Employability skills initiatives in higher education: what effects do they have on graduate labour market outcomes?

Abstract

The present paper makes use of detailed information gathered at university department level, combined with graduate survey data, to assess the impact of different kinds of employability skills initiative on graduate labour market performance. We find that structured work experience and employer involvement in degree course design and delivery have clear positive effects on the ability of graduates to secure employment in ‘graduate‐level’ jobs. However, a measure of departmental involvement in explicit teaching and assessment of employability skills is not significantly related to labour market performance.

Keywords:

• graduate
• employability skills
• labour markets

Acknowledgements

This article draws on a study of employability skills teaching in UK universities that was kindly supported by the HEFCE; however, the HEFCE is not responsible for any views expressed in the article. The authors are grateful to all the university academics and careers staff who participated in interviews. They would also like to thank David Guile for his contributions to fieldwork, Judy Akinbolu at the HEFCE for providing the First Destinations/Combined Student Module Record data, and Graeme Rosenberg and John Thompson at the HEFCE for detailed comments and advice throughout the HEFCE project. Responsibility for any errors remains the authors’ alone.

Notes

1. By the late 1990s graduates represented 16% of the total workforce in the UK, up from 10% 10 years earlier (Mason 2002).

2. For overviews and case studies of a number of employability skills development projects of this kind, see online (http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/employability/ and http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp).

3. A‐level scores are not available for 28% of graduates in the sample. The graduates for whom A‐level scores are not available comprise a diverse group that breaks down as follows: 44% whose highest qualifications on entry to HE were vocational or professional in nature; 44% whose entry qualifications were not known; 9% with entry qualifications equivalent to A‐level obtained in countries such as Scotland that have different certification systems from those in England and Wales; 3% with academic entry qualifications above A‐level; and 1% with academic qualifications below A‐level. (Note, therefore, that the presence of an A‐level score in the data is only a rough indicator of having studied for A‐levels. When the presence of an A‐level score in the data is entered as an independent regressor in the equations reported in Tables 8 and 10 below, as suggested by a referee for this paper, the coefficients on this A‐level variable are statistically non‐significant and the main results discussed in the text are essentially unchanged.) Information on parental social class is missing for 17% of graduates in the sample. This is due in part to the fact that social class information is only available for graduates who entered HE through the Universities and Colleges Admission Service.

4. The term ‘sandwich’ is in common use in the United Kingdom to describe these training placements because they are timed to take place in between distinct periods of full‐time study, usually Years 2 and 3 of a first degree course. Thus sandwich placements typically last for 12 months but the term is also sometimes used to describe placements lasting for three to six months.