Our paper addresses the analysis of how the collaboration between HEIs and companies affects the employability of HEIs students. We approach the paper from a social capital theoretical framework, and the perspective of companies, investigating how the intensity of collaboration between HEIs and companies, as well as the diversity of mechanisms…

Governments have become increasingly concerned with improving the employability of university graduates in recent years, but most existing studies of what graduate employers look for are limited by their reliance on self-reported preferences. This study, which focuses on the UK context, aims to develop our knowledge of the determinants of…

Making the transition from university to employment is a challenging process for many students. One common method used by recruiters to sift through graduate applications is the use of psychometric tests which typically consist of numerical and verbal reasoning tasks. To explore how frequently these tests are used by graduate employers, an audit…

The aim of this article is to show the increased relevance of soft skills in a continuously changing environment. A research was carried out to examine and compare students' and employers' perceptions regarding the importance of soft skills in different European countries. Results show that 86% of respondents indicate an increased emphasis on soft…

This paper uses a 2016/2017 sample of 1107 freshly minted university graduates from a public and a private university in Malaysia. Against a backdrop of an institutional setting very much different from that of western countries' and issues of high living costs and graduate unemployment, we analyse how academic performance affects graduates'…

This qualitative study probed the mismatch between graduates' and employers' perspectives, especially in regard to graduates' learning orientation and investigating skills. Specifically, the study delved into male and female graduates' perceptions of research skills that were developed explicitly during their undergraduate degree and used by them…

This paper examines the role of higher education and higher education providers, more specifically, regarding employability. The paper draws upon a three-year research project examining the key stakeholders in this process; from parents, to students, to teachers, to institutions, to employers. The paper offers critical insight and analysis into…

'Quality' in education is difficult to define. What is viewed as high quality by staff, students and employers must be identified so that universities can articulate their offer. Equally, helping students develop the graduate skills and attributes that employers value is essential. This project explored quality in higher education from the…

Attracting international students has become a strategic priority for UK immigration policy as well as for British universities. However, research shows that there are emergent intercultural barriers that challenge international students' carrier aspirations and inhibit their ability to find employment. Also, small business employers (SMEs) are…

This study focus is on career boundaries to graduate employability in a crisis economy. The underlying theoretical framework focus on career boundary theory and perceived employability. The empirical findings are based on a small-scale qualitative study that includes five focus group interviews conducted with Portuguese graduates of both genders…

Employability is always used as a measure to gauge the value of graduates. Hence, most past studies attempted to identify competencies that can enhance the level of employability of graduates today. While these past studies found some competencies to be more important than others, the influence of graduate's attitude, mainly their level of…

The article examines, primarily based on large-scale survey data, the functionalist proposition that HE customers, students and employers, demand rankings to be able to adopt informed decisions on where to study and who to recruit respectively. This is contrasted to a Weberian "conflict" perspective on rankings in which positional…

Universities' reputations are built in part on graduates' assessments of the quality of education they received. What do these assessments tell us? Are graduates' judgments of quality based on their experiences as students or on their later job satisfaction, that is, on process or on outcomes? The objective of this study was to assess the extent…

Developing optimum solutions to engineering problems typically relies on structured and complex thought processes that require evaluation, interpretation and opinion. Well-developed critical thinking (CT) skills are essential for dealing with the multi-dimensional nature of these problems. CT in an engineering context is well reported in teaching…

This study investigates the mismatch between the educational attainment of a graduate with a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree and the industry needs in China. A competency list for MEng graduates from the perspective of industry needs was constructed. And a survey was conducted among MEng graduate students, alumni, and employers to assess the…