The concept of ‘employability’ plays a crucial role in informing labour market policy in the UK, the EU and beyond. This paper analyses current and previous applications of the term and discusses its value as an exploratory concept and a framework for policy analysis. It then traces the development of the concept, discusses its role in current labour market and training strategies (with particular reference to the UK) and seeks to identify an approach to defining employability that can better inform labour market policy, by transcending explanations of employment and unemployment that focus solely on either supply-side or demand-side factors. Although the literature offers a range of definitions of ‘employability’, many policy-makers have recently used the term as shorthand for ‘the individual’s employability skills and attributes’. It is argued that this ‘narrow’ usage can lead to a ‘hollowing out’ of the concept of employability. The paper concludes by presenting a broad framework for analysing employability built around individual factors, personal circumstances and external factors, which acknowledges the importance of both supply- and demand-side factors.

Since lifetime employment within the same organisation is no longer a prerogative for all, job security has to be safeguarded differently. In this respect, 'lifetime employability' instead of 'lifetime employment' is often put forward as the new protection in the labour market. Although employability became a buzzword in organisational literature, no clear consensus about its meaning and measurement can be found. In this paper, we bring some clarification to the debate about employability. We develop a conceptual model of the 'employability process'. This conceptual model offers a framework for future empirical research on employability. It can help to identify the main factors that may influence labour market transitions for individuals. In addition, it may clarify the role government and employers can play in shaping these career moves.

Recently, Fugate et al. . Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65(1), 14] defined employability as a psycho-social construct comprised of three dimensions: (i) adaptability; (ii) career identity; and (iii) human and social capital. The aim of the current paper was to empirically test Fugate et al.'s model in a sample of 416 unemployed Australians (n = 126 for longitudinal sample). Specifically, this research explored employability in relation to three aspects of unemployment: (1) self-esteem during unemployment; (2) job search during unemployment; and (3) re-employment (at a 6-month follow-up). Overall, the results of this longitudinal study provide broad support for the psycho-social construct of employability and demonstrate its applicability to the unemployment context.

This volume is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.

Purpose – Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.

Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.

Findings – Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.

Originality/value – In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.

Higher education worldwide is facing unprecedented challenges - the dramatic rise of college tuition, rapidly increasing demands for accountability, and a complex society that demands college graduates with even more skills and capacities. To understand how higher education can effectively address these challenges, this chapter investigates the economic and social benefits of higher education and what it means for the future of accessibility in higher education. Utilizing Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) and signaling theory, a comprehensive search of the literature selected 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and twenty-five books published between 2000 and 2016. The findings suggest that student expectations for a college degree tends to be very instrumental and personal, while higher education purpose of undergraduate education tend towards highly ideal life- and society-changing consequences. Eight recommendations for teacher-scholars, policymakers, and campus leaders are proposed. The ultimate goal is to help make colleges skills and degrees more accessible for students.

Australian immigration policy, in common with the US and Canada, has increased the emphasis on skill based selection criteria. A key premise of this policy is that skilled immigrants are more employable and can add to the productive capacity of the economy. However, this e¤ect will be diminished if immigrants are working in occupations that fail to utilise their skills. We examine the extent of overeducation for recently arrived immigrants to Australia. We …nd that they are more likely to be overeducated than the native population, even if they enter on skill based visas.

The need for 'job-ready' graduates has catalysed the development of non-technical skills in higher education institutions worldwide. Continued criticism of business school outcomes has provoked this examination of non-technical skill deficiencies in Australian business graduates. Comparing findings with existing literature on skill gaps in other developed, culturally-similar economies underscores the generality of identified problems and highlights to stakeholders in undergraduate education those areas requiring curricula review.

With the assistance of donors, the Government of Afghanistan has started to enact a wide-range of policy actions aiming to provide Afghan women with equal access to resources and opportunities for participation in the country’s economy. However, the implementation of these women-centred policies remains weak and leaves women to fight alone against daily challenges due to the lack of their equal acceptance in society. The paper aims to shed light on some of the many issues that can only be addressed if peace is achieved. Overall, the paper is focused on Afghan women employability and entrepreneurship opportunities for engagement in economic development. Authors argue that in the context of Afghanistan, women’s economic empowerment requires better policymaking, which can in turn improve the level of policy implementation in different parts of the country. The paper highlights the need for rethinking government economic policies with an emphasis on the essential components of women’s economic empowerment such as security and innovative opportunities for women’s participation in national and local economic development.

The recent transformation of the workplaces and labor market, characterized by rapid technological changes, social and economic instability, has greatly influenced the construction of people's career paths. These paths cannot be viewed more as linear, but multifaceted and unstable. In organizational context, the psychological contract has changed from long term to short term. In this scenario, the construct of employability becomes central: people need to maintain and improve their ability to be attractive to the labor market to get or keep a job. The study presents the adaptation of the Self-Perceived Employability Scale to the Italian context. The participants are 660 Italian workers. The instruments used to verify the concurrent validity of the scale were the Employability Scale, the Flourishing Scale, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Organizational Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale. Results showed good psychometric properties of the Italian version in terms of internal consistency, construct and concurrent validity, with significant correlations with all the other measures. The CFA highlights some dissimilarity in the scale's structure compared to the UK version, probably due to cultural differences among the samples.

The decline of the male breadwinner model goes hand in hand with an increased perception of insecurity and risk in the new economy. This article explores how the perception of and responses to risk and insecurity are influenced by gender. The article is based on interviews with male and female information communication technology (ICT) workers, and it identifies four main discourses through which they conceptualise risk. First, they draw on a discourse which normalises risk as part of their jobs. A second discourse implicitly suggests that women are less likely to be made redundant. A third discourse is based on the assumption that becoming a breadwinner influences one’s perception of risk. The topic of the final discourse is the importance of continually improving one’s skills in order to remain employable and maintain one’s position as a breadwinner. The discourses all assume- the ideal of a neoliberal self-entrepreneurial subject. The article then discusses ageing as a factor that changes perceptions of risks and the ability to remain on top of one’s game. While there is little difference in the interpretative resources men and women use to make sense of insecurity, the article shows that the subtext underlying all four discourses is that of a masculine breadwinner. The article contributes towards developing a gendered understanding of risk and insecurity through exposing the masculine subtext with which these discourses are saturated.

This article analyses recent developments in policies to promote the employability of unemployed and economically inactive people in the UK. It discusses the extent to which these policies reflect the dominant approaches of 'Work First', where programmes focus mainly on compulsory job search and short-term interventions to facilitate a quick return to work, or human capital development (HCD), where programmes tailor services to promote longerterm skills and personal development. Specifically, the article reports on case-study research into two recent pilot initiatives: Working Neighbourhoods (which targeted a range of intensive services in neighbourhoods characterised by high levels of inactivity) and Pathways to Work (which combines employability services and cognitive behaviour therapy-type approaches to help clients to manage health problems). While both pilots have retained strong Work First features, they potentially represent a shift towards a more HCD-oriented approach, through the delivery of more holistic 'coping and enabling' services. However, there remain concerns that, as with previous progressive policy initiatives, the positive lessons of these pilots will not be fully mainstreamed. We conclude that, if the UK is to balance Work First compulsion with high-quality services delivering progress in the labour market and HCD, a strengthening of 'coping and enabling' interventions is required, alongside a renewed commitment to training. new approaches to employability in the uk 541

Increasing globalisation and the interconnectedness of multinational work environments have intensified the demand for graduates capable of operating in culturally diverse contexts. Some of the skills required to function effectively in these contexts have been shown to be developed through international mobility experiences and yet the connection between these outcomes and the generic transferable skills requirements of graduate employers have rarely been made.

Published in Studies in Continuing Education, 32(2), 89-102. In the last couple of decades, there has been a shift from speaking about employment to speaking about employability. The interest in this article is directed at how discourses on employability are mobilized in the wider discursive terrain of governance. How does governance operate, what subject is produced and, more specifically, who is positioned as responsible for the employability of the citizen through such discourses? These questions are addressed by analysing three different kinds of texts: transnational policy documents on lifelong learning and the labour market; a Swedish policy text on in-service training in the health care sector; interviews with employees at six nursing homes for elderly people. A discourse analysis is performed inspired by the concepts of governmentality and the enabling state. Although the analysis indicate that the individual is constructed as responsible for her/his own employability, and the state and the employer are construed as enablers. This is not clear-cut or deterministic as different kinds of texts produce different kinds of positioning. This kind of analysis might help open up a new space for thought and action.

Three hypotheses concerning human capital investment by older individuals were examined using the Adult Education (AE) file from the 1995 National Household Education Survey (NCES). While late career workers (50-65) participated less in activities that provide primarily general skills, they were more likely to participate in academic credentialing programs, targeted career and job-related courses, on-the-job computer-based training, and "unspecified" other formal training activities. There was no difference in the levels of employer support reported by older workers. The implication of these results is that older adults' human capital investment is more complex than conventional economic formulations of the decision-making process suggest. Both the content and delivery approaches associated with work-related education and training must be accommodated in future conceptual models of the process. Further, the relevancy of Sterns' (1986) model of environmental change is also highlighted. Practical implications suggest that organizations must reconsider older workers' interest in continuing education/training activities.

This study was motivated to investigate social inequality in developed nations, by studying the impact of ICTs upon the vulnerable unemployed and under-employed in Singapore. First, drawing upon the capability approach (Sen, 1999), we operationalize the dependent variable as self-perceived employability, conceptualized as both a measure of well-being and a livelihood capability. Secondly, we used Selwyn’s (2010) digital divide hierarchical impact assessment framework, to define and measure the ICT assets of access, usage, and appropriation. Primary data was gathered from 302 under-employed and unemployed workers in Singapore, a developed Asian economy. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that higher-order hierarchies of ICT usage and appropriation were associated with the dependent variable of employability, while access was not. We discuss the implications for development discourse in regions with ubiquitous access, advocating for policymakers to focus on ICT training. Further, we offer nuanced findings on vulnerability in developed economies as an enhancement to mainstream ICT4D scholarship, focused exclusively on poverty in developing countries.

We investigate the relationship between employability and obesity, particularly how obesity and overweight are associated with the percentage of working years spent unemployed and the ability to regain employment. Data for adults who responded to the 2003 Decennial Health Survey collected by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies revealed that the percentage of time spent unemployed during working years is significantly higher for each kg/m 2 deviation from the mean body mass index (BMI) attained at age 20 and that the probability of regaining employment after a period of unemployment is much lower. #

The reasons behind the demand for what is sometimes called the New Engineer are critically examined and it is argued that a focus on employability alone is not sufficient to prepare socially responsible engineers. By examining issues around work organisation and sustainability it is proposed that engineers need to understand the wider social context in which they work. It is argued that the focus of ethics education should be broadened to focus on the social structure and the way it both enables and constrains socially responsible conduct. There is a call to refocus engineers' attitudes towards the systems of regulation so they see them not only as constraints but as potential enablers supporting socially responsible engineering.

Host-nation employers' political affiliation and national identity both may be relevant to seeing immigrant job-seekers as employable. However, whether national identity alters differences in links between political affiliation and evaluations of immigrants is not well articulated, and this includes a potential for national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrant job-seekers. Moreover, research has yet to identify psychological mechanisms that could transmit a conjoint effect of political affiliation and national identity. In this study, we examined the capacity of national identity to accentuate links between political affiliation and perceived employability of immigrants. Liberal and conservative employment experts (human resource professionals and managers) were experimentally primed to elicit either a personal or national (U.S.) identity, and measures of attitudes toward immigrant job-seekers were collected. Results suggested a polarizing effect of national identity: conservative employers viewed immigrants as less employable when primed with national identity, while liberal employers rated immigrants as more employable. Among conservatives, priming national identity also resulted in greater collective self-esteem -feelings of self-worth derived from group membership. Moreover, increases in collective self-esteem mediated the link between primed national identity and less perceived employability among conservatives. Overall, this research contributes to emerging literature by suggesting that the capacity of national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrants may depend on political affiliation. In addition, we suggest that transient changes in collective self-esteem can result from priming national identity, and that such changes may transmit links between national identity and evaluations of immigrants among conservatives.

This study seeks to examine the role of employability in the process of satisfaction and loyalty formation towards higher education institutions (HEI), when considering tourism graduates. It explores how employability has been approached within HEIs and how graduates' satisfaction and loyalty have been assessed in higher education. A structural equation model, including the employability construct, is proposed and validated, and the results confirm that the HEIs' image is strongly influenced by employability. These results might represent a valuable source of information for HEIs in the process of finding the balance between the service provided and the needs of the stakeholders.

This paper explores and analyses the views of, and effects on, students of a project that integrated the development of employability skills within the small group classes of two compulsory courses of the first year of an accounting degree. The project aimed to build, deliver and evaluate course materials designed to encourage the development of a broad range of employability skills: skills needed for life long learning and a successful business career.

This paper examines the significance of work experience schemes and part-time jobs for school pupils within the context of recruitment to youth jobs. Specifically, it focuses on the role played by work experience and part-time jobs in the recruitment of young people to engineering apprenticeships in a Midlands town during the recession of the early 1980s. The employers gave greater importance to holiday jobs, Saturday jobs and paper rounds than work experience in recruiting apprentices. The former were viewed as a more effective guide to applicants' work attitudes. Work experience lacked the element of 'sacrifice' and other aspects associated with 'real' work Despite this, work experience proliferated in the 1980s, whilst pupils' part-time work has been neglected as a learning resource.

El trabajo aborda la influencia de los stakeholders de la universidad en la empleabilidad de sus alumnos. Para este análisis utilizamos una muestra de 230 centros universitarios españoles, recurriendo a la opinión del director/decano de cada centro. Un primer análisis exploratorio confirma la influencia de los profesores y del equipo rectoral en las estrategias de empleabilidad. Otros stakeholders con mayor orientación al mercado como los antiguos alumnos y empresarios, sin embargo, tienen una influencia comparativamente marginal. Las propuestas de reforma pasan, pues, por reequilibrar la capacidad de influencia de los stakeholders, aunque no necesariamente en todos los casos con reformas estructurales en los órganos de decisión. El hecho de diferenciar varias estrategias de empleabilidad nos

This article contributes to a better understanding of the social acceptance of the investment model of volunteering, i.e. the view that volunteering can enhance employability through the development of professionally relevant knowledge and competences. Based on the analysis of Eurobarometer data, the article explores: (1) the prevalence of the investment model of volunteering in the EU-27 countries and the extent to which this varies between individuals with the potential to make hiring decisions (IHP) and the general population, (2) the demographic factors associated with the acceptance of this model, (3) whether national differences in the acceptance of the model are better explained by variation between countries or cross-national demographic factors and (4) whether national institutional characteristics related to the competitiveness of the national labour market, the specificity of the education system, the strength of the continuing vocational training system and cultural factors influence acceptance. The results show that the acceptance of the investment model of volunteering is relatively widespread in Europe and that variation in the acceptance of the investment model amongst the general population is driven by both individual (age and class) and between-country differences (related to the strength of training for unemployed people), but variation is more attributable to differences between countries than cross-national demographic groups. IHP, on the other hand, tend to be more homogenous in their acceptance of the investment model than the general population.

In this paper, we have taken initial steps towards highlighting the employability discourse in higher education by using content analysis to explore website data at 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and 40 HEIs in the USA by searching for 'employability' in respective web engines. The findings from our preliminary data analysis were inserted into a MIT SIMILE software package to create a bespoke, interactive webpage that could be disseminated for discussion by higher education managers. The initial findings suggest that, in the UK, the broad discourse is centred upon government policies and targeted preparation for employment while in the USA it is centred upon the institutional vision and social inclusion agenda. Recent graduates' views were sought on these initial findings to validate whether their experiences corroborated with our suggested employability discourse claims. These insights are a useful first step for HEIs to question and re-evaluate employability at an institutional level.

We analyse the main barriers limiting the employability of long-term unemployed job seekers within a local labour market characterised by generally high levels of demand. We use four key elements of employability (employability assets, the deployment of assets, the presentation of assets, and context) as an analytical framework in order to analyse the manner in which job seekers' personal characteristics, social and family circumstances, and perceptions of the labour market affect their ability to pursue employment opportunities. The results of interviews carried out with 115 long- term unemployed job seekers show that individual and family circumstances and attitudes towards work and job seeking are likely to be increasingly important barriers given the context of a relative lack of demand-side problems and the availability of lower-skilled jobs in expanding industries. In particular, many long-term unemployed job seekers were reluctant to seek jobs in the expanding service sectors of the local economy. Although the concept of employability provides a useful theoretical and policy framework for analysing long-term unemployment issues, models based upon an employability framework should be expanded to incorporate the role of employers and so integrate supply-side and demand-side perspectives.

This paper analyses the barriers to work faced by long- and short-term unemployed people in remote rural labour markets. Applying a broad concept of ‘employability’ as an analytical framework, it considers the attributes and experiences of 190 job seekers (22% of the registered unemployed) in two contiguous travel-to-work areas (Wick and Sutherland) in the northern Highlands of Scotland. The labour demand side of employability is also considered through interviews with 17 employers. The paper identifies the specific job search and other employment problems faced by unemployed people living in isolated rural communities (labour supply); considers the perspective of employers (labour demand); and discusses potential policies to address the needs of unemployed individuals. Many job seekers were found to have gaps in generic and job-specific skills, whilst some (particularly males) were reluctant to pursue opportunities in non-traditional sectors of the economy. The importance of informal job search and recruitment networks (which may exclude the young and the long-term unemployed) and the lack of access to formal employment services in remote areas also potentially contributed to labour market disadvantage. Holistic and client-centred solutions are required to address the barriers faced by these rural job seekers, including adult basic education provision, flexible training focussing on skills and work experience with particular relevance to the new rural economy, and support services for job seekers in isolated areas. These supply-side policies should be combined with demand-side measures to stimulate endogenous and exogenous growth in isolated local economies.

Research about immigrants’ psychological functioning emphasizes the negative impact of discrimination on psychological well-being. Although there is agreement about the relevance of job access to immigrants’ adjustment to host countries, employability’s effects on immigrants’ well-being have been scarcely studied. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived discrimination, employability, and psychological well-being in a sample of 100 Latin-
American immigrants settled in Chile. We aimed to determine the contribution of discrimination and employability on well-being’s explanation, and to establish the incidence of employability on the relation between discrimination and well-being. Perceived discrimination and employability explained the 31.5% of well-being’s variability, and employability mediated the relation between discrimination and well-being. Employability’s role as a psychosocial resource in a migratory context is discussed

This article explores the relationship between dispositional employability and online training purchase. Through a sample of 883 employees working for enterprises in Spain, and a using principal component analysis and binomial logit probabilistic models, the research revealed two main results. First, it was found that dispositional employability is characterized by five factors: “openness to changes at work”, “career motivation and work resilience”, “work and career proactivity”, “optimism and engagement at work”, and “work identity”. Second, the research also found a double causality in the relationship analysis between dispositional employability and online training purchase. However, this causality is not direct. In explaining dispositional employability, certain motivations and types of behavior of employees participating in online training are significant. In particular, greater sensitivity towards career-related personal empowerment, a greater predisposition towards developing new experiences at work, and a greater awareness of the fact that positive job outcomes are related to preparation conscientiousness. In explaining online training purchase, employees who are more motivated and who better identify with their jobs are more likely to pay. Moreover, employees who spend more time on training and have less contact with new trends in their jobs, find it hard to keep calm in difficult situations, and have a greater predisposition towards effort, and preference for novelty, variety and challenges at work are more likely to purchase online training.

Dyslexic employees are likely to be more at risk of low levels of personal resources because of their cognitive makeup compared to their non-dyslexic counterparts. Low personal resources, in turn, may lead to low employability because of difficulties in positively facing transitions. This research aimed to systematically review evidence on interventions for improving psychological resources in dyslexic adults. We searched Scopus, ERIC EBSCOhost, PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index Web of Science, and Universe up to May 2020. We also examined the reference lists of published studies. We included studies that compared any intervention format against no intervention, any other intervention considered as a comparator by the authors, or that had no control group. Participants were dyslexic adults aged minimum 18 years old. We included four studies with 278 participants. Studies were run in the UK, Sweden, and Finland. Two studies involved a control group, and two studies were observational. Interventions varied between studies in intensity, duration, and format (individual and small groups). Risk of bias was unclear for most risk criteria. Findings from this review show that there is initial evidence suggesting initiatives can be effective in supporting a set of personal resources, i.e., self-confidence, organization, time, and stress-management, which are important in allowing dyslexic adults' positive adjustment in the workplace. Yet, more studies are needed to improve outcome assessment and study design.

Providing accurate and accessible labour market information is a key priority for policies targeted at improving the employability of unemployed people. In an attempt to develop the quality and reach of such services, policy makers are increasingly turning to ICT, and particularly the Internet. However, there are concerns that the expansion of services delivered though ICT risks leaving behind the most disadvantaged. This paper investigates the current and potential role of ICT within the job seeking activities of unemployed people in one urban labour market (the city of Glasgow). Deploying the concept of the ‘digital divide’ as an analytical framework, it examines differences between job seekers’ access to, and use of, the Internet. The paper finds an association between higher levels of economic capital (income) and cultural capital (skills) and Internet access and job seeking. It is argued that a renewed commitment to the development of community-based technology centres and ICT training for the unemployed is required, if disadvantaged job seekers are to reap the potential employability gains associated with the expansion of on-line services.

There has been an increasingly common trend in the UK to identify character skills and traits as the basis for various individual successes and achievements. In education policy and employment services, character has been linked to the making of successful, morally aware, employable and socially mobile citizens. This article explores the late-nineteenth century use of character discourses, focusing on the economist Alfred Marshall. During this period character was associated with future-oriented subjects-those displaying provident and thrifty habits and dispositions-and held particular class, race and gender prejudices. The article draws parallels between this late-Victorian approach to character and the 'return' of character in twenty-first century education and welfare-to-work policy, in particular where cultivating character is linked to improving employability and social mobility. We can make productive comparisons between character's Victorian legacy and its re-emergence more recently amid increasingly moralized discourses around poverty, inequality and unemployment. In doing so, we might better understand the historical antecedents to stigmatizing character discourses today, insofar as they leave the burden of responsibility for particular social outcomes in life and the labour market with individuals and their ability to cultivate their own human capital.

Enhancing graduate employability is a priority for many stakeholders in higher education and this research explores graduates’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, the inclusion of employability-related support in undergraduate degree programmes. A literature review is supplemented by primary research on a targeted sample of 104 graduates from humanities, sciences, engineering and social sciences, who span several generations and have over 2,250 years of employment experience. The findings are triangulated to a workshop with 23 graduate careers advisory professionals. The results signal some important trends in experiences and attitudes, as well as variations by discipline and gender. While one in ten graduates prefer a disciplinary focus with just indirect attention to employability, nine in ten want employability to have greater emphasis, albeit that preferences vary between optional and integrated approaches. Experiences of employability-related support signal a significant shift over recent decades in how that support is provided, with professional service groups such as careers taking a much more active role and the overall level of provision rising. A cautionary note however is that the link with the discipline remains critical and the right balance needs to be struck between the provision of such support and embedding it into the curriculum.

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If graduates from STEMM-science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical sciences-are to successfully navigate the labour market, they need diverse capabilities alongside self-and career awareness. The focus of this study was STEMM students' perceptions of self, career and employability. The study asked over 2,000 commencing students to respond to an open question which asked how long they intended to work in their discipline. The findings lend weight to the use of social cognitive career theory, which emphasises that career-and study-related decision making are influenced by feedback and feed-forward mechanisms and by intra-and inter-personal, historical, and contemporaneous dimensions. The article ends with implications for higher education teachers, including the need for strategies with which to help a diverse student body create meaning from the career-related messages that abound in public discourse.

This article considers questions of ‘employability’, a notion foregrounded in the Green and White Papers on the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) (BIS, 2015; 2016).  This legislation is the most recent attempt to address quality in higher education in the UK.  The paper first questions government imperatives concerning employability and suggests a series of mismatches that are evident in the rhetorics in this area.  This summary opens up elements of what I am calling the first ‘folly’ in the field. The second section of the paper considers recent research with individual academics engaged in employability activity.  This research suggests another series of mismatches in the aims and outcomes of ‘employability initiatives’ and opens up a further series of ‘follies’ in the day-to-day practices of academics and students’ responses to them.  The third section of the paper turns to academics’ reports of student behaviour in relation to the outcomes of their degree.  This section develops an argument that relates to the final ‘folly’ associated with the current focus on employability.  I argue that students’ focus on outcomes (which at face value suggests they have internalized the importance of employment) is contributing to the production of graduates who do not have the dispositions that employers – when interviewed – say that they want.  The highly performative culture of higher education, encouraged by the same metrics that will be extended through the TEF, is implicated then in not preparing students for the workplace.

The graduate labour market is highly competitive but little is known about why students vary in their development of employability. This study contributes to the literature by applying goal-setting theory and the job demands-resources model to investigate how motivational processes influence students’ proactive career behaviours. We tested four hypotheses using structural equation modelling and moderation/mediation analysis using a nested model approach; 432 undergraduates from 21 UK universities participated in this cross-sectional study. The results showed that students higher in mastery approach had greater perceived employability mediated by two proactive career behaviours (skill development and network building). Students’ career goal commitment was associated with all four proactive career behaviours (career planning, skill development, career consultation and network building). Students’ academic and employment workloads did not negatively impact their proactive career behaviours. University tutors and careers services should therefore encourage students to set challenging career goals that reflect mastery approach.

Abstract: In the midst of diminishing levels of aggregate demand for jobs at European level and ”transitional unemployment”, employability promises also in Central and Eastern Europe the freedom to choose between successive positions and transform them in learning experiences within a career field. The firm becomes increasingly unreliable in providing a stable position or even the prospects of advancement, but may offer the necessary support to enhance one’s employability.  In this paper I aim to better understand the relation between the employee and the firm by putting in doubt the classless imaginary of the employability discourse. Focussing on the employability narrative among highly skilled, skilled and unskilled workers in a middle scale city in Romania, Cluj, a second tire city in the urban hierarchy of Central and Eastern Europe, I will question the very assumption that the whole issue of the employee-employer relation is a one-to-one relation between a person and the firm, without political consequences for the other employees. In this paper I explore the way employability works in producing new class tensions between the various fractions of the workers, following the classification effects of the self-development, self-bettering and self-education narratives.

Economic growth and social development in Chile require a skilled workforce able to adapt to a highly dynamic labour market all of which place new demands for middle-aged workers who have to explore labour markets opportunities to develop and maintain their employability. This research addresses internal antecedents on employability, specifically, is intended to describe career identity and its relationship with middle-aged managers’ career behaviour leading to self-perceived employability. Based on theories of the Self, the Social Identity Theory, and the narrative approach, career identity is conceptualized as a dynamic aggregate of work descriptors that individuals ascribe to themselves, as well as an ongoing process of constructing a narrative about the self at work. From the analysis of narrative accounts of careers provided by 25 Chilean male middle-aged managers, we concluded that the so-called complex career identity, which implies multiple selves in relation to work embedded in a rich and articulated career narrative, seems to be an antecedent of career behaviour contributing to one's employability. Recommendations for further research and practical implications of the study are given.