Employability skill development is being increasingly investigated among higher education scholars, corporate hiring managers, and governments around the world. Understanding employability skill development is important because it has implications on educational policy, teaching techniques, curriculum designs, and recruitment practices. This study was conducted at a public research university in a southwestern state of the United States. It was designed to understand the difference in employability skill development among students who participated in a leadership development program compared to those who did not. Additionally, the study investigated what skills were seeing the most change among student participated in the leadership development program, and if a student's major of study played any role in their overall employability development over the course of a year. Eight employability skills were tested in a pre- and post-test model. Results indicated that students in leadership development programs are more likely to see an increase in employability skill development. From the skills tested among participates, those in the leadership program found the most change over time in the area of problem solving skills. Finally, the results also indicate that a student's major does have an impact on their overall employability skill development. Students who major in business had significantly higher employability scores than those in other majors at the university.

yes / With some of the lowest levels of graduate employability across university campuses, and the non-vocational nature of most Politics/International Relations (IR) undergraduate degree programmes, the discipline faces a huge challenge in responding to the increasingly prevalent employability agenda in higher education. Indeed, as Politics/IR students feel the burden of the £9000 annual student fee now charged by most universities,5 and an ever-more contracting and competitive jobs market, a review of existing employability training and learning in the Politics/IR curriculum in universities has never been so essential. As such, this paper – based on a Higher Education Agency (HEA) funded project, Employability Learning and the Politics/IR Curriculum – explores the employability learning provision in a cross-section of English higher education institutions (HEIs) with a view to identifying examples of good practice in order to generate reflection on how best the discipline can respond to the employability agenda. The original project maps how employability is ingrained in various Politics/IR departments’6 curriculum. Here we present some of our preliminary findings. The bulk of this paper is formed by a discussion of the results we have gathered to date. Before proceeding to the data, however, we begin this paper by setting out the background to the employability agenda. In particular, we seek to highlight the ways in which the employability agenda has developed and been framed in higher education, as well as detailing the statistics on graduate employability in Politics/IR in order to provide some quantitative context. In so doing we aim to lay out the scale of the practical and pedagogic challenges we face as a discipline. We then go on to discuss the methodology of the project, before finally presenting and analysing our findings.

En föränderlig arbetsmarknad ställer nya krav på studenter och nyexaminerade. Formella kompetenser har fått ge plats åt diverse informella egenskaper och färdigheter i syftet att söka och erhålla arbete. Syftet med denna studie är att genom semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöka hur fem sistaårsstudenter på ett civilekonomprogram i Mellansverige resonerar kring anställningsbarhet och vilka strategier de tar till för att påverka sin anställningsbarhet. Resultatet visar slutligen att studenterna reflekterar över sin egen anställningsbarhet först i samband med att de själva börjat söka jobb och att de i huvudsak ser på anställningsbarhet som ett ”mått” för hur attraktivt man är på arbetsmarknaden. Utbildning, extrajobb och engagemang beskrivs vidare som de främsta strategierna för ökad anställningsbarhet bland studenterna. Studenterna ser på sig själva som anställningsbara och ser positivt på sina förmågor att erhålla jobb efter examen.

Employability of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers recently. This interest came about because of reported concerns by employers regarding the lack of employability skills among graduates thereby rendering them unemployable. South Africa is experiencing persistently high unemployment rates among the youth, particularly those with degrees. Similarly, self-employment of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers around the world. Despite high unemployment rates among the youth of South Africa, self-employment levels are disappointedly at low levels. Therefore, knowledge of university students‟ perceptions with regard to employability and intention for self-employment is important. The phenomenon of employability has gradually developed over the decades. This resulted in researchers finding it difficult to come up with a common definition of the concept. Nonetheless, researchers share similar views with regard to the importance of employability, particularly among graduates. Due to the changing nature of the world of work, there is an unprecedented need for graduates to possess employability skills that will enhance their employability throughout their working life. For a long time, there has been a debate in South Africa regarding the preparedness of graduates for the world of work. Employers complain about the quality of graduates while universities feel that employers are not appreciative of their contribution in producing appropriate graduates. Therefore, there is a need to investigate employability of students continuously, as the future workforce will come from this cohort. For many decades, self-employment has been viewed as an important component of economies of many countries. In light of this, there has been an increasing interest in self-employment around the world. In the case of South Africa, research has consistently indicated that compared to countries at similar levels of development, the country lags behind on this front. In response to this, numerous attempts have been undertaken to strengthen actions that encourage and support self-employment as an attractive substitute to wage employment for students. There is a shared view among researchers that the decision to enter into self-employment is preceded by intention. Therefore, there is a continuous need to investigate self-employment intentions in South Africa, particularly among students. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. A quantitative research approach was followed to collect data. A questionnaire was administered among second year, third year and postgraduate students at four universities in two provinces of South Africa. Factor analysis was used to establish whether data were appropriate for analysis. T-tests and ANOVA were used to compare students‟ employability skills, perceived employability and intention for self-employment. While there were no significant differences in terms of employability skills and perceived employability, significant differences were found on self-employment intentions on various variables. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship among the factors of perceived employability and the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment. The results indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. Reflecting on the results of this study it is evident that university students perceived themselves as employable. In line with the results, it is important that the employability skills of students should be developed, as this will enhance their employability. The curriculum should be designed in such a way that it incorporates employability skills. Employers and government should play a meaningful role in this regard. While the majority of students indicated that they intend to be self-employed someday, there were a substantial number of students who do not view self-employment as a career option. Therefore, self-employment should be made a compulsory module across different fields of study. Different stakeholders should be involved in encouraging university students to engage in self-employment activities. / PhD (Entrepreneurship)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

Employability of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers recently. This interest came about because of reported concerns by employers regarding the lack of employability skills among graduates thereby rendering them unemployable. South Africa is experiencing persistently high unemployment rates among the youth, particularly those with degrees. Similarly, self-employment of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers around the world. Despite high unemployment rates among the youth of South Africa, self-employment levels are disappointedly at low levels. Therefore, knowledge of university students‟ perceptions with regard to employability and intention for self-employment is important. The phenomenon of employability has gradually developed over the decades. This resulted in researchers finding it difficult to come up with a common definition of the concept. Nonetheless, researchers share similar views with regard to the importance of employability, particularly among graduates. Due to the changing nature of the world of work, there is an unprecedented need for graduates to possess employability skills that will enhance their employability throughout their working life. For a long time, there has been a debate in South Africa regarding the preparedness of graduates for the world of work. Employers complain about the quality of graduates while universities feel that employers are not appreciative of their contribution in producing appropriate graduates. Therefore, there is a need to investigate employability of students continuously, as the future workforce will come from this cohort. For many decades, self-employment has been viewed as an important component of economies of many countries. In light of this, there has been an increasing interest in self-employment around the world. In the case of South Africa, research has consistently indicated that compared to countries at similar levels of development, the country lags behind on this front. In response to this, numerous attempts have been undertaken to strengthen actions that encourage and support self-employment as an attractive substitute to wage employment for students. There is a shared view among researchers that the decision to enter into self-employment is preceded by intention. Therefore, there is a continuous need to investigate self-employment intentions in South Africa, particularly among students. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. A quantitative research approach was followed to collect data. A questionnaire was administered among second year, third year and postgraduate students at four universities in two provinces of South Africa. Factor analysis was used to establish whether data were appropriate for analysis. T-tests and ANOVA were used to compare students‟ employability skills, perceived employability and intention for self-employment. While there were no significant differences in terms of employability skills and perceived employability, significant differences were found on self-employment intentions on various variables. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship among the factors of perceived employability and the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment. The results indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. Reflecting on the results of this study it is evident that university students perceived themselves as employable. In line with the results, it is important that the employability skills of students should be developed, as this will enhance their employability. The curriculum should be designed in such a way that it incorporates employability skills. Employers and government should play a meaningful role in this regard. While the majority of students indicated that they intend to be self-employed someday, there were a substantial number of students who do not view self-employment as a career option. Therefore, self-employment should be made a compulsory module across different fields of study. Different stakeholders should be involved in encouraging university students to engage in self-employment activities. / PhD (Entrepreneurship)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

Higher education institutions are always directed through policy reforms to promote graduates employability by developing skills in students that contribute to human capital. This interest in employability through education system in the development of skills reflects is part of human capital theory. Considering this, underlying research investigates the expectation-performance gap in the development of generic skills for the purpose of employability offered by the accounting institutes of Pakistan. For the purpose of answering the research question, this research, adopted the theoretical framework of ‘expectation-performance gap’ by Bui and Porter and analysed it within the context of Pakistan. Adoption of this theoretical framework implies the evaluation of three constituent factors as research objectives; the ‘expectation gap’ (reflecting the differences in the expectations of accounting educators and employers), the ‘constraints gap’ (limiting factors to develop generic skills into the student learning process) and the ‘performance gap’ (reflecting the ineffectiveness of teaching activities). However, there is also a fourth objective, that is, to evaluate an outline of the ‘skills acquisition framework’ considering the context of Pakistan’s accounting job-market. Principally this research adopts the survey strategy of a questionnaire with closed-ended questions in order to collect the data. But for the purpose of refining the content of the questionnaire for relevance to the context of Pakistan there are also cognitive interviews. Thus, this research entails a mixed-method approach. The qualitative data from the interviews was analysed using content analysis, thematic analysis and textual analysis. Whereas the quantitative data from the questionnaires was analysed using numerous statistical techniques such as Mann-Whitney U-test, Independent sample t-test, Statistical mean and Principal Component Analysis. The findings related to the ‘expectation gap’ were that there are 19 skills where the accounting educators have dissimilar expectation from employers in terms of skill base education, such skills include decision making, economics, ability to analyse and reason logically, teamwork etc. The findings related to the ‘constraints gap’ were that there are 6 constraining elements which are prevailing within the context of professional accounting education, such constraints include ‘training organisations are not following standard procedures to develop skills in students’, ‘people (potential students) have misperception about accounting education’, 'enrolling students have weak academic background', ‘inadequate stipend offered by training organisations to trainees’, ‘accounting institutes are not appreciating teaching activities, and lack of training opportunities for academics’. The findings related to the ‘performance gap’ were that there are 24 skills where the accounting educators found to be ineffective in the development of skills in students as expected by employers for employment purpose, such skills include inter or multidisciplinary perspective, financial risk analysis, think and behave ethically, independent thinking etc. From the perspective of the ‘skills acquisition framework’, overall 6 skills components were identified from the perspective of Pakistan's accounting job-market, such skills components include appreciative skills, interpersonal skills, technical and functional skills, organisational and business management skills, personal skills and professional skills. Considering the novelty of the adopted theoretical framework (expectation-performance gap by Bui and Porter, 2010) there was a related paucity of literature employing it for empirical investigation using the questionnaire based approach. Therefore, this research provides such theoretical underpinning to this framework that now enables it to be used within the questionnaire based approach. Further this research has described all the generic skills used in this study from the accounting disciplinary perspective and highlights the constraining elements that are assumed to limit the ability of professional accounting institutes. This research also provides a skill acquisition framework which could be used as a reference point for new entrants to the accounting job-market.

Denna studie syftar till att jämföra personalvetarstudenter vid Uppsala universitet som arbetar inom HR med personalvetarstudenter som inte arbetar inom HR för att se hur de ser på sin egen anställningsbarhet och om de gör något extra för att göra sig själva mer anställningsbara. Vi vill undersöka om studenterna upplever att det finns någon norm om hur den ideala personalvetarstudenten bör vara. Utifrån syftet formulerades tre frågeställningar; 1. Vad gör personalvetarstudenter för att öka sin anställningsbarhet? 2. Hur skiljer sig tankar om anställningsbarhet mellan personalvetarstudenter som arbetar inom HR och personalvetarstudenter som arbetar inom annan bransch? samt 3. Hur upplevs den ideala personalvetarstudenten i relation till anställningsbarhet? För att besvara dessa frågeställningar användes en kvalitativ metodansats där det insamlade materialet inhämtats med hjälp av enskilda intervjuer. Urvalet består av åtta personalvetarstudenter där fyra ingår i varje grupp. Studiens teoretiska referensram bygger på skapandet av normer samt dess påverkan på individers anställningsbarhet. Den tidigare forskning vi använt oss av berör fenomenet anställningsbarhet samt ideala arbetstagare.   Utifrån resultatet framkommer det att deltidsarbete samt engagemang i föreningar är den viktigaste aspekterna för att öka sin anställningsbarhet. En personalvetarnorm upplevs av båda urvalsgrupper där ett visst beteende är eftersträvansvärt. Att vara social, driven, engagerad i föreningar samt ett deltidsjobb inom HR-branschen anses vara den ideala personalvetarstudenten. Normen beskriver vilka egenskaper och vilket beteende som förväntas av studenterna för att få så hög anställningsbarhet som möjligt. Till följd av detta kan deltidsarbete ses som en norm för att bli anställningsbar. / This study aims to compare Human Resource-students who works within the Human Resource industry and those who works in other industries to see how they look at their own employability, and if they do something extra to make themselves more employable. We want to examine if the students experience any norms within the Bachelor Programme in Human Resource Management and Working Life at Uppsala University. Based on our purpose, three questions were formulated: 1. What do Human Resource-students do to increase their employability? 2. How different is the thoughts about employability between the two groups of Human Resource-students? 3. How is the ideal employable Human Resource-student experienced? To answer this questions we used a qualitative method approach were the data were collected by individual interviews. The selection of candidates are eight Human Resource-students from Uppsala University who were divided into two groups with four in each group. The teoretical framework is based on the creation of norms and its impact on the employability of individuals. The previous research we used affects the phenomenon employability and the ideal employee.   Based on the results it appears that part-time work and involvement in voluntary organisations are the most important aspect to increase their employability. A norm is found for Human Resource-students is experienced by both selected groups were a sertain behaviour is desireable. Being social, driven, involved in voluntary organisations and having a part-time work in Human Resource-industry is considered the ideal Human Resource-student. The norm describes the characterstics and expected behaviour to get as high employability as possible. As a result, part time-work is seen as a norm for employability.

Many researchers in engineering education have studied the engineering curriculum, employability, industrial training, generic skills and gender issues. From a wide spectrum of study, there is a gap around issues of interpersonal skills and enterprise skills in engineering education that has not been studied. Previous study has shown that there is unemployment amongst graduate engineers in Malaysia. This study aimed to assess whether the suggested lack of interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies cause unemployment amongst engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study also intended to appraise whether engineering undergraduates have received a quality work placement appropriate to their learning, knowledge and employability skills and also to create awareness about interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies amongst engineering undergraduates, higher education educators and employers in Malaysia. This study intended to create awareness about the importance of interpersonal and enterprise skills amongst engineers. A mixed method of questionnaire survey and interview was used to access data from final year engineering students and employers in Malaysia. Results from the study have provided evidence that interpersonal and enterprise skills are not a major contributor to unemployment of engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study has created new awareness of the subject that will allow the enhancement of the engineering education curriculum. This study has demonstrated that when interviewing companies for the purposes of research into curriculum it is necessary to have full awareness of their culture and ways of working.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att studera begreppet anställningsbarhet ur ett organisationsperspektiv. Få studier har gjorts utifrån det organisatoriska perspektivet kring anställningsbarhet. Detta kan möjligtvis förklaras med att det främst är individens uppfattning och upplevelser som innefattas i begreppet. Studiens frågeställningar är: -Vilken förståelse har de intervjuade rekryteringsansvariga av begreppet anställningsbarhet? -Hur förhåller de sig till anställningsbarhetens olika komponenter och vilken relevans tillskriver de dem i rekryteringsprocessen?    Den teoretiska modell som ligger till grund för denna studie, baseras på det individuella perspektivet och upplevelsen av anställningsbarhet. Fyra intervjuer med rekryteringsansvariga på olika företag har genomförts för att göra denna undersökning. I studien har en växelverkan mellan deduktiv och induktiv ansats använts. Temat för intervjufrågorna samt resultatet har baserats på de dimensioner som ingår i den teoretiska modellen av individers anställningsbarhet; Karriärsidentitet, Personlig anpassningsförmåga, Socialt kapital. I studiens resultat framkommer det att de rekryteringsansvariga jag kommit i kontakt med, inte använder sig av begreppet anställningsbarhet i sitt dagliga arbete. Begreppet associeras med individens perspektiv och upplevelser av att göra sig anställningsbar. De förhåller sig dock till komponenter som ingår i teorin av upplevd anställningsbarhet hos individer, men benämner det som kompetens. Respondenterna menar att olika komponenter av begreppet, har baserat på roll och yrke, varierande relevans i rekryteringsprocessen. Det går därmed inte att avgränsa sig till enstaka egenskaper som genomgående gör en person anställningsbar.

It is theorized that competition in the global market requires highly skilled human capital with different types and levels of skills, and with transferable skills. Internships are intended to nurture the skills and make students better professionals, better innovators, and more likely to get employment. In this thesis I evaluated these claims by examining the effect of the skills developed by internships on the professional performance, innovation capability and employability of Mexican students. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate both the mandatory internship program in its ability to improve employability and to test some of the educational theories of workforce improvement and of what skills contribute to workers’ innovation capacity. Internships prepare students for the workplace by giving them opportunities to develop relevant skills. The Committee on the Assessment of 21st Century Skills of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC), identified three categories of workplace skills enabling individuals to face 21st Century challenges: cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills. I tested the relevance of these skills to interns’ professional performance using intern evaluation data on interns working at a multinational enterprise in the global steel industry, Ternium Mexico. A general model of internship outcomes was used to predict Main task and learning performance internship outcomes, and ordered logistic regression was used to predict Overall internship performance. The results confirmed that (1) cognitive intelligence or technical skills are necessary but not sufficient for success in executing professional tasks and (2) certain interpersonal and intrapersonal skills were also significantly associated with better professional performance as an intern. vi The ability to innovate is one of the most important and desired meta-skills for individuals, firms, and economies. It is believed that nurturing students’ innovation capability will improve their employability and their ability to deal with a rapidly changing future. A recent conceptual model of Individuals’ Innovation Capability, the D4 innovation model, has four stages: defining, discovering, developing, and demonstrating. Using the same internship evaluation data set, I determined whether the four D innovation skills: defining, discovering, developing and deploying skills, predicted Individuals’ Innovation Capability. The study confirmed that three of the innovation skills, discovery, developing and deploying, increase Individuals’ Innovation Capability. The foundation skills of oral communication and ability to self-update, and the professional competencies of establishing priorities and explicit knowledge also foster individual innovation capability. Internships have often been required for graduation by institutions of higher education because internships are perceived to help students increase their employability as well as provide educational value. I conducted statistical analyses to test whether students’ performance as interns and the number of internships they completed are predictive of their Probability of Employment, controlling for various labor-market conditions. The study analyzed the records of graduates at a private Mexican university who had completed undergraduate degrees as well as mandatory internships. A logistic regression model for job placement four months following graduation included: individual factors, personal circumstances, external conditions, and interactions with external conditions. This study revealed that the performance as an intern played an important role on employment and that employability depended on the interaction of a vii graduate’s personal assets, his/her family connections, and whether or not the labor market was contracting. This thesis is an empirical exploration of educational theory concerning the value of internships and also the skills that internships should foster. Since educational policy is frequently driven by theory, such validation is a potentially useful reality-check for policy makers. This work can inform educational policy and provide the underpinnings for shaping initiatives that benefit students, firms and the region.