Accounting graduate employability: employer perspectives on skills and attributes of international graduates

ABSTRACT

This study investigates employers’ perceptions of, and recruitment approaches for, accounting professionals using a survey of small to medium sized public accounting firms in Australia. We find that firms experience significant difficulties in sourcing high quality graduates and tend to hire a low proportion of international students. To explain the latter, we employ Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, together with the concepts of social and cultural capital, to examine the challenges faced by international students. A key finding of our study is that many international students are at a disadvantage in seeking professional employment because of a lack of habitus, that is, a ‘feel for the game’ and an understanding of what is needed to succeed in the accounting field. Our findings add to the accounting literature by highlighting that demonstrated potential to excel at business development activities and possession of strong social and cultural capital were paramount in obtaining employment.

KEYWORDS:

• Graduate employability
• social capital
• cultural capital
• Bourdieu
• international students
• graduate skills and attributes

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers and the editor of Accounting Education, Greg Stoner for their assistance with the development of this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Accounting, as an occupation, is on Australia’s Skilled Migration list which means those who graduate with an Accounting qualification receive ‘bonus’ migration points for entering Australia (Australian Government Department of Home Affairs, 2019).

2 Labour market segmentation is also produced by migrants’ own initiatives; for example, through their selective use of social networks (Blackmore et al., 2014), or by establishing their own small business enterprises.

3 It should be noted that most Australian universities in Australia have a career’s service that is utilised by both employers and students. Universities conduct a number of activities to assist employers and students in recruiting and job searching including review of students’ CVs, publishing job opportunities from employers on university websites and/or related social media, and conducting annual careers days for employers and students to interact. We believe that the categories of ‘Attending university careers days’, ‘Web-based advertisements’ and ‘Social Media’ in our survey instrument accurately capture these types of university activities.

4 Objectified and institutionalised cultural capital are less associated than embodied cultural capital with habitus, given the latter’s influence in shaping a group’s ‘world view’ or way of thinking.