How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites

What is it about?

In this study, we considered how universities portray employability on the public pages of their websites. We undertook website content analysis of 107 research-intensive universities in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). Using Farenga and Quinlan (2015), we classified these strategies as Portfolio, Hands-off, Award, and Non-embedded. Portfolio or Award strategies were the most common across all four locations, Hands-off and Non-embedded strategies were more common to US universities, and Award was more common in the UK. Universities focused on either possessional or positional approaches to employability (Holmes, 2015). We advocate for a pedagogical shift towards processual approaches in which responsibility for employability development is shared.

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Why is it important?

Employability development is a strategic priority for universities across advanced western economies. Despite this, there is no systematic study of employability development approaches internationally. We were able to show that the strategy utilised by universities to develop employability are mostly possessional or positional; we saw limited evidence of the processual approach. We assert that process is central to employability development; therefore the most effective strategies for employability development combine the development of skills, attributes and student/graduate identity.

Perspectives