Teaching employability skills (post-HE)

What is it? Interventions, developed by Higher Education Providers (HEPs), that aim to teach employability skills and a range of competencies deemed necessary for success in securing and retaining employment (e.g., career adaptability).

Evidence? Currently, we have no strong evidence on the effectiveness of interventions teaching employability skills. There are studies looking at the link between employability skills and employment outcomes, and between employability programmes and specific skills. However, since no causal evidence was identified, the existing evidence only provides proof of concept for how education providers can develop programmes that aim at teaching employability skills.

Should HEPs adopt it? More research into programmes that aim at teaching employability skills is necessary before we can determine whether they should be adopted by HEPs. Providers that run them should seek to embed causal evaluation to understand the extent to which they impact student outcomes – see the TASO evaluation guidance for more information on how to do this. Providers should aim to build an understanding of which employability skills are particularly relevant for each category of students, looking particularly at disadvantaged or underrepresented groups. They should also assess to what extent relevant employability skills impact employment outcomes and how to teach these skills effectively.

What is this intervention?

Interventions, developed by Higher Education Providers (HEPs), that aim to teach employability skills and a range of competencies deemed necessary for success in securing and retaining employment (e.g., career adaptability, networking).

What is the target group?

The existing evidence on employability skills interventions is focused on the general population of students, with no targeting towards individuals from disadvantaged or under-represented groups.

How effective is it?

No causal evidence has been identified on this type of intervention. The existing evidence looks at a wide range of bespoke programmes studied in the literature, making the aggregation and comparison of studies challenging.

Two studies looked at the links between the acquisition of employability skills, as part of a degree programme or through volunteering and participation in sports and employment outcomes. The studies come from the UK and Germany respectively (Percy and Emms, 2020; Eimer and Bohndick, 2021).

The GO Wales programme aimed to improve graduate employability and featured a course in employability skills called ‘Graduate Academy’. Using survey data, the HE Funding Council for Wales (2012) found that those who had participated in the programme were more likely to be in work and, on average, were earning £3,300 more than people who didn’t participate. However, the study is limited by its small sample size and the fact that we cannot say whether course attendees tend to have better outcomes because the intervention is effective or because only the most motivated and/or supported students tend to participate.

There are also a number of relevant anecdotal studies. Some consist of evaluations of specific employability skills programmes (Valdes et al., 2017; Scott and Willison, 2021, McSweeney and Zhang, 2021), while others focus on specific employability skills, respectively career adaptability and psychological capital (Koen et al., 2012; Calvo and Garcia, 2020). However, all these studies use a narrative, Type 1, approach to evaluation and therefore do not provide causal evidence on the impact for graduate employment outcomes.

What features seem to be important?

There is a high degree of variation in the content of employability skills programmes. Combined with the mostly emerging evidence base, it is difficult to identify the features that are most important in terms of programme content or delivery methods.

Interestingly, there is mixed evidence for generic employability skills workshops, suggesting that a more targeted approach (i.e., subject or area specific) is more effective for improving graduate outcomes.

What don’t we know?

Currently we do not have enough evidence to make claims about the efficacy of employability skills programmes. We require more causal evidence to help us understand the impact of these programmes, particularly in a UK context and in relation to disadvantaged or under-represented students’ groups.

Given that employability skills programmes can be resource-intensive, more evidence on the relative scale of the impact of these programmes versus other approaches would help HE providers understand how best to structure their overall career support offering.

Where does the evidence come from?

Eight relevant pieces of research were found, but no study with a causal design. Only four papers drew explicitly on actual data on employment outcomes, with the papers using proxy outcome variables or student feedback on their experience of the programmes.

The key references are given below.

Key references

Calvo, J. C. A. & Garcia, G. M. (2020) The influence of psychological capital on graduates’ perception of employability: the mediating role of employability skills. Higher Education Research & Development. 40 (2), 293–308. Linked here.

Eimer, A. & Bohndick, C. (2021) How individual experiential backgrounds are related to the development of employability among university students. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability. 12 (2), 114–130. Linked here.

Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. (2012) Evaluation of GO Wales Phase 5. Caerphilly, HEFCW. Linked here.

Koen, J., Klehe, U., Annelies, E. M. & Vianen, V. (2012) Training career adaptability to facilitate a successful school-to-work transition. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 81, 395–408. Linked here.

McSweeney, P. and Zhang, T. (2021) Meeting skills and employability demands. Brussels, European University Association. 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.

Scott, F. J. & Willison, D. (2021) Students’ reflections on an employability skills provision. Journal of Further and Higher Education. 45 (8), 1118–1133. Linked here.

Valdes, R. M. T., Santa Sorano, A. & Alvarez, C. L. (2017) Resignification of educational e-innovation to enhance opportunities for graduate employability in the context of new university degrees. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research. 7 (1), 7–78. Linked here.