Gill Frigerio
Career Studies Unit
Centre for Lifelong Learning
University of Warwick
Overview
•Introduction – my position and perspectives
•Employability – a developing imperative?
•But what is employability?
•What has employability meant for Higher Education Careers
Services?
•Professional roles in HE Careers Services
•New roles
•Careers advisers
•Placement officers
•Professionalising strategies
•Discussion
Employability – a developing imperative?
•Evolving language: enterprise ....transferable
skills....employability
•‘Employability’ performance indicators
•‘Destination’ as the dominant performance indicator:
league tables and ‘key information sets’
•Work experience - proven positive impact on destination
(Little et al, 2006)
•Introduction of new funding regime in 2012 = Universities
clarifying their ‘unique selling point’:
The (insert University name here) Advantage!
But what is Employability?
•Employability as employment outcome
•Employability as a learning process
•Employability as a set of learning outcomes
(Yorke,2006)
•Employability as potential to obtain and retain desired
employment (employability = the individual)
•Realised Employability (employability = the context)
with an explicit policy focus on the supply-side of the labour market, [it]
is more likely to be associated with placing responsibility for a lack of
employability on the individual” (Wilton, 2011, p4)
The Individual and Employability
•Students making sense of their own position in the labour
market
•Developing a multitude of individualised ‘narratives of
employability’
•Importance of the ‘economy of experience’
•Lots of ‘sideways glance’ comparisons
What has employability meant for Higher
Education Careers Services?
•Strengthened or weakened?
•Growth of curriculum model (Foskett & Johnson, 2006)
•‘Break out’ or ‘break up’ (Watts & Butcher, 2008)
•Warwick example – Centre for Student Careers and
Skills: reach, type, engaging academic departments
•Whither guidance?
“No institution will be able to fund significant one-to-one
guidance going forward” Anne-Marie Martin, President,
AGCAS
Professional roles in HE Careers Services
•New roles: increasing recognition for information and
employer liaison staff, managers without a guidance
background, employability advisers, student
engagement officers, awards scheme coordinators
•Careers advisers: A ‘caring’ profession?
Helper? Educator? Change agent? Interfacer?
•Placement officers: from administrator to educator
Departmental? or central?
Professionalising strategies
•Career development learning – subject benchmark
•Practitioner engagement with research
•‘Management of Student Work Experience’ qualification
Professionalising from within or from above (Evetts, 2011)
•Capitalising on the imperative = professionalisation from
above
•Collective professional dialogue = client-centred common
ground
References
Evetts, J (2011) Professionalism in Turbulent Times: challenges to and opportunities for
professionalism as an occupational value, NICEC Seminar, 21 March 2011
Foskett, R. and Johnson, B. (2006), Curriculum Development and Career Decision-Making in
Higher Education: Credit-Bearing Careers Education, Higher Education Careers Service Unit,
Manchester, p.19
Little B et al (2006) Employability and work-based learning York: The Higher Education
Academy
Tomlinson, M. (2007), Graduate Employability and Student Attitudes and Orientations to the
Labour Market’, Journal of Education and Work, Vol 20, No 4. pp. 285-304
Watts, T and Butcher, V (2008) Break out or Break-Up? Implication of Institutional
Employability Strategies on the Role and Structure of University Careers Services, Cambridge,
NICEC/ Manchester, HECSU
Wilton, N (2011) The Shifting Sands of Employability in CESR Review, Jan 2011 pp 2-5
Yorke, M (2006) Employability in higher education: what it is – and what it is not, York: The
Higher Education Academy