The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. A consensus theory approach sees sport as a source of collective harmony, a way of binding people together in a shared experience. 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. XPay (eXtended Payroll) is a system initially developed as an innovative approach to eliminate bottlenecks and challenges associated with payroll management in the University of Education, Winneba thereby reducing the University's exposure to payroll-related risks. 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). The end of work and its commentators, The Sociological Review 55 (1): 81103. This may be largely due to the fact that employers have been reasonably responsive to generic academic profiles, providing that graduates fulfil various other technical and job-specific demands. However, while notions of graduate skills, competencies and attributes are used inter-changeably, they often convey different things to different people and definitions are not always likely to be shared among employers, university teachers and graduates themselves (Knight and Yorke, 2004; Barrie, 2006). 213240. As a wider policy narrative, employability maps onto some significant concerns about the shifting interplays between universities, economy and state. Morley (2001) however states that employability . The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. Employers propensities towards recruiting specific types of graduates perhaps reflects deep-seated issues stemming from more transactional, cost-led and short-term approaches to developing human resources (Warhurst, 2008). 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). Consensus is the collective agreement of individuals. This paper analyses the barriers to work faced by long- and short-term unemployed people in remote rural labour markets. Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute for Employment Research. Functionalism is a structural theory and posits that the social institutions and organization of society . Further research has also pointed to experiences of graduate underemployment (Mason, 2002; Chevalier and Lindley, 2009).This research has revealed that a growing proportion of graduates are undertaking forms of employment that are not commensurate to their level of education and skills. Avoid the most common mistakes and prepare your manuscript for journal Morley, L. and Aynsley, S. (2007) Employers, quality and standards in higher education: Shared values and vocabularies or elitism and inequalities? Higher Education Quarterly 61 (3): 229249. One particular consequence of a massified, differentiated HE is therefore likely to be increased discrimination between different types of graduates. 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. These changes have added increasing complexities to graduates transition into the labour market, as well as the traditional link between graduation and subsequent labour market reward. Smart et al. Moreau and Leathwood reported strong tendencies for graduates to attribute their labour market outcomes and success towards personal attributes and qualities as much as the structure of available opportunities. This paper aims to place the issue of graduate employability in the context of the shifting inter-relationship between HE and the labour market, and the changing regulation of graduate employment. For Beck and Beck-Germsheim (2002), processes of institutionalised individualisation mean that the labour market effectively becomes a motor for individualisation, in that responsibility for economic outcomes is transferred away from work organisations and onto individuals. ISSN 2039-9340 (print) ISSN 2039-2117 (online) Return to Article Details Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF In a similar vein, Greenbank (2007) also reported concerns among working-class graduates of perceived deficiencies in the cultural and social capital needed to access specific types of jobs. (2010) Education and the employability of graduates: Will Bologna make a difference? European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 3244. Cranmer, S. (2006) Enhancing graduate employability: Best intentions and mixed outcome, Studies in Higher Education 31 (2): 169184. Value consensus assumes that the norms and values of society are generally agreed and that social life is based on co-operation rather than conflict. It is also considered as both a product (a set of skills that enable) and as a . Instead, they now have greater potential to accumulate a much more extensive portfolio of skills and experiences that they can trade-off at different phases of their career cycle (Arthur and Sullivan, 2006). 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). and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. the consensus and the conflict theory on graduate employability . Graduates clearly follow different employment pathways and embark upon a multifarious range of career routes, all leading to different experiences and outcomes. The consensus theory is based o n the propositions that technological innovation is the driving force of so cial change. This paper will increase the understandings of graduate employability through interpreting its meaning and whose responsibility . This is further likely to be mediated by national labour market structures in different national settings that differentially regulate the position and status of graduates in the economy. The concerns that have been well documented within the non-graduate youth labour market (Roberts, 2009) are also clearly resonating with the highly qualified. Moreover, they will be more productive, have higher earning potential and be able to access a range of labour market goods including better working conditions, higher status and more fulfilling work. The inter-relationship between HE and the labour market has been considerably reshaped over time. Wilton, N. (2008) Business graduates and management jobs: An employability match made in heaven? Journal of Education and Work 21 (2): 143158. In terms of social class influences on graduate labour market orientations, this is likely to work in both intuitive and reflexive ways. Wolf, A. This clearly implies that graduates expect their employability management to be an ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers. Book The consensus theory of employment and the conflict theory of employment present contradictory implications about highly skilled workers' opportunity cost for pursuing entrepreneurial activities in the knowledge economy. The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. Consensus theories posit that laws are created using group rational to determine what behaviors are deviant and/or criminal to protect society from harm. On the other hand, less optimistic perspectives tend to portray contemporary employment as being both more intensive and precarious (Sennett, 2006). Non-traditional graduates or new recruits to the middle classes may be less skilled at reading the changing demands of employers (Savage, 2003; Reay et al., 2006). Such changes have coincided with what has typically been seen as a shift towards a more flexible, post-industrialised knowledge-driven economy that places increasing demands on the workforce and necessitates new forms of work-related skills (Hassard et al., 2008). 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). Traditionally, linkages between the knowledge and skills produced through universities and those necessitated by employers have tended to be quite flexible and open-ended. (2003) and Reay et al. consensus and industrial peace. Argues that even employable people may fail to find jobs because of positional competition in the knowledge-driven economy. Research done by Brooks and Everett (2008) and Little (2008) indicates that while HE-level study may be perceived by graduates as equipping them for continued learning and providing them with the dispositions and confidence to undertake further learning opportunities, many still perceive a need for continued professional training and development well beyond graduation. (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knight, P. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education, London: Routledge Falmer. It draws upon various studies to highlight the different labour market perceptions, experiences and outcomes of graduates in the United Kingdom and other national contexts. Perhaps more positively, there is evidence that employers place value on a wider range of softer skills, including graduates values, social awareness and generic intellectuality dispositions that can be nurtured within HE and further developed in the workplace (Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011). Career choices tend to be made within specific action frames, or what they refer to as horizons for actions. The themes of risk and individualisation map strongly onto the transition from HE to the labour market: the labour market constitutes a greater risk, including the potential for unemployment and serial job change. Strangleman, T. (2007) The nostalgia for the permanence of work? (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage, London: Routledge. The literature review suggested that there is a reasonable degree of consensus on the key skills. Holden, R. and Hamblett, J. 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. 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. and Leathwood, C. (2006) Graduates employment and discourse of employability: A critical analysis, Journal of Education and Work 18 (4): 305324. The decline of the established graduate career trajectory has somewhat disrupted the traditional link between HE, graduate credentials and occupational rewards (Ainley, 1994; Brown and Hesketh, 2004). Brown, P., Lauder, H. and Ashton, D.N. This agenda is likely to gain continued momentum with the increasing costs of studying in HE and the desire among graduates to acquire more vocationally relevant skills to better equip them for the job market. Archer, W. and Davison, J. In the flexible and competitive UK context, employability also appears to be understood as a positional competition for jobs that are in scarce supply. 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. HE has traditionally helped regulate the flow of skilled, professional and managerial workers. Smart, S., Hutchings, M., Maylor, U., Mendick, H. and Menter, I. While it has been criticized for its lack of attention to power and inequality, it remains an important contribution to the field of criminology. For much of the past decade, governments have shown a commitment towards increasing the supply of graduates entering the economy, based on the technocratic principle that economic changes necessitates a more highly educated and flexible workforce (DFES, 2003) This rationale is largely predicated on increased economic demand for higher qualified individuals resulting from occupational changes, and whereby the majority of new job growth areas are at graduate level. High Educ Policy 25, 407431 (2012). A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate the slides or the slide controller buttons at the end to navigate through each slide. 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. This review has shown that the problem of graduate employability maps strongly onto the shifting dynamic in the relationship between HE and the labour market. Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, You can also search for this author in 1.2 THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT The purpose of G.T. 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. Harvey, L. (2000) New realities: The relationship between higher education and employment, Tertiary Education and Management 6 (1): 317. Scott, P. (2005) Universities and the knowledge economy, Minerva 43 (3): 297309. (2004) The Mismangement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. There are two key factors here. Boden, R. and Nedeva, M. (2010) Employing discourse: Universities and graduate employability, Journal of Education Policy 25 (1): 3754. Brown, Hesketh and Williams (2002) concur that the . Various analysis of graduate returns (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Green and Zhu, 2010) have highlighted the significant disparities that exist among graduates; in particular, some marked differences between the highest graduate earners and the rest. Purists, believing that their employability is largely constitutive of their meritocratic achievements, still largely equate their employability with traditional hard currencies, and are therefore not so adept at responding to signals from employers. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Such notions of economic change tend to be allied to human capital conceptualisations of education and economic growth (Becker, 1993). This is most associated with functionalism. The New Right argument is that a range of government policies, most notably those associated with the welfare state, undermined the key institutions that create the value consensus and ensure social solidarity. Overall, consensus theory is a useful perspective for understanding the role of crime in society and the ways in which it serves as a means of defining and enforcing social norms and values. There are many different lists of cardinal accomplishments . Thus, a significant feature of research over the past decade has been the ways in which these changes have entered the collective and personal consciousnesses of students and graduates leaving HE. (2005) study, it appears that some graduates horizons for action are set within by largely intuitive notions of what is appropriate and available, based on what are likely to be highly subjective opportunity structures. 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