What is it? Information, advice and guidance (IAG) for employment and employability is the provision of resources to students to help them understand their career options and make effective decisions around them.

Evidence?  There is evidence that IAG for employment and employability can be beneficial for improving students’ employability and graduate employment outcomes. However, most of the existing evidence is not causal – that is, it cannot tell us for sure that IAG is responsible for any impact on students’ outcomes.

Should HEPs adopt it? The existing evidence suggests that IAG can be beneficial for improving students’ employability and graduate employment outcomes. However, currently, there is no comprehensive model supported by a strong evidence base for Higher Education Providers (HEPs) to design effective IAG programmes that target these outcomes. IAG captures a broad spectrum of programmes, making it difficult to distil general features of effective practice.

Information, advice and guidance (IAG) for employment and employability is the provision of resources to students to help them understand their career options and make effective decisions around them, including:

  • Career counselling, where a student experiences one-to-one or small group discussion with a trained careers professional about their personal ambitions and the steps necessary to achieve them;
  • Talks, seminars or workshops, where experts, figures in industry or external speakers provide students with exposure to a particular career pathway, guidance on applying for specific roles or work in certain sectors or general guidance on developing a strategic approach to meeting professional goals;
  • Relevant documents, websites and online tools that provide insights on potential careers and the necessary steps that students need to take to pursue them. It includes connecting students directly with work and training opportunities, for example through student job boards.

Most of the evidence on IAG for improving career and employment outcomes is focused on the general student population, with no targeting towards individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A small number of studies focus on certain disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, including learners from:

  • Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds
  • Students from families of low socioeconomic status
  • Disabled students
  • Female students
  • Refugee/migrant students

Currently, there is enough evidence to suggest that IAG can be effective at improving graduate employment and employability outcomes, but the impact is highly dependent on context and design choices and there is no single, comprehensive model supported by a strong evidence base.

A meta-analysis which pooled 55 papers on IAG interventions suggests there is some reliable evidence of a positive association between these interventions and recipients’ ability to make effective career choices (Whiston et al., 2017). Half the papers reviewed used HE students and the vast majority were conducted in Europe or the US. The review found that one-to-one career counselling has a strong link between graduates’ ability to make effective career decisions and their belief in their ability to shape their career. Group-based career counselling was found to have a moderate association with effective career choices. However, the meta-analysis involved no analysis to uncover whether motivation may explain the relationship between student’s involvement in the interventions and the outcomes identified.

Percy and Emms (2020) looked at graduates’ perception of the effectiveness of  different career interventions, using the 2013 HESA survey data. They uncovered that, six months after graduating, those who found their current role through their university’s career IAG services were earning more on average than those who had not found their role in this way. The positive relationship persisted when taking into account academic achievement, socioeconomic background and general demographics. However, only 8% of graduates surveyed found their current roles through IAG. The authors suggest that in a competitive labour market, if more graduates use IAG services, their positive impact on labour market outcomes (e.g., earnings, likelihood of being in full-time employment after graduation) may be reduced.

Finally, an IAG programme on progression to postgraduate study, targeting undergraduate students from BAME backgrounds and neighbourhoods with low levels of participation in education was evaluated by the OfS (2019) using a causal design. Participants attended two workshops led by alumni from disadvantaged groups and were provided with information on applying for postgraduate courses, student finance options and a subject-specific taster lecture relevant to students’ postgraduate interests. The study involved quantitative data collection triangulated with focus groups and case studies. Comparing progression, the study found that students in the treatment group had a 9% higher rate of enrolment in postgraduate education compared to the control group. Factoring in attendance at both IAG sessions, the researchers found that the individuals in the intervention group were 22% more likely to progress to postgraduate education. It’s important to recognise that the least motivated participants may have dropped-out of the evaluation at a higher rate than others, which could bias the findings of the study. However, the study design remains robust as it involves randomisation.

IAG captures a broad spectrum of programmes, making it difficult to distil general features of effective practice. There are a number of elements that HEPs should take into account when attempting to design or implement an intervention. Looking at the existing evidence base, it is possible to identify some common features of effective IAG.

For career counselling, one-to-one guidance appears more effective than group sessions. There is also apparent value in this counselling being delivered by individuals from a similar background to the recipients of the IAG who have gone through a journey relevant to that in which the students are interested. Finally, evidence suggests that developing a ‘career plan’ can be a good use of counselling time. This may involve providing signposting on financing options for training and direct guidance on roles and organisations to apply to.

Students report that written IAG, for example on careers portal websites, is more effective when it connects them to specific employment and training opportunities rather than providing generic employability advice. Similarly, it appears that students from disadvantaged groups benefit greatly from case studies of graduates from the same groups who have succeeded professionally, as well as step-by-step guidance on processes such as applying for particular vocational roles or accessing financial support for postgraduate education.

There are only a small number of studies to inform this advice, and an even smaller number which take place in a UK context. More research is needed to understand the impact of IAG on concrete graduate employment outcomes, especially in relation to disadvantaged or under-represented student groups.

The long time scale necessary to look at professional trajectories creates a significant challenge for evaluators. Despite this, it is still possible and necessary to produce rigorous long-term evaluation of IAG programmes.

TASO’s advice on the efficacy of IAG programmes for employment and employability is based on evidence from three papers, including one meta-analysis and one causal study. The remainder of the evidence provides weaker evidence using less robust study designs.

Causal studies

Whiston, S. C., Li, Y., Mitt, N. G. & Wright, L. (2017) Effectiveness of career choice interventions: a meta-analytic replication and extension. Journal of Vocational Behaviour. 100, 175–184. Linked here. 

Other studies

Office for Students. (2019) Widening participation in taught postgraduate study: a research project. Manchester, University of Manchester. Linked here.

Percy, C. & Emms, K. (2020) Drivers of early career success for UK undergraduates: an analysis of graduate destinations surveys. London, Edge Foundation. Linked here.