Bourdieu’s work and highlighted the significance of capital in employability (Holmes 2013; Pham 2021a; Tomlinson 2017). These authors argued that graduates needed to enrich various forms of capital. Pham (2021a) developed a capitals-based approach that claims the significance of six forms of capital for graduate employability including human, cultural, social, identity, psychological and agentic capitals for employability negotiation. Although limited, a growing body of research has consistently reported that international graduates were deficit in these capitals, so faced a range of employability issues.

Departing from the dominant body of research on international students, Marginson (2014, 14) claimed although international students ‘often experience acts of discrimination or abuse’, they are not habitually weak or deficient but strong agents. Marginson (2014) also argued international students invest a lot in enriching human capital but the economic attributes and credentials, career and income are rarely the whole of the transformation that they seek. In fact, they are engaged in a self-formation process in which they collect new academic and social attributes in the residing country and know how to blend these with their ethnic capital, resources, and conditions. They also keep revising their goals, attaining new identities, and developing strategies to acquire embodied cultural capital in the residing context. As such, international graduates should be seen as active actors who know how to manage their employability trajectories depending on various aspects of their life, such as their resources and interests and circumstances in a broad social and political context. Most recently, Pham and Jackson (2020), Pham (2021a, 2021b) and Pham et al. (2023) developed the concept of agentic capital which complements Marginson’s self-formation notion but is particularly applied to graduate employability. The authors explained agentic capital enables graduates to strategise their resources so that they could obtain optimal employability outcomes. These strategies often aim to maximise strengths and avoid weaknesses based on graduates’ ethnic background, areas of expertise, career plans, contexts, and personal qualities. The authors have evidenced that international graduates were more likely to obtain a success in negotiating employability if they could develop and utilise agentic capital.

Methodology

Participants

This research deployed a mixed-method approach using a survey and individual in-depth interviews as data collection methods. One hundred and eighty international graduates from various degrees and disciplines at Australian universities were invited to participate in this study. The recruited participants met the following selection criteria: (i) had completed school education overseas; (ii) obtained a tertiary degree in Australia (undergraduate, master’s or PhD); and (iii) were living in Australia when the research was conducted. To explore the employability negotiation process, the participants were not restricted to how long ago they graduated but the majority ranged from 1–5 years after their graduation. All participants were invited to complete an online survey, then 15 graduates were selected to join individual in-depth interviews. Ethics approval was granted by the ethics committee of the first author’s university. The participants were recruited and made aware of the nature of the study, consented to participate, and were ensured that any names used in the research publications would be pseudonyms.

Instrument development

All participants were invited to complete an online survey which had two main parts. Part 1 consisted of items about the graduates’ characteristics. Characteristics of 180 graduates who completed the survey properly are reported in Table 1. Part 2 consisted of items exploring factors that contributed to the graduates’ success in obtaining their employment. These items were drawn from survey items and research findings of studies conducted by Pham (2020) and Pham et al. (2023), and Pham and Saito (2019) examining international graduates’ employability negotiation in their home country. This part also included items examining the graduates’ productivity and career development prospects. Items examining these aspects were largely informed by emerging work about the role of capitals in graduate employability (e.g. Pham and Jackson 2020; Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson 2019; Tomlinson 2017). Interview questions were informed by interview questions and findings reported in several previous studies including Pham et al. (2019), Pham and Jackson (2020) and Pham (2023b). Exemplar interview questions were: ‘What factors contributed to your employment success?’ ‘How did you deal with matters at the workplace?’ and ‘How did you prepare for your employment before you graduated?’.

Table 1. Demographic details of the graduates who completed the online survey properly.

Variable	Sub-groups	n
Gender	Male	80
	Female	100
Original nationality	Vietnam	47
	China	65
	Thailand	10
	India	12
	Korea	5
	Japan	8
	Indonesia	8
	Malaysia	10
	Singapore	15
Age groups	20–30	90
	31–40	60
	41–50	30
Study level	Undergraduate	110
	Master	45
	PhD	25
Permanent residency status	Obtained	100
	In process of applying	50
	Unsure about whether applying or not	30
Field of study	Non-STEM (e.g. marketing, finance, accounting, management, sales, education, communication, linguistics)	75
	STEM (e.g. IT, engineering, science, medicine, pharmacy)	105
Working status	Full-time and part-time employed related to the area studied	105
	Full-time and part-time employed not related to the area studied	60
	Not employed officially	15
Number of years after graduation	0–1 year	32
	1–3 years	60
	3–5 years	46
	More than 5 years	27

Data collection and analysis

The participants completing the online survey (using Qualtrics) were recruited via snowball and on social media including Facebook and LinkedIn. Prior to analysis, all variables were examined for accuracy of data entry. Two hundred and twenty graduates answered the survey but only 180 responses were selected for this research. The rest were excluded because they were not completed fully and did not meet the recruitment selection criteria. The graduates’ demographic details are presented in Table 1. Descriptive statistical analysis calculating percentages, means and standard deviations was conducted.

Thirty-five graduates participating in the survey expressed their interest in joining the in-depth interviews. However, only 15 were carefully selected to represent the diversity of ethnic backgrounds, disciplines, employment status, gender and age. Demographic details of these 15 graduates were presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Demographic details of the graduates who joined the interview.

Variable	Sub-groups	n
Gender	Male	6
	Female	9
Original nationality	Vietnam	5
	China	6
	Singapore	1
	Indonesia	1
	Japan	1
	Malaysia	1
Age groups	20–30	6
	31–40	6
	41–50	3
Study level	Undergraduate	7
	Master	3
	PhD	5
Permanent residency status	Obtained	11
	In process of applying	3
	Unsure about whether applying or not	1
Field of study	Business (e.g. marketing, finance, accounting, management, sales)	5
	STEM (e.g. IT, engineering, science, medicine, pharmacy)	5
	Education	3
	Communication	1
	Linguistics	1
Types of organisation	Educational institutions (e.g. university, college, school, academy)	3
	Government organisations	3
	Multinational enterprises	3
	Private local companies	6
Working status	Full-time and part-time employed related to the area studied	12
	Full-time and part-time employed not related to the area studied	3
Number of years after graduation	0–1 year	2
	1–3 years	6
	3–5 years	7

These graduates were invited to answer open-ended questions which were developed so that they could ‘best voice their experiences unconstrained by any perspectives of the researcher or past research findings’ (Creswell 2012, 218). The interview questions were piloted with three international students to ensure clarity before being used in the study. The interviews were conducted face-to-face and online depending on availability and distance of the graduates. Each interview lasted approximately 30–40 minutes and was recorded for later transcription. All data were transcribed by a research assistant. Both the first researcher and the research assistant participated in coding data and continuously cross-checking the codes until the inter-rater agreement was 100%. The analysis began with the first researcher and an assistant reading the interview transcripts word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, and repeatedly discussing and questioning any taken-for-granted assumptions until a clear understanding of the graduates’ experiences emerged. Thematic analysis was used and mainly theory-driven, although remarkable new codes emerging from the data were also recorded and used to inform the revisions of the underpinning theories. The thematic analysis process moved from a more general level to a more specific one: As guided by the research questions and the underpinning theories, broad categories about different forms of capital were first established. Codes were then grouped into these categories and in each category, codes that referred to the same phenomenon were grouped into themes. New codes were either added to the established themes or developed as independent themes. For instance, Pham (2021a)’s capitals-based approach only highlights the significance of work experience. This study contributed to the enhancement of this conceptual approach by revealing that if work experience was not relevant, it did not really support the graduates’ employability. Therefore, ‘irrelevant work experience’ was discussed as a new code included in the ‘work experience’ theme. The interview data were mainly used as further insights to explain responses obtained from the survey.

Findings

Findings are presented as two separate stages of the graduates’ career development as follows.

At the entrance point of the labour market

The graduates were asked how they found their first job and their responses are presented in Table 3 below.

Table 3. How did you find your first job?

Tools	Percentages
Advertisement on employment agents	33%
Social networks (e.g. introduction of friends, peers, family members, supervisors, academics)	32%
Advertisement on the company’s website	20%
Advertisement at the university	10%
Others	5%

Descriptive statistical analysis results presented in Table 3 show that the graduates used employment agents and social networks as the two main channels to look for job opportunities. Although the number using social networks was ranked second, the percentage was almost as high as those using employment agents.

The interview results shed more light on their experiences in obtaining employment opportunities. The participants who had extensive social networks expressed that throughout their career development, social relationships had been proven to be a significant factor that contributed to their employment opportunities. For instance, three graduates expressed gratefulness to their lecturers, tutors and internship mentors who provided them with insights about the industry including future employment opportunities, general procedures and hidden rules of the employment process and how they should respond to these. These insights enabled them to win their first job within a short period after graduation. Below is an excerpt illustrating the significant role of a mentor.

My internship mentor connected to the industry. I believe she had shared her thoughts with the recruiters … Her insights indeed helped me a lot.

(Nga – a graduate in Business)

I got my first casual job due to my lecturer’s introduction. Her help made me ‘visible’ to the employer.

(Mandy – a graduate in STEM)

When being asked how they could obtain support of these mentors, they all shared that they had to demonstrate their positive personal qualities like being hard working, honest, truthful, proactive and dedicated.

It took me a while to establish a positive relationship with my supervisor. I demonstrated I was committed to the tasks and always accomplished before the deadline. Hmm it was a journey.

(Andy – a graduate in Education)

Pham and Soltani (2021) and Tomlinson (2017) claimed that social capital can play a ‘bridging role’ in connecting formal education and the industrial world. These graduates used their connections with different stakeholders to both obtain insights about industries and sell their qualities to the potential employers effectively.

To gain more insights about determinants of their first employment success, the graduates were asked to rank the significance of other factors in Table 4 below.

Table 4. The importance of each factor below to the success in obtaining your job(s).

Factors	MD	SD
Have sufficient English proficiency	4.40	.84
Know expectations and culture of industries	4.33	.88
Have working experience	3.71	.90
Have a good academic record	3.23	.95

Note: Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Undecided = 3; Agree = 4; Strongly agree = 5.

It was not a surprise to see the graduates ranked English proficiency as the most important factor. Previous studies reported unsatisfactory English proficiency as the biggest limitation hindering employment opportunities of international graduates (Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson 2019). Two graduates expressed their disappointment about their positions. They believed they deserved a more exciting position but their limited English proficiency put them in areas where they had less chance to communicate with clients. One stated.

I had planned for a position in the marketing team but then changed my mind. A big part of a marketing job was to communicate with local industries which required lots of knowledge and skills that I didn’t have.

(Alisha – a graduate in Communication)

The high score of the second item ‘Know expectations and culture of industries’ also aligned well with findings of previous studies (Pham and Jackson 2020; Saito and Pham 2018; Watkins and Smith 2018). Specifically, Saito and Pham (2018) found that when applying for a job, graduates should obtain knowledge about the types of industries so that they can tailor their application in the most effective manner. Graduates’ technical knowledge may signify expertise-fit and a strong sense of profile alignment but to obtain a positive employment outcome, technical knowledge needs to be complemented with cultural knowledge (Kalfa and Taksa 2015). Limited cultural understanding of local working systems could hinder graduates’ insights about hidden rules, leading to their failure to present themselves as a fit with the hidden expectations of the organisations. A graduate in this study expressed how he thought about the reasons contributing to his job rejection as follows.

I was always ranked as the second candidate. I had expertise but not the ‘soft’ things. I mean my accent and my style. Of course, local candidates are a better fit.

(Jane – a graduate in Engineering)

The low score given to ‘working experience’ did not align with findings of many studies that emphasised hands-on experiences as a vital determinant of recruitment in Australia (Smith 2009). However, many graduates who had held a part-time position shared that their part-time work was not particularly relevant to the job they applied for (e.g. working at café, supermarket, cleaning). This might be the reason why they did not perceive the importance of having working experience for job success. Kinash et al. (2016) warned that students need to be selective with what they do in their part time work. The value of relevant work experience is also emphasised by Jackson and Collings (Pham 2023b). Finally, the low scores given to the role of academic record well reflected the recent trend in recruitments where employers place considerable emphasis on graduates’ professional capabilities during recruitment but not the academic record.

After entering the labour market

At this stage, the graduates were asked to share experiences in job performance experiences as shown in Table 5 below.

Table 5. The importance of each element below in performing work effectively.

Items	MD	SD
Understand the working culture (e.g. rules, conduct)	4.65	.78
Have good personal qualities (e.g. persistent, resilient, reliable, responsible)	4.45	.76
Have good professional skills (e.g. communication, teamwork, independent, confident)	4.45	.86

Note: Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Undecided = 3; Agree = 4; Strongly agree = 5.

The survey also asked the graduates to rank the challenging level of several factors they faced at the workplace and below are the two most challenging factors they ranked.

The interview results show after transitioning to the labour market, the graduates faced difficulties in both dealing with daily practices and decoding hidden policies. Several shared disappointments about failing to perceive actual expectations of the industries and hidden recruitment rules. For instance, the graduates perceived communication as an important factor but one participant stated:

At the end of the day we need to show what we can do, so yes we need to work with others, so talk but then, hmmm … so much stress and responsibilities. Imagine if you are not resilient, it is hard to cope with and overcome all of these issues.

(Rui – a graduate in Pharmacy)

An important quality several graduates highlighted and emphasised that international graduates should be aware of was ‘trust’ and ‘reliability’. One said:

I was very surprised when my friend was sacked immediately only because she was not honest about taking a long leave. She was offered a new job but then the offer was withdrawn immediately. Well, I could see it was bad but I couldn’t imagine it was that important to the employer.

(Maddy – a graduate in Accountant)

In sum, findings shown in Tables 5 and 6 and the interview excerpts above show that after entering the labour market, the graduates referred to cultural and identity capital as the most important factors to their job performance. They perceived having a good understanding of the working culture including rules, conventions and codes of conduct could enable them to navigate barriers and unexpected stress. This finding aligned with what Cui (2012) asserted: a lack of understanding about the dynamics of social interactions at the workplace could lead to slow career progression. The graduates also perceived personal qualities which included both psychological capital (e.g. resilient) and identity capital (e.g. reliable, responsible) to be essential to their work performance.

Table 6. The challenging level of the items below at the workplace.

Items	MD	SD
Working culture	4.65	.89
Communication challenges	4.45	.90

Note: Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Undecided = 3; Agree = 4; Strongly agree = 5.

Discussion and conclusion

To enhance graduate employability, from the mid 20^th century, higher education has tried the skills-based approach that aims to match its training and employers’ expectations. The fundamental principle of this approach is to equip students with technical expertise and skills as demanded by employer groups. In spite of significant efforts higher education has made, graduates’ employment outcomes improve slowly (Coates et al. 2023). This shows that there is unlikely to be any straight-forward matching up of employability skills and their application and utility in the labour market. This study advocated this evidence when revealing human capital was not sufficient enough to facilitate the graduates to navigate the labour markets at their early stages of career development.

The study contributed to the current literature by revealing that social and cultural capitals emerged as crucially important and necessary resources that the graduates had to articulate and utilise for job seeking and performance. This finding assured arguments made by recent studies about the need to equip students with various forms of capital for employability enhancement (Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson 2019, Pham and Soltani, 2021; Pham 2021a; Singh 2022). This also implies that in spite of continuous policies aiming to enhance international students’ employability by the government, this cohort is significantly disadvantaged by the current recruitment trends and expectations of industries. This is because expertise and technical knowledge are often the international graduates’ strengths with many outperforming academically compared to their local counterparts. Expertise and knowledge are also the main resources they are equipped with at higher education. However, these resources were insufficient for employment outcomes.

More specifically, this study provided new insights further explaining the concept of ‘perception of fit’ that previous studies (e.g. Blackmore, Gribble, and Rahimi 2017; Pham 2021b) used to illustrate stereotypes that some local industries hold towards international graduates. In this study, the findings show that the graduates struggled with decoding embodied values or what Puwar (2001) called ‘subtle codes’ (e.g. norms, values, behaviours, identities). The experiences the graduates shared in the interviews revealed they divulged a sense of difficulty in obtaining the right knowledge, appropriate communication skills, and sensitivity to cultural differences to join small talks in the workplace. They found it hard to find ‘proper’ behaviours, shared interests, and values when conducting conversations with colleagues. According to Bauder (2003) and Erel (2010), every institution has institutional cultural capital and people without this culture are less protected. In this study, the graduates’ experiences evidenced their cultural capital was neither transnational or institutionalised, so they became marginalised.

Social capital emerged as an important factor at the early stage of the graduates’ career development. Similar to the findings of previous studies (e.g. Pham and Jackson 2020; Thondhlana, Madziva, and McGrath 2016), in this study good relationships that the graduates developed with lecturers, supervisors, peers and industry people were crucially important for their immediate employment. It was noted that there was a difference between ‘informal social networks’ and ‘social capital’. Informal social networks are often used for social and entertainment purposes; whereas social capital is likely to refer to significant relationships that could help someone with employment. These relationships often assist someone to build resources for the target career or to access future employment opportunities. Such resources are often found in what Bridgstock (2016, 344) calls ‘professional networks’ or amongst people having mutual interests. International students tend to build social networks but do not pay enough attention to turning social networks into social capital. As revealed in the interviews, some graduates succeeded in using social networks for their employment outcomes and their success well reflected what Maclean and Harvey (2008) explained about the transmutation of various forms of capital and Pham (2020)’s argument for the significance of agentic capital. Specifically, these graduates activated their agentic capital by using positive personal qualities (e.g. hardworking, honest) as a tool to gain symbolic capital which then enabled them to convert other capitals (e.g. economic, cultural) into social capital. These social networks enabled them to overcome barriers and enhance their subordinate position in the host labour market.

Finally, the study contributed to highlighting the significant role of agentic capital in international graduates’ employability that Pham (2021a) and Pham et al. (2023) evidenced in their studies. In this study, the graduates enacted their agentic capital to connect their educational, life and job market experience and align these to labour market goals. The analysis of the interview data revealed that some graduates with a clearer career goal could actively decide how to overcome constraints imposed by their personal circumstances and workplace characteristics and developed what Billett and Somerville (2004) called ‘goal-directed behaviours’. These graduates proactively approached and nurtured connections with relevant stakeholders for guidance or built career identity at the early stage of their study and career journeys. Three graduates, for example, shared that they did not lock themselves into their community because they found limited opportunities to transform cultural knowledge and apply professional knowledge and skills outside their home country. They purposefully moved from their comfort zones by living with people from different backgrounds and using social media channels, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, with a more global, professional appeal than those limited to their own ethnic groups. These changes enabled them to better integrate with others and broadened social networks, improved language competencies and professional skills, and transformed behaviours and mentality, enhancing their employability success. In sum, the common feature shared by the graduates who actively exercised their agency was that they were selective and innovative in their approach to employment and how much they should be involved in demands and requests in the workplace and their life.

Despite these contributions, this study had two main limitations. First, the study was conducted only with Asian international graduates in Australia. Therefore, the findings might not represent employability of international graduates in other countries. Second, the data were also only conducted with international graduates, making it difficult to correlate with the views and perspectives of employers. For example, it is possible that the subjective insights of the graduates are not always aligned with the perspectives of the employers they interacted with. Hence, future research should investigate this issue by collecting data from multiple sources.

Acknowledgments

This paper has been published by Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) as a working paper. I acknowledge all support given of Professor Simon Marginson and reviewers who gave very insightful feedback that helped me improve the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).