employability skills meaning in research

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An exploration of global employability skills: a systematic research review

2018, International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion

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Employability: review and research prospects

• Published: 25 March 2015
• Volume 16 , pages 69–89, ( 2016 )

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• Laure Guilbert 1 ,
• Jean-Luc Bernaud 2 ,
• Brice Gouvernet 3 &
• Jérôme Rossier 4  

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Professional transition, employment, and reemployment are major concerns for nations facing adverse economic situations. The employability construct represents a scientific challenge in order to better understand the relationship between the job seekers’ issues and the expectations of the world of work. This paper presents a review of the concept of employability. Three main perspectives (educational and governmental, organizational, and individual) that are not exclusive can be identified. This review highlights the importance of adopting a systemic integrative approach and a wider interpretation of employability. A research agenda to develop the theory and applications of the concept of employability is proposed.

Employabilité: Revue et perspectives de recherche. Les transitions professionnelles, l’emploi et le retour en emploi sont des préoccupations majeures pour les pays qui font face à des situations économiques difficiles. Le concept d’employabilité représente un challenge scientifique pour mieux comprendre la relation entre les problématiques des demandeurs d’emploi et les attentes du monde du travail. Cet article présente une revue du concept d’employabilité. Trois perspectives principales (éducative et gouvernementale, organisationnelle, et individuelle) non exclusives peuvent être identifiées. Cette revue souligne l’importance d’adopter une approche systémique intégrative et une interprétation plus large de l’employabilité. Un agenda de recherche est proposé pour développer la théorie et les applications du concept d’employabilité.

Zusammenfassung

Beschäftigungsfähigkeit: Rückblick und Forschungsperspektiven. Berufsübergang, Beschäftigung und Wiederbeschäftigung sind für Nationen in negativen wirtschaftlichen Situationen wichtige Anliegen. Das Konstrukt der Beschäftigungsfähigkeit stellt eine wissenschaftliche Herausforderung dar, um die Beziehung zwischen Angelegenheiten der Arbeitsuchenden und den Erwartungen der Arbeitswelt besser zu verstehen. Dieser Beitrag präsentiert eine Übersicht der Konzepte der Beschäftigungsfähigkeit. Es können drei Hauptperspektiven identifiziert werden (Bildung-und Regierung, organisatorisch und individuell), die nicht exklusiv sind. Diese Übersicht unterstreicht die Bedeutung der Anwendung eines systemisch integrativen Ansatzes und einer breiteren Interpretation der Beschäftigungsfähigkeit. Eine Forschungsagenda um die Theorie und Anwendungen des Konzepts der Beschäftigungsfähigkeit zu entwickelt wird vorgeschlagen.

Empleabilidad: Revisión y perspectivas de investigación. Las transiciones profesionales, el empleo y la reocupación son objeto de preocupación para cualquier país que afronte situaciones económicas adversas. El constructo de la empleabilidad presenta un desafío científico para entender mejor la relación de las cuestiones relacionadas con los demandantes de ocupación y las expectativas del mundo laboral. Este artículo presenta una revisión de los conceptos de empleabilidad. Se identifican tres grandes perspectivas (educativa y gubernamental, organizacional e individual) no exclusivas. Esta revisión destaca la importancia de adoptar un enfoque sistémico e integrador y una interpretación más amplia de la empleabilidad. Se propone también una agenda de investigación para desarrollar la teoría y las aplicaciones del concepto de empleabilidad.

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Acknowledgments

The contribution of Jérôme Rossier benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES–Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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Guilbert, L., Bernaud, JL., Gouvernet, B. et al. Employability: review and research prospects. Int J Educ Vocat Guidance 16 , 69–89 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10775-015-9288-4

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Global employability skills in the 21st century workplace: A semi-systematic literature review

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• 1 School of Human Resource Development, National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok, Thailand.
• 2 College of Business Administration, IUBAT-International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
• PMID: 37954286
• PMCID: PMC10637906
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21023

This study conducts a semi-systematic literature review of research pertaining to employability to identify essential employability skills that employers seek in recent graduates. The comprehensive analysis of the existing literature review aims to present a set of global employability skills, identify similarities, variations, or changes in these skills across time, and explore the most relevant existing employability skills for the 21st-century workplace. The review includes 30 years of research articles and government reports published in English and considers 25 studies based on the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR). After removing duplicates, 87 unique skills were identified and listed under three distinct temporal themes (the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s), with problem-solving, communication, teamwork, adaptability, and willingness to learn among the most commonly reported skills over time. The study found a mismatch between employers' expectations and graduates' possessed skills. Therefore, the list of employability skills identified in this study can serve as a valuable tool for addressing this mismatch. The study's findings can also help educators and employers to better align their efforts to prepare students for the modern workplace.

Keywords: 21st-century workplace; Employability skills; Employers' expectations; SPAR-4-SLR.

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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Employability in higher education: a review of key stakeholders' perspectives

Higher Education Evaluation and Development

ISSN : 2514-5789

Article publication date: 20 July 2021

Issue publication date: 10 May 2022

Employability is a key concept in higher education. Graduate employment rate is often used to assess the quality of university provision, despite that employability and employment are two different concepts. This paper will increase the understandings of graduate employability through interpreting its meaning and whose responsibility for graduate employability from the perspectives of four key stakeholders: higher education institutions, students, government and employers.

Design/methodology/approach

There are two stages to this literature review which was undertaken across bibliographic databases. The first stage builds a conceptual understanding of employability, relating to definition and how employability can be achieved and enhanced from the perspective of stakeholders. A structured search employing Boolean searches was conducted using a range of terms associated with key stakeholders. The second round of review drew on documentary analysis of official statements, declarations, documents, reports and position papers issued by key stakeholders in the UK, available online.

It reveals that responsibility for employability has been transferred by the UK government to higher education institutions, despite clear evidence that it needs to be shared by all the key stakeholders to be effective. In addition, there is a gap between employers' expectation for employability and the government's employability agenda.

Originality/value

This article highlights that solely using employment rate statistics as a key indicator for employability will encourage the practice of putting employers' needs above knowledge creation and the development of academic disciplines, with the consequence that higher education will become increasingly vocation driven.

• Employability
• Higher education
• Marketisation
• Stakeholder
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Cheng, M. , Adekola, O. , Albia, J. and Cai, S. (2022), "Employability in higher education: a review of key stakeholders' perspectives", Higher Education Evaluation and Development , Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 16-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/HEED-03-2021-0025

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Copyright © 2021, Ming Cheng, Olalekan Adekola, JoClarisse Albia and Sanfa Cai

Published in Higher Education Evaluation and Development . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Employability has become a key concept in higher education worldwide. In the UK for example, the Dearing and Garrick (1997) discussed employability. More recently employability was central to the Teaching Excellence Framework ( DBIS, 2016 ). It has become a common practice for higher education institutions (HEIs) to embed employability expectations and to enhance student learning outcomes especially at undergraduate level ( Fallows and Steven, 2000 ).

The upsurge of interest in employability can be traced to a number of factors, including a concern that graduates are less likely to secure public-sector employment due to the massification of higher education ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ). The downsizing and re-structuring of private organisations due to neoliberal policies places further strain on graduate work availability ( Peck and Tickell, 2002 ). A focus on employability is a pragmatic response ( Clarke, 2008 ) to these conditions in order to strengthen the vocational mission of higher education ( Harvey, 2000 ). In other words, the role of HEIs goes beyond ensuring that students are knowledgeable in an academic discipline to ensuring that they are prepared for the labour market ( Yorke, 2006 ).

In the classic work of Newman (1852 , p. ix), university is described as “a place of teaching universal knowledge.” Oakeshott (2017 , p. 9) depicts a university as “a home of learning, a place where a tradition of learning is preserved and extended, and where the necessary apparatus for the pursuit of learning has been gathered together”. Such views echo liberal-humanist perspectives of higher education as more than the acquisition of skills and behaviours ( Stoten, 2018 ). It is to enable people to live the “‘good life’ rather than simply for ‘good living’” ( Hickox and Moore, 1995 , p. 49). There are intrinsic and subjective motivations for going to university apart from its potential economic advantage to the graduate ( Kromydas, 2017 ). However, with globalisation, internationalisation and a dramatic rise in for-profit institutions, the role of higher education is being redefined. Universities are expected to prepare their students for a complex society that demands employees have diverse skills and capacities ( Chan, 2016 ).

Some scholars are weary of this new-found responsibility of HEIs in employability. For example, Kalfa and Taksa (2015) warn against HEIs being used as a panacea. They argue that employability should be considered in the context of volatility of the job market, attendant job insecurity and scarce fulltime employment. Likewise, Frankham (2017) question government imperatives concerning employability on the grounds that they risk higher education becoming a tool in the hands of market-based forces with different priorities and interests to the sector.

Despite these concerns, the general consensus in the literature has been that employability is core to higher education ( Mawson and Haworth, 2018 ; Oliver, 2015 ; Wilks et al. , 2017 ). The term employability has been used to mean different things ( Yorke, 2006 ). It has become a “floating signifier” reflecting its varied understandings across key stakeholders of higher education ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ). This has created a lack of coherence about what is meant by employability and its subsequent measurement ( Tymon, 2013 ). As a result, there has been a call for “an agreed definition of employability, to allow HEIs, employers and policy-makers to work towards similar goals and outcomes” ( Small et al. , 2018 , p. 16).

This paper argues that for such a definition to be possible, a clear understanding of how different stakeholders interpret employability must be found. In addition, stakeholders' own definition of their part in achieving “employability” must be clarified. This is because most of the differences go beyond the definition of the term, to debates on how employability can be developed, how it should be developed and the responsibility of various stakeholders in its provision ( Tymon, 2013 ). If not addressed, the lack of clarity of the meaning of employability and how much of a role HEIs should play in achieving it will continue to produce confusion of accountability and measurement within the sector.

This paper explores the meaning of employability through reviewing the literature on the understandings of employability held by four key stakeholders: HEIs, student, government and employer in the UK. It is developed from the author's two conference abstracts ( Cheng, 2019a , b ). The paper does not aim to provide a definition of employability, but seeks to explore how each stakeholder understands the concept of employability, who is responsible for graduate employability, and how to achieve and enhance that in the higher education sector.

Methodology

There are two stages to this literature review. The first stage aims to build a conceptual understanding of employability, relating to definition, responsibility and how employability can be achieved and enhanced, from the perspective of stakeholders. Fields in which the topic of employability is frequently discussed were reviewed such as higher education studies, vocational education, sociology and education economics.

Literature searches were undertaken across bibliographic databases (Google Scholar, EBSCO and Science Direct). The search focused on literatures published from 2010 to 2021. A structured search employing Boolean searches was conducted using a range of terms associated with key stakeholders (students or teaching staff or higher education institutions or employers or policymakers) and employability. Examples of string and terms searched included stakeholders and (student* or employee*) and (employability) and (universit* or institution* or higher education institutio*). The main focus was on undergraduate employability in the UK.

The second round of review drew on documentary analysis of official statements, declarations, documents, reports and position papers issued by key stakeholders in the UK, available online. The review covered materials (printed and electronic) published after 2010. Documentary analysis was used because it is a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents in order to elicit meaning, gain understanding and develop empirical knowledge ( Corbin and Strauss, 2008 ). Document analysis has been applied to qualitative studies to produce rich descriptions of a single phenomenon, event, organisation or program ( Stake, 1995 ). It can help the researcher uncover meaning, develop understanding and discover insights relevant to the research problem' ( Merriam, 1988 , p. 118).

Using search terms associated with employability and the four key stakeholders on the Google search engine, relevant materials reporting opinions of these stakeholders were identified and selected for further review. This review identified key stakeholders' interpretation of employability, and their perspective on responsibility for employability and how to achieve and enhance employability.

What is employability?

Broadly speaking, existing definitions of employability can be categorised into three main groups. The first group emphasises the capabilities of individuals ( De Vos et al. , 2011 ; Hillage and Pollard, 1998 ; Hogan et al. , 2013 ; Sanders and Grip, 2004 ; Yorke, 2006 ). These definitions resonate with the idea that employability of an individual depends upon personal assets or intrinsic characteristics. While Hillage and Pollard (1998) refer to it as capability, Yorke (2006) terms it a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes, and for De Vos et al. (2011) these are capabilities and willingness. These definitions emphasise the absolute dimensions of employability which relate to whether individuals possess the appropriate capabilities, skills and attitudes that employers need ( Morrison, 2012 ).

The second group's definition drew attention to the relative dimensions of employability. They often critique definitions based on individual capacity as ignoring the fact that employability is primarily determined by the labour market ( Brown et al. , 2003 ; Sin and Amaral, 2017 ). For example, Brown et al. (2003 , p. 114) interpret employability as the “relative chances of finding and maintaining different kinds of employment”. Employability can be influenced by broader external factors such as social, institutional and economic factors ( Sin and Amaral, 2017 ).

Emphasis on the relative dimensions of employability has not received great attention in literature. Some conceptualisations of employability often overlook how social structures such as gender, race, social class and disability interact with labour market opportunities ( McGinn and Oh, 2017 ). However, the relative dimensions can be very important. For example, ethnicity could affect employability, as some employers discriminate on job applications. In the UK whilst 53.3% of white university leavers were in fulltime paid employment six months after leaving university, only 42% of minority ethnic leavers were in the same position ( Davies, 2014 ). This suggests that we will need to understand relevant political, social and economic contexts, as well as how these factors intersect with one another in order to fully understand the concept of employability ( Speight et al. , 2012 ).

The third group of definitions emphasise the “duality of employability” ( Brown et al. , 2003 , p. 110): the need to understand both absolute and relative dimensions of employability. For example, Small et al. (2018 , p. 4) interpret employability as “capacity to be self-reliant in navigating the labour market, utilising knowledge, individual skills and attributes, and adapting them to the employment context, showcasing them to employers, while taking into account external and other constraints”. Part of this duality is the interplay of disciplinal training and application of subject-specific skills in a job. As industries and career paths change, graduates are expected to possess attributes that are not only discipline-specific but also transferrable to a broader range of jobs and careers ( König and Ribarić, 2019 ; Williams et al. , 2019 ).

These two latter groups of definitions not only recognise the importance of personal characteristics which make a graduate more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations but also emphasise the influence of external factors on the opportunities for employability. While the individual and their skills and competencies are positioned within a particular social context in these definitions ( Holmes, 2013 ; Vuksanovic et al. , 2014 ), skills and competencies are essential and must be acquired.

Measuring employability

The lack of one agreed definition of employability has evidently given rise to various approaches offered to measure it. For example, the European Council adopts a benchmark which conceives employability as the per cent of graduates employed between 20 and 34 years old three years after graduation, at 82% or above ( Christelle and Margarida, 2014 ). Similarly, in the UK, HEIs are often judged against targets of the per cent of their graduates who have gained employment ( DBIS, 2015 ). Such measurement is crude and faulty on four fronts.

Firstly, it tasks HEIs on developing citizens' knowledge and skills (referred to as “employability”) without recourse to the external factors that may shape a person's employability and ignores the relative and dual dimensions of employability. External factors are critical not only in terms of local employment but also in the context of internationalisation. The international or context-specific dimensions of employability ( Crossman and Clarke, 2010 ; Speight et al. , 2012 ) such as different local socio-cultural and political factors could also influence a student's employability. It is therefore crucial to understand both the host context and the international context in order to support students to develop successful careers in their home and beyond.

Secondly, student employment rate has been used as a mere proxy for employability ( Yorke, 2006 ). However, employment is different from employability. Employment statistics only measure actual job acquisition. Employability goes beyond that and measures a graduate's potential to obtain and function in a job. It is more than just a set of personal attributes and a destination, but a changing process ( Taylor, 2016 ), to be continually enhanced in order to be relevant in the labour market. Employability should not simply be regarded as the end goal; rather, it is the relationship between a student seeking a job and the myriad of actors in the employment sector, and the actions undertaken in the world of work ( Holmes, 2013 ).

Thirdly, the focus on student employment rates assumes that attending higher education will increase their job opportunities. This contradicts the findings of a recent study in England that those with degrees were less likely to be in work than those who left school to enter employment at 18 ( Hoskins et al. , 2018 ). This suggests that a degree programme could have minimal effect on a graduate obtaining a job but a large effect on the graduate doing the job ( Støren and Aamodt, 2010 ). As Wilton (2011 , p. 87) argues, “it is possible to be employable, yet unemployed or underemployed”. Perception (how graduates perceive a job as fitting their status), compensation (salary, benefits, bonus, working conditions, training support and career paths within a company) and geography (restrictions on migration to other cities or provinces to work) could dictate a graduate's employment status ( Davies et al. , 2012 ).

Fourthly, although employability has become a main reason for students to pursue higher education ( Sin and Amaral, 2017 ), there is little clarity who is responsible for student employability. The concept of graduate employability reveals an intrinsic assumption that higher education should produce individuals fit for the labour market. However, ensuring employability clearly goes beyond the remit of what universities alone can achieve, so understanding the roles of the key stakeholders (higher education institutions, students, government and employers) is vital.

Views from higher education institutions

The analysis of institutional documents and strategies suggests that there are increasing number of UK institutions which develop or have employability strategies. For example, the University of Bradford (2014 , p. 1) clearly states that its “employability strategy has been developed within the context of key internal and external drivers shaping graduate employability”. This suggests that HEIs' employability strategies can be seen as a response to government policies which highlight the need for students to develop skills to meet the needs of employers ( Frankham, 2017 ).

the integration of subject specific knowledge, skills and attributes with the skills of personal and professional development, lifelong learning and career management, to enable graduates to become employees of choice and effective in professional level work to the benefit of themselves, their employer, and the wider community ( University of Bradford, 2014 , p. 3).

To be employable, you need to acquire the experience and develop the skills and attributes that employers will value. You can develop your employability skills through the full range of activities which you engage in at university… ( University of Gloucestershire, 2016 , p. 1)

Ensuring that our students and graduates develop the necessary work-related skills and personal attributes that will allow them to compete successfully in the graduate labour market. ( Manchester Metropolitan University, 2015 , p. 1)

These definitions clearly resonate with government commissioned reports ( Hillage and Pollard, 1998 ) in focusing on building student's capacity (skills, understanding and personal attributes) seen as useful in making students employable. This suggests that the perceptions of HEIs on employability are implicitly influenced by the line set by the government. Through prescribing what or who is employable, the government yields control over HEIs by using employability as a measure of a university's performance ( Boden and Nedeva, 2010 ).

The type and status of the universities could also affect how they interpret and frame government agenda on employability. For example, post-1992 universities, with their roots in technical and vocational education, may be more concerned with employability than pre-1992 universities ( Ingleby, 2015 ; Stoten, 2018 ). Broad-based knowledge and cultural capital are the currencies that University of Oxford students acquire; while delivering the employability agenda could be crucial for a post-1992 university in order to increase student numbers ( Boden and Nedeva, 2010 ). These different and local interpretations of employability further contribute to vague and mixed understandings of employability in the sector.

Sin and Neave (2016) argue that HEIs are starting to recognise the influence of external factors on employability such as economic and labour market conditions, age, gender and discipline. However, there is no clear evidence of that in this review. There are four main implications of this silence of HEIs on the external dimensions of employability.

Firstly, the lack of emphasis on external dimensions does not give students a full perspective of their chosen field and how to prepare for a successful career, which might leave them in a vulnerable position after graduation.

The University of Kent is committed to enhancing the employability of all our students, undergraduate and postgraduate, in order to enable them to compete and flourish in a competitive, fast-moving knowledge-based economy ( University of Kent, 2013 , p. 1).

Some HEIs have linked employability with the wider priorities of their universities. For example, King's College London relates its employability strategy to student recruitment, student satisfaction and employment outcomes, employer relations and community engagement. This resonates with Tymon's (2013) argument that HEIs see the links between league tables and student numbers, which in turn affects funding. Thus, despite the difference between employability and employment rate, HEIs still use and promote the use of crude measures such as employment figures, as it can potentially enhance their reputation.

Thirdly, there is increasing call for academic staff to provide training on skills such as analytic thinking, competent reasoning and the ability to structure information and arguments, in order to prepare graduates to meet market needs ( De Villiers, 2010 ; Osmani et al. , 2018 ). This potentially threatens the quality of academic courses, as it implies a surrender to the short-term requests of an unpredictable labour market ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ).

Fourthly, there is strong emphasis on engaging stakeholders in employability, but how HEIs in the UK interpret these stakeholders remains unclear. Most of the stakeholders identified and referred are limited to actors within the university community (staff, students, alumni, etc.) and business. For example, University of Kent (2013 , p. 3) states that their employability engagement “undertakes active dialogue with employers in order to inform how it can best equip its students with the necessary skills and qualifications needed for long-term employability”. Yet policymakers or government are not generally included as a “stakeholder” within these HEI documents. This suggests that the main responsibility for employability has been transferred by government to HEIs ( Frankham, 2017 ).

Students' views

Review of student unions' documents suggests that there is a wide range of understandings of employability. For example, the National Union of Students ( NUS, 2011 , p. 12) states that employability is “a set of attributes, skills and knowledge that all labour market participants should possess to ensure they have the capability of being effective in the workplace – to the benefit of themselves, their employer and the wider economy”. This definition suggests that students saw improved job prospects as the most important motivation for undertaking a university degree.

Your Students' Union offers a range of ways for you to boost your employability, from training and acquiring useful skills … to a full course on leadership, you can find it all here. ( University of Stirling Students' Union, 2013 )

Being at University and making the most of your Union isn't just about having fun – it's also a really good opportunity to develop yourself both personally and professionally, and improve your employability. ( The University of Nottingham Students' Union, 2018 )

The framing of employability in these statements lends support to how the NUS (2011 , p. 1) describes the role of higher education as giving students “the opportunity to study an absorbing subject, make new friends, try new experiences – and for students to put themselves in pole position for starting work after graduation”. This concurs with the findings of Ingleby (2015) that students view higher education as a means to equip them with the right skills for employment. Such perspectives closely align with employers' idea of what university education is for, suggesting a clear view among students that HEIs are responsible for their employability, ignoring the influence of external factors.

An interesting contrast can be seen in a report of the European Students' Union which defines employability as “competences which enable graduates to successfully take up and pursue a profession/employment and empower their life-long learning” ( Vuksanovic et al. , 2014 , p. 15). This definition also describes employability as “being able to create/start new businesses, and being able to develop and succeed in their occupations” (p. 15). The reference to life-long learning, entrepreneurship and success in one's occupation, imply a holistic, humanistic and socially centred outlook towards employability beyond employment or having a job.

These views translate to students' call for HEIs to redesign degrees with more focus on skills and attributes associated with graduate employability ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ). The key attributes include self-management, team work, business and customer awareness, problem solving, communication, and application of numeracy and information skills ( NUS, 2011 ). Other commonly mentioned attributes include flexibility, adaptability, hardworking, commitment and dedication ( Tymon, 2013 ). This suggests that students are aware that employability requires skills to be linked to the needs of employers and that personal attributes are an inherent part of employability.

However, for students in the creative arts, possessing these attributes is not enough. Higdon (2016) found that creative arts students consider social capital as a key to employment success. Having access to network and contacts that offer work opportunities is crucial. This again points to the overlooked external dimensions of employability.

Students' understanding of employability could vary with their year of study. For example, whereas final year students tend to relate employability to ensuring future employment, first and second year students often link qualifications/grades with employability ( Brown et al. , 2003 ). As students move to their final years, they start to see employability from an insider perspective, attaching it to the idea of cultivating work experiences and gaining a good understanding of the industry they see themselves working in ( Gedye and Beaumont, 2018 ). The transformation in students' views could be the result of increased exposure to disciplinal know-how, and career and employment support offered to them during their study ( Gedye and Beaumont, 2018 ; Thirunavukarasu et al. , 2020 ).

Despite the strong emphasis on getting a job, students also related employability with career building. For example, the NUS (2011) uses the term “effectiveness” in their definition of employability, whilst leadership and professionalism are central to the conceptualisation of employability by University of Stirling Students' Union (2013) . This contrasts with the argument of Tymon (2013) that students focus on getting a job, any job, as opposed to employability in its wider sense.

It is worth noting that the emphasis on career development is still intertwined with students' awareness that their career is dependent on their ability to gain the skills needed by their employer. This is because while some form of paid work may be relatively accessible, finding a job with a career pathway in an occupation of choice and with long-term security is far less easy ( Hoskins et al. , 2018 ). In this sense, the attention to attributes and skills to be acquired and the various pathways through which these are made available in universities remain to be explored.

Government's views

Its core aims are to raise teaching standards, provide greater focus on graduate employability, widen participation in higher education, and open up the sector to new high-quality entrants ( DBIS, 2015 , p. 7).

the development of skills and adaptable workforces in which all those capable of work are encouraged to develop the skills, knowledge, technology and adaptability to enable them to enter and remain in employment throughout their working lives.

While employers report strong demand for graduate talent, they continue to raise concerns about the skills and job readiness of too many in the graduate labour pool ( Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2015 , p. 8).

Demand continues to be strong for employees with high level skills ( Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2015 , p. 10).

Higher education providers need to provide degrees with lasting value to their recipients. This will mean providers being open to involving employers and learned societies representing professions in curriculum design. It will also mean teaching students the transferrable work readiness skills that businesses need, including collaborative teamwork and the development of a positive work ethic, so that they can contribute more effectively to our efforts to boost the productivity of the UK economy. ( DBIS, 2015 , p. 11)

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) has been used to “provide better signalling for employers as to which providers they can trust to produce highly skilled graduate” ( DBIS, 2015 , p. 13). The emphasis on the preeminent role of HEIs in developing employability has raised concerns that government and employers are exempted from such responsibility. For example, Sin and Neave (2016) argue that HEIs are cast in a utilitarian role to equip students with the advanced knowledge, skills and competencies they need through their professional lives. This resonates with the view of Frankham (2017) that the burden of responsibility for government policy in this area is assigned to those who are subject to those policies rather than to those who instigate them.

Literature suggests that the UK government's perspective on employability is different from that in Europe. The external dimension of employability is emphasised within European Policymaking environment, with reference to changing labour markets and the economic crisis and employment uncertainty ( European Higher Education Area, 2009 ), whilst the UK government remains silent. Another difference is that EU policymakers perceive employability as an individual responsibility, with higher education as an operational means to support individuals in their efforts ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ). In contrast, the UK government makes little reference to individuals. These differences could be that the interest of UK government in employability is mainly passive, as what matters to them is mainly employment ( Tymon, 2013 ). It is perhaps time for the government to make a full commitment towards all areas of academic scholarship and learning within the broad definition of employability in order to improve student employability.

Employers' views

According to Mason et al. (2009 , p. 1), employers often see employability as work readiness: “possession of the skills, knowledge, attitudes and commercial understanding that will enable new graduates to make productive contributions to organisational objectives soon after commencing employment”. By work readiness, there is consensus that employers tend to emphasise capabilities beyond subject knowledge.

De Weert's (2007) study reveals that employers mostly value candidates with the ability to learn in addition to generic skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, planning, communication skills and taking responsibility. Interpersonal skills are valued far more than any other skills, and that personal ethics, the qualities of honesty, integrity and trust are also expected at appointment ( Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011 ). Williams et al. (2019) found that employers place importance on values and commitment indicators such as interest in the company and shared company values. These indicators suggest that employers' assessment of what and who is employable can be subjective. Employers' emphasis on soft skills also suggest a major area of disconnection among government, HEIs and students' groups who appear to focus on practical and vocational skills ( Wharton and Horrocks, 2015 ; Yorke, 2004 , 2006 ). This means that employability outcomes tend to be defined normatively and measured objectively in universities ( Williams et al. , 2019 ), further discounting the contextual nature and relative dimensions of employability.

Although silent on the role of the government, employers hold a view that responsibility for graduate employability needs to be shared between students, HEIs and employers, and that students need to take greater responsibility for their own employability ( Sin and Neave, 2016 ). This proposed shared responsibility suggests that degrees/qualifications are no longer the core criteria for employability. However, for this to function effectively employers will need to increase collaboration with HEIs to make their needs known, to increase student internship opportunities and to provide employees with professional on-the-job learning.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper reveals that HEIs, student, government and employers hold different understandings of graduate employability and who is responsible for it. There is a big gap between what employers need and what is promoted by government as relevant for graduate employability. Whilst the government's definition of employability places priority on the development and accreditation of knowledge and vocational skills, employers stress soft skills and attitudes.

There is a silence from the UK government on its responsibility for graduate employability. HEIs appear to have passively accepted this designated role in developing student employability, but limit their reporting in terms of graduate employment rates. The imposed responsibility on HEIs for employability suggests that the government wants to get rid of their political responsibility for student employability, so it shifts the blame for market failures to the consumers and producers of higher education.

The HEIs' interpretations of employability clearly appear as heavily influenced by government policy. They focus on the absolute dimensions of employability and emphasise the institution's role to support students to become employable, ignoring the external factors that could influence graduate employability such as economic and labour market conditions, age, race, gender and discipline.

The stress on the absolute dimensions of employability is shared by students who perceive HEIs as responsible for enhancing their employability, although students are aware that they are responsible for their own employability. Unlike HEIs who emphasise gaining employment, students interpret employability as not only gaining employment but also building a career.

The focus on the absolute dimensions of employability signifies the value-added interpretation of higher educational provision. It reflects that the UK government demand for a full employment economy, through supplying the labour market with appropriately “skilled” future employees. This in turn will encourage the production and consumption of economically relevant learning and knowledge exchange, and promote employability as an institutional offering which is fundamentally in the interest of employers.

The two most important decisions for a prospective HE student are what course of study they choose, and at which institution. These decisions are significant factors in determining a student's future life and career ( DBIS, 2016 , p. 43).

The demand for employability increases consumerism culture and commodification of higher education. It shapes student expectation and value of university education in that economic return becomes the main driver. Students are expected to demonstrate their value through packaging their credentials and experiences as expected by employers, throughout their study. This approach will decrease students' voice in what they want to achieve from university education and will make them lose opportunities to explore their full potential.

It is worth noting that the UK government designates the responsibility for employability as an important task for HEIs, which could potentially make employers become increasingly powerful entities who set the direction for university education. The influential role accorded to employers can be evidenced in the increase of vocational provision and the growing practice for employers to contribute to university's programme design and delivery. This influence can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it enhances student link to the job market and encourages students to engage in work experience and build an employability profile, including extra curricula pursuits and participation in work experiences. On the other hand, putting employers' need above the purpose of subject knowledge creation and development will change the nature of higher education.

Specifically, there is a discernible shift from the provision of traditional education which is discipline and pedagogy oriented to vocationally focused provision which trains students to demonstrate their instrumental values of knowledge-for-use. For example, it has become a common practice for HEIs, especially teaching-centred ones, to incorporate employability skills development into their programmes ( Huang, 2013 ). However, designing a desirable curriculum to meet the expectations of diverse industries and student cohorts can be challenging, requiring a considerable commitment of staff time and resources ( Campbell, 2010 ; Fitch and Desai, 2012 ). Furthermore, an emphasis on employability without considering the intrinsic value of universities will produce a narrow view of the utilitarian values of university education ( McCowan, 2015 ). This will turn higher education into a training factory, if ignoring its need to foster innovation and develop subject-specific knowledge.

More importantly, the influence of external factors on employability has been ignored by government in its employability agenda, which will have negative impact on students and HEIs. It does not support students to develop a clear picture of employability and leaves them unsure of how to prepare for a successful career. This clear silence on the external dimensions of employability only serves to perpetuate the dominant agenda that measures employability in terms of employment rate, and the view that HEIs and students are the key actors in increasing these rates. By ignoring the social, political, cultural and personal elements that are key to employment success, the government are absolved of their responsibility to address these externalities in relation to employability. This increases doubts on the purposes of higher education and paints students as subject to the unpredictable changes in the industry ( Higdon, 2016 ).

These external dimensions are certainly overshadowed by the HEI-focussed narrative of employability by the government, thereby blurring the role that institutions could play in supporting students to maximise their chances of success in the labour market ( Yorke, 2006 ). Various commentators have already reiterated that employability should be treated as a dialogue ( Boffo, 2019 ) and a collaboration amongst various stakeholders ( Donald et al. , 2017 ; Ferns et al. , 2019 ). Williams et al. (2019) emphasise for instance the compatibility of expectations of employers and educators in terms of skills to be developed and in the assessment of employment outcomes. Highlighting employability as a collaboration that equally engages all key stakeholders can help bring closer attention to the external dimensions that influence employability.

The different understandings among stakeholders suggest that employability is a contested issue. This research is mainly based on literature review and documentary analysis and it serves to catch a snapshot of stakeholders' understandings of employability. It is important to note that stakeholders' perceptions may change or shift due to different institutional and national policies of employability. There is a need to extend this study by conducting empirical research on stakeholders' views and experiences of employability. Empirical research could also explore the issue of visibility (the role of the academic curriculum in employability), and responsibility for student employability within HEIs, employers and policymakers. The long-term impact of the employability agenda on the quality and equity of university education, student empowerment and the development of civic society could also be rich areas for future study.

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Benneworth , P.S. ( 2016 ), “ Employability: Asia and Europe prepare the new generation ”, 5th ASEM Rectors' Conference and Students' Forum , 4-8 April , Prague, Czech Republic , available at: https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/14250374 .

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Current college graduates’ employability factors based on university graduates in Shaanxi Province, China

Lijuan jiang.

1 Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary

Changkui Lei

2 School of Safety and Emergency Management Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

With the development of higher education, there are a large number of college graduates turn into the labor market, and college students’ employability has become a popular topic. In order to explore the factors that affect employability’s improvement and what factors employability includes, this article summarizes the previous research on employability, uses university graduates of Shaanxi Province as research examples, and investigates the employability factors of college graduates. With the help of SPSS software, data analysis is conducted on the 220 valid questionnaires. The study uses reliability and validity analysis to verify the quality of the questionnaire, takes the exploratory factor analysis to test the employability factors of college students, and employs multiple linear regression analysis to test the factors that influence employability’s improvement. The results of the research show that individual traits, social experience, and workplace training have a significant impact on college students’ employability; knowledge understanding and learning ability, self-management ability, emotional intelligence, generic skills, professional ability, and career planning capability are the important factors of the employability which college students should master. Our research results update the influencing factors of employability, so that contemporary college students have a new understanding of employability, and help them to improve their employability more pertinently.

Introduction

In recent years, the employment environment in China is facing great challenges. Internally, the scale and number of college graduates are growing fast, the labor market is more crowded. The statistic shows that in 2021, there are 9.09 million fresh college graduates in China, shown in Figure 1 , which represents an increase of 0.35 million students compared to that 2020 ( National Bureau of Statistics, 2021 ). According to the “ 2021 China College graduates employment report ” published by the recruitment company ZhiLian, a leading human resource service company, as of August 2021, 66% of college graduates of 2021 are still looking for a job ( Lian and Pin, 2021 ). Externally, the tensioning relationship between China and US, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, have slowed down China’s economic growth and have influenced the Chinese labor market. Furthermore, business organizations are more interested in hiring people with capabilities that cannot be easily replaced by technology, they have higher requirements and expectations for the employees’ abilities, and employees with weak working abilities will be easily eliminated by the market ( Nelissen et al., 2017 ). As the key to the labor market, employability is the main factor to improve the functioning of the labor market, achieve full employment and develop new career models in the current economic environment ( De Cuyper et al., 2011 ).

Chinese college graduates from 2000 to 2021.

According to some scholars, the employability of college students with practical ability as the core is the most important factor affecting the quality of the labor market ( López and Pérez, 2014 ), and college students are one of the main groups that need to improve their employability ( Murangi et al., 2022 ). From the existing literature, there are differences in the focus of research in China and abroad. Foreign scholars’ studies on employability mainly focus on industrial workers or general workers, and there are few direct research results on college students. While Chinese studies on employability mainly focus on college students, however, these researches are mainly based on foreign countries’ employability research results, or from perceptual intuitive work experience, the lack of theoretical consensus on employment ( Guo, 2017 ), and these research results are not really understood and applied to school training and education ( Narula and Aithal, 2018 ). It led to college graduates do not know what influenced their employability and which employability they need to master; the university does not systematically and pertinently carry out employability training for students. Furthermore, modern society changes so fast, the requirements and contents of the employability of enterprises are constantly changing and updating, and students still lack full comprehension of employability ( Chan, 2015 ). Thus, it is particularly important to investigate the employability that the new employment form requires and keep college students’ understanding of employability up to date and future trends. Studying the deviation between college graduates’ employability and social demand is not only closely related to the graduates themselves but also related to the construction of colleges in China and the long-term development of enterprises, it meets the requirements of social development ( Pinto and He, 2017 ).

In order to investigate the systematic and comprehensive employability of college students, this paper combines domestic and foreign literature research, uses the empirical analysis method, takes Shaanxi Province as a research project, and explores and updates the factors and structure of current college graduates’ employability. Shaanxi Province locates in central China, has higher education and a large number of universities, and Shaanxi Province makes lots of efforts to increase the employment rate of college graduates. In addition to various stable employment policies for graduates, the province also makes a large number of policy guarantees to actively encourage college students to innovate and start businesses ( Lei and Jia, 2021 ). “2021 Shaanxi University graduates employment quality report” shows that in 2021, there were 333,228 college graduates in the province, an increase of 0.2 thousand to 2020, the initial employment rate of college graduates in the province was 86.98% ( Shaanxi. Gov. Cn, 2022 ). The employment rate overall looks good; however, Shaanxi Province also faces the challenges of tight resources, insufficient policy support, and urgent job requirements for new graduates. Moreover, a factor ignored in the employment data is that in the current oversupply labor market of graduates, many people are forced to take jobs that do not require tertiary qualifications and do not use graduate skills, which means that the employment rates shown in the data may not be graduates’ true employment ( Blenkinsopp and Scurry, 2007 ), furthermore, graduate employment data generally measures current employment status, rather than longer-term employability ( Harvey, 2001 ). Thus, except for the employment policies when graduates move to the job market, training their employability from university enrollment is a great way to help them adapt to the labor market and increase the employment rate. Based on this background, we put forward three research questions:

Q1. What factors influence the improvement of graduates’ employability?

Q2. What factors are involved in employability?

Q3. What is the most important employability factor for students?

With these research questions, this article uses the quantitative analysis method to make research design and collect data, by analyzing the graduate’s employability in Shaanxi Province, exploring the factors which influence the improvement of the graduates’ employability as we as the systematic factors that employability involves, then rank these factors to find the most important ones, finally obtained research results. The findings of this article will help promote the graduates to become distinctive in terms of employability and better access to the labor market, also give colleges and universities a systematic training guide, reform graduates’ training mode, and provide beneficial references for China’s higher education personnel training.

Literature review and research hypothesis

Employability study.

For the past few years, the study on employability has been frequently discussed ( Cheng et al., 2021 ). In 1909, British economist Willam Beveridge first proposed the concept of employability, it can also be called employment ability, core ability, key competence, or employment skills ( Huang et al., 2022 ). Sheffield Hallam University defines the employability of college students from the perspective of colleges and universities. They believe that the courses students have learned, the basic knowledge they have mastered, the cultivation they need in work, and the real self-realization through various incentive methods are their employability ( Belbin, 1981 ). The representative view is that employability is a person’s ability to obtain a job, obtain employment, maintain employment, and re-employment, including skills, knowledge, and experience ( Harvey, 2001 ). In addition, many policy studies define college students’ employability as a core vocational skill ( Perez et al., 2010 ).

Law (1999) carried out the study on the components of employability earlier and developed a DOTS conceptual model of employability, which includes four elements considered basic elements of vocational education: decision-making learning, opportunity awareness, transition learning, and self-awareness. Bowe (1998) conducted a comprehensive study, and he proposed a relatively comprehensive and complete employability structure, including four parts: Assets, development, expression, and adaptation. Zinser (2003) thought that excellent college students and individuals should have the employment structure factors, including professional knowledge and professional skills, information searching ability, logic, response to emergencies, execution and team cooperation ability, effective expression and communication ability, career management and negotiation ability. Denisi (2004) studied and elaborated on the set of abilities that an excellent organization member should possess from the perspective of organization management, including results and actions, dedication and service awareness, influence, leadership, cognitive ability, and personal qualities. According to Li (2012) , the employability of college students includes professional ability, interpersonal influence, analytical thinking, professional identity, and personal morality. Wang (2014) believed that the employability of college students refers to the various learning abilities and skills of the employed personnel according to the needs of the job. Hillage and Pollard considered employability as the ability needed for initial employment, they proposed maintaining the existing employment status and obtaining new employment and proposed four main components of employability: Employability assets, allocation, presentation, and an individual’s operating space ( Hillage and Pollard, 1998 ; Llinares-Insa et al., 2018 ). Clarke (2018) proposed that employability includes six key dimensions, human capital, social capital, personal attributes, personal behavior, perceived employability, and labor market.

The literature study mentioned in previous paragraphs shows that there is a lack of agreement about what scales may assess college employability, and what specific factors are in assessing college employability ( De Witte, 2005 ; Tymon, 2013 ). Thus, we summarized the college employability factors from different aspects to fill this gap. We think college graduates’ employability factors should include: Self-management ability, knowledge understanding and learning ability, career planning ability, professional ability, generic skills, and emotional skills.

Individual traits and employability

Some scholars studied the personal influence on employability. British scholars jointly proposed the theoretical model of USEM ( Yorke and Knight, 2004 ). The USEM model has four important dimensions, including subject understanding, basic skills, self-efficacy, and metacognition, as shown in Figure 2 . Each of the dimension does not exist in isolation but influence each other. Skills refer to the abilities possessed and are divided into hard and soft skills ( Zhang et al., 2022 ). Soft skills are universally applicable, while hard skills are unique and professional. Subject comprehension refers to the ability to be familiar with specific subject knowledge and to use it flexibly. Self-efficacy refers to having a rational and objective understanding and analysis of oneself. It also refers to maintaining a high degree of confidence and accurately judging one’s abilities in various aspects. So as to help the graduates to choose a suitable career more accurately. Metacognition is the assessment and understanding of one’s own conditions and social environment. It fully shows one’s initiative and ambition by continuously adjusting themselves during work time ( Kenny et al., 2007 ).

The USEM model.

Kearns (2001) believes that employability is composed of knowledge, skills, and attitudes focused on individuals, and is the synthesis of these three. Fugate et al. (2004) pointed out that employability is people-oriented, it is the subjective change and development of individuals. According to Tomlinson (2007) , employability is the qualification or competitive ability that an individual has to adapt to the changing needs of employers or customers, and the ability to unleash his passion and potential in his study. In addition, in practice the focus also with a heavy emphasis on personal skills and ability ( Bennett et al., 1999 ).

Most scholars focus on personal abilities when studying the personal influence on employability, but the role of individual attributes has largely been ignored ( Fugate and Ashforth, 2003 ). We believe that personal attributes make an important role in the process of graduates finding jobs and succeeding in their chosen careers, thus, we put forward the following hypotheses.

Hypotheses 1: Individual traits have a positive impact on College students’ employability.

Social experience and employability

Except for the individual aspect, some scholars’ analysis of factors that influence employability is from the perspective of the social side. Rajan et al. (2000) believed that the components of employability should be considered from both internal and external perspectives. The internal dimension refers to individual abilities and characteristics, while the external dimension refers to other than individual characteristics, such as macro labor market environment, industry conditions, and policy preference, which affect employment results to a certain extent ( Rajan et al., 2000 ). From the perspective of social psychology, Mcardle et al. (2007) and Fantinelli et al. (2022) believed that employability should include personal adaptation, career cognition, human and social capital, and other factors. Andrew divided “perceived employability” into the perception of external factors such as labor market conditions, university reputation, and professional fields, and the perception of internal factors such as individual skill mix and workers’ self-belief ( Rothwell et al., 2008 ). Holmes pointed out that social background has a significant direct effect on any indicator of employability ( Holmes, 2013 ). Forret and Dougherty (2004) believed social capital has the potential to significantly improve graduate employability outcomes, social capital refers to the interpersonal relationship that an individual has, maintaining a good interpersonal relationship with others and being good at communication can help employees gain social recognition and actively seize opportunities for career development. Lu et al. (2017) confirmed that professional quality and social adaptability had a strong positive relationship with college students’ employability.

Summarized from the aforementioned literature, we find that when discussing the external influencing factors of employability, most scholars mainly focus on social factors, they have discussed social skills, social capital, and social environment but few of them have discussed the social experience. Thus, we put forward the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis 2: Social experience has a positive impact on College students’ employability.

Workplace training and employability

Research proved that the employability of college students not only comes from college students themselves but is also shaped by the job market ( Rothwell and Arnold, 2007 ).

British scholars Pool and Well proposed a new employability model—the Career EDGE model. This model stated that students should have the ability in five aspects: Career development learning, experience (work and life), degree subject knowledge understanding and skills, generic skills, and emotional intelligence ( Pool and Sewell, 2007 ), as shown in Figure 3 . This model shows that through career development learning, students will become more self-aware and able to fully recognize their career interests. Learning from work and life experiences, students’ employability can be improved. Professional knowledge and skills mainly refer to the understanding of applied discipline knowledge, professional background, etc. Generic skills can support people from any academic background and can be transferred and applied in a variety of settings (whether in school or the workplace). Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s quality emotions, will, tolerance to setbacks and so on, it is positively related to one’s achievements ( Pitan and Atiku, 2017 ). Career EDGE model believes only with these abilities can development and progress be possible. Then, through self-reflection and evaluation, employees can evaluate and improve themselves. It can gradually develop into self-efficacy and self-confidence, which are important manifestations of self-esteem ( Ayala Calvo and Manzano García, 2021 ). Therefore, the interrelation and interaction between these elements contribute to the framework of employability. Career EDGE model provides a complete framework of employability structure, from professional skills to quality experience, from external pressure to internal motivation, which all tell us what elements should be fully considered when conducting employability research ( Krouwel et al., 2019 ; Strindlund et al., 2019 ). Career EDGE is considered the key model to analyze employability ( Anderson and Tomlinson, 2021 ).

The career EDGE model.

Positive career behavior is considered a key factor in building and enhancing employability ( Fugate et al., 2004 ). Okay-Somerville and Scholarios (2017) believed that career self-management and associated behaviors such as career exploration, guidance seeking, and networking, are one of the main factors that promote employability. The best place to put the Career EDGE model and these behaviors into practice is in the workplace. Practice and challenge often stimulate and improve people’s ability, in order to obtain stronger employability, it is necessary to continue to experience and accumulate experience in the workplace, after workplace training, students will have a different experience from other college graduates. Thus, we put forward the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis 3: Workplace training has a positive impact on College students’ employability.

This research model focuses on the aspects of individual traits, social experience, and workplace training of the current college graduates’ employability, and the college graduates’ employability consists of six elements: Self-management ability, knowledge understanding and learning ability, career planning ability, professional ability, generic skills, and emotional skills, shown in Figure 4 .

Research model.

Methodology

The research on the evaluation of college students’ employment ability is mainly from the aspects of employment-related ability, it is necessary to use quantitative methods. The quantitative analysis method is the main methodology in this research, mainly reflected in the questionnaire survey. This article mainly uses the SPSS software to conduct reliability and validity analysis, principal component analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis on the questionnaire survey data based on the questionnaire survey, and finally reported the research findings.

Questionnaire design

Before the compilation of the questionnaire, the survey between projects was carried out first through the open questionnaire quantity. On the basis of clarifying the connotation of college students’ employability, through the open questionnaire survey and literature review, and theoretical analysis, the general items of college students’ employability are considered. Then, the research used “ National Employment Survey of College Graduates” questionnaire surveys in 2019 conducted by the Economics of Education at Peking University ( Yue and Zhou, 2019 ) for reference, referred to relevant scientific research achievements and comprehensive literature, summarized the relevant influencing factors of college students’ employability from the literature we used above, and extracted 38 questions of employability according to the importance and correlation of the influencing factors, named “Survey on employability of college students.” The questionnaire contains five sections including the basic information of college graduates, current status, social practice experience, employment status, and the 38-items self-report question scale design, shown in Table 1 . To measure the scale of the relativity of each dimension of employability, the Likert scale is used for each question in the questionnaire. A Likert scale typically offers five possible responses corresponding to different levels to a statement or question, allowing respondents to express their level of agreement or feeling about the issue or statement on a positive-to-negative scale ( Göb et al., 2007 ). In such a five-tier rating system, a score of 5 means full compliance, a score of 4 means a good match, a score of 3 means uncertainty, a score of 2 means a bad match, and a score of 1 means a non-conformance. All questions are positive questions, which means the higher score, the higher the college graduates’ employability. On the contrary, the lower the score, the weaker the graduate’s employability.

Survey on employability of college students.

Questionnaires were distributed through “ Wen Juan Xing ,” which is a platform that can design and collect the questionnaire, the questionnaire link can be easily opened using any social media app commonly seen in China and thus can be easily spread via social media. We use paid methods in the investigation process to motivate the respondents’ participation, increase the enthusiasm for filling in the questionnaire and expand the scope of the questionnaire dissemination, everyone who finishes the questionnaire can get a lucky draw, and has a chance to get a cash bonus. The probability of reward is based on the number of answers and the number of prizes randomly drawn; the probability is random. The rewards will be attached to the system of the “ Wen Juan Xing ,” and those who complete the questionnaire will receive the rewards directly from the “ Wen Juan Xing .”

Sampling techniques and participants

The investigation date was from 1 to 30 June 2022. We used the resources of the college and distributed electronic questionnaires to different colleges, such as Shangluo University, Baoji University of Arts and Sciences, Xi’an University of Finance and Economics, and Shaanxi University of Science and Technology. The survey subjects comprised college students and graduates, as well as students of the given year who are already working. The questionnaires were distributed to each sampled institution of higher education at a certain ratio, we totally distributed 400 questionnaires to four universities, and after 4 weeks of data collection, excluding 180 invalid questionnaires with missing values or irregularities, 220 valid questionnaires were received.

In this research, the participants included 220 students and students who graduated from these four institutions. The gender distribution of this sample was 60% women and 40% men, 23% of the respondents were studying science, and 72% were studying liberal arts. In addition, 32% of the respondents were current students, 23% were students with social practice and 45% were already at work, as shown in Table 2 .

Descriptive statistics of the sample.

Data analysis and results

Reliability and validity analysis.

Before the analysis, this questionnaire uses Cronbach α value, a classic indicator often used in empirical research to test the reliability and accuracy of the answers to quantitative data. The statistician Hair pointed out that a Cronbach α score greater than 0.7 implies that the data is more credible ( Perreault, 2011 ). The α coefficient is analyzed by SPSSAU. The test results are shown in Table 3 . As it can be seen that the reliability coefficient value is 0.9, greater than 0.7, indicating that the reliability of the research data is good.

The table of cronbach alpha.

In addition, the research also calculated the correlation values between each item index and its dimension to further illustrate the content validity of the scale. As shown in Table 4 , content validity analysis was conducted for a total of 38 analysis items. Factor loading value displays the correlation between factors (latent variables) and analysis items (Manifest variables). Standard load factor (std. Estimate) values are usually used to represent the correlation between factors and analysis items. If the standard load coefficient value is greater than 0.7, there is a strong correlation ( Jennrich and Bentler, 2011 ). As the table shows, they are generally greater than 0.7. In general, items below 0.4 are considered for removal. Items 15,21,29,6, and 7 are during the value of 0.629–0.692, they are less than 0.7 but greater than 0.4. Given the small sample size, this may be the case. It was decided not to remove these items here. In terms of the measurement relationship, the absolute value of the standardized load coefficient is greater than 0.6 in each measurement relationship and presents significance, which means that there is a good measurement relationship. This indicates that the scale has good content validity.

The correlation between factors and analysis items.

This means that the internal consistency of the whole scale is satisfactory. Hence, the reliability and validity of the scale and sample are good and can be used for further analysis.

Factor analysis

Indicators correlation test.

Before doing factor analysis, the correlation between indicators should be tested. Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s sphericity test are the measures to test the correlation of sample data. The larger the KMO value, the higher the contribution rate of the factor, and the more common factors between variables, the more suitable for factor analysis; if the KMO value is less than 0.5, it is not suitable for factor analysis. The Bartlett sphericity test is to test whether the correlation matrix is a unit matrix, that is, whether each variable is independent or not, whether the correlation coefficients between variables are related. If the significance probability of the chi-square statistic value of the Bartlett sphericity test is less than 0.01, it means that the data are correlated and are suitable for factor analysis ( Basto and Pereira, 2012 ).

Table 5 shows the KMO and Bartlett sphericity test of the sample. It can be seen from the table that the KMO value is 0.953, higher than 0.5, which means that data can be used for factor analysis research. Bartlett sphericity test sig. = 0.000, less than 0.01, which means that there is a strong correlation between the research items and the factors, and the factors can effectively extract information.

Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett test.

Extract common factors

In questionnaire data analysis, principal component analysis was carried out to extract common factors, and the scree plot in the principal component analysis was used for verification. The number of factors is determined by observing the eigenvalues of each factor in the data sample, and then the principal component analysis method is used for factor analysis. According to the Kaiser criterion, in factor analysis, only the factors whose eigenvalues are greater than 1 are retained. The common factors are selected according to the criterion that the cumulative contribution rate of the factors is greater than 60%, and the number of factors is determined based on the criterion that the eigenvalue is greater than 1 ( Liu et al., 2003 ). Figure 5 is the Scree plot, reflecting the change in the eigenvalue. Table 6 reflects the variance contribution rate and the cumulative contribution rate of each factor.

Scree plot.

Total variance explained.

Extraction method: Principal component analysis.

From the Scree plot, it can be seen that there have six factors whose eigenvalues are greater than 1, the slope of all data factors is flattened from the seventh factor, so it is more appropriate to keep six factors. The data in Table 6 clearly shows that the cumulative variance contribution rate of the first six factors reaches 69.966%, which is greater than the preset 60% standard, is a high degree of explanation, indicating that these six factors can broadly include the variable information in the original test data, and the graduate employability could be condensed into six clusters with these eigenvalues.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the 38 items in the employability structure of college students in the factor analysis have been well explained, indicating that the extracted six common factors can make their meanings clearer, the cluster analysis is clearer, and can provide a good data basis.

Factor matrix analysis

The factor loading matrix is the coefficient of each factor expression in the original variable, which reflects the degree of influence of the extracted common factor on the original variable. According to the characteristic that the coefficient correlation of the initial factor loading matrix is not significant in factor analysis ( Belohlavek and Krmelova, 2014 ), this article uses the maximum variance method to orthogonally rotate the factor loading matrix of the test data, and re-rotate the correlation between the six factors and the original variable, so that the representativeness of common factors is more in line with the actual situation and can better explain the correlation between the factors. The factor loading matrix after rotation is shown in Table 7 . According to the result of the factor loading rotation matrix, each project has a large load in the corresponding factor, ranging from 0.407 to 0.756, indicating that each factor is closely related to the corresponding original factor, and the degree of dependence on the factor is relatively high.

Rotated component matrix.

Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

Rotation converged in 3 iterations.

The research results are further normalized, after rotating, naming each factor according to the rotated factor component matrix, and calculating the weight coefficient (K) by each factor’s eigenvalue (λ).

Factor 1 contains five items, and includes questions 1–4, and 27–28, which are knowledge understanding, and learning ability. It is about knowledge summary, memory, expression, comprehension, and application. The weight corresponding to factor 1 is set to K 1 = λ 1 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 24.56%.

Factor 2 contains five items, namely questions 34–38, which is professional ability. Which measures the knowledge and capability in a professional field, including professional knowledge, skills, ability, quality, style, and spirit. The weight corresponding to factor 2 is set to K 2 = λ 2 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 19.7%.

Factor 3 contains seven questions, questions 19–26, named emotional skills. It includes self-awareness, emotional control, self-motivation, recognizing the emotions of others, and processing relationships. The weight corresponding to factor 3 is set to K 3 = λ 3 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 18.9%.

Factor 4 contains 10 items, including questions 9–18, named self-management ability. Refers to strategies that use one’s inner strength to change behavior, focusing on one’s self-teaching and restraint power, such as time management, goal management, interpersonal management, stress management, behavior management, emotion management, responsibility, and the sense of self-discipline. The weight corresponding to factor 4 is set to K 4 = λ 4 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 15.83%.

Factor 5 is career planning ability, including questions 29–33. It means that employees have an in-depth understanding of their own abilities, make a long-term plan for their future, have a program to get promoted and improve themselves, and have career interests, career goals, career abilities, promotion plans, career orientation, and career development. The weight corresponding to factor 5 is set to K 5 = λ 5 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 15.12%.

Factor 6 is generic skills and includes topics 5–8. Which measures by problems solving ability and proficiency in working. The weight corresponding to factor 6 is set to K 6 = λ 6 /(λ 1 + λ 2 + λ 3 + λ 4 + λ 5 + λ 6 ) = 5.89%.

According to the results of the abovementioned exploratory factor analysis method, the structure of college students’ employability is a structured model including 38 indicators in six dimensions. Through the weight coefficient of each factor, it is clear that knowledge understanding and learning ability have the greatest impact on the employability structure, emotional intelligence, professional ability, self-management ability, and career planning ability are the followed factors, at an average weight level, the generic ability is the last factor, has the lowest weight.

Multiple linear regression analysis

For exploring the relationship between individual characteristics, social experience, workplace training, and employability, and verifying the hypothesis, we now use multiple linear regression analysis. Multiple linear regression is a statistical analysis method that uses regression analysis in mathematical statistics to determine the quantitative relationship between two or more variables, it aims to model the linear relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables ( Morrow-Howell, 1994 ). After factor analysis, we confirmed six factors of employability, according to the literature summary and our survey experience, we distributed these six factors into individual characteristics, social experience, and workplace training aspects. Self-management ability, knowledge understanding, and learning ability are grouped into individual characteristics, generic skills, emotional skills are grouped into social experience, career planning ability, and professional ability are grouped into workplace training. Thus, we are going to measure the hypothesis by testing these six factors.

Table 8 is the multiple linear regression results of the model. From the table, we can see that VIF < 10, which means that the collinearity among explanatory variables is weak after the multiple collinearity test. The t -value is the result of the t -test for the regression coefficient. The larger the absolute value is, the smaller the Sig is. Sig represents the significance of the t -test. The Sig. of the regression model is < 0.01, which indicates that there is a highly significant linear relationship between explanatory variables and explained variables. β of these six factors is all positive, indicating that six factors have a significant positive effect on college graduates’ employability, which also means that individual characteristics, social experience, and workplace training aspects have a positive influence on employability.

Multiple linear regression.

Dependent Variable: College employability.

Data shows that there was a positive correlation between knowledge understanding and learning ability (β = 0.9, t = 10.567, P < 0.01) and self-management ability (β = 0.523, t = 7.503, P < 0.01) and college students’ employability. The more outstanding the understanding and learning ability of individual college students, the stronger their own employability; the stronger the self-management ability, the stronger their own employability, which indicates that individual character has a significant influence on employability. The coefficient of the emotional skills and generic skills on college students’ employability are both positive (β = 0.751, t = 7.345, β = 0.448, t = 6.722, p < 0.01), which indicates that social experience is also important for college students’ employability improvement, it is for sure that social experience has a strong effect on employability, students who have internship experience or other social activity experience with stronger employability. The coefficient of the professional ability (β = 0.880, t = 7.353, p < 0.01), and career planning ability (β = 0.521, t = 7.489, p < 0.01) are both positive, to prove that people with technic skills and occupational ideal has stronger employability indicating that workplace training has a positive effect on employability. This verifies that the H1, H2, and H3 are correct, and the final structure model is shown in Figure 6 .

Final research model.

Theoretical implications

Based on the college perspective, this study explores the factors influencing the enhancement of college graduates’ employability, and the findings have important theoretical implications. This research provides a new perspective for the study of employability and offers new research findings in this field, it is helpful to enrich the theories related to college graduates’ cultivation mode in colleges.

First, this research includes individual characteristics, social experience, and workplace training into the employability dimension, it breaks the previous literature that only considers the individual or the society when studying employability, and it makes the research on the influencing factors of employability more comprehensive and reasonable. Second, this article takes students from universities in Shaanxi Province as the research object, it is more specific than previous studies on national employability, and it will help deepen the analysis and research on the factors of college graduates’ employability in Shaanxi Province. Third, this study finds six specific dimensionalities of employability factors, showing that employability is a multidimensional meta-competence, rather than a one-dimensional structure ( Cuyper et al., 2008 ), it extends previous research and updates new employability measurement dimensions, provides an excellent theoretical basis and proof for research in employability field, has great guiding significance to the future study of employability.

Practical implications

The renewal of the understanding of employability would have a long-term practical impact on individuals, universities, and corporations.

Primally, this article summarizes an employability scale for students to measure their job competence, it tells students what kind of employability they should have. Therefore, college graduates can evaluate their own abilities scientifically, building their own ability structure and the new employment form of their own ability requirements, as well as put targeted efforts to improve their employability, which will help them better find employment, and enter the market more quickly. It has universal use value and practical guiding significance for enhancing the core competitiveness of college students in employment.

Moreover, institutions are the main place to cultivate students’ employability and play a vital role in cultivating and enhancing the employability of college graduates ( Nicolescu and Nicolescu, 2019 ). This research provides a beneficial reference for China’s higher education personnel training and reform graduates’ training mode and cultivates practical graduates to meet the needs of society, it also offers policymakers and lecturers in universities the guideline to teach the students. Universities can use these research findings as guidance to help students gain stronger employability by changing the education mode, focusing on using college education, and providing students with opportunities to consolidate their abilities.

Most importantly, this research has important practical value for promoting sustainable and healthy development in the labor market. Different departments of the organization have different requirements for employees’ abilities. For example, sales staff need professional sales skills and high emotional intelligence, while technical departments need professional technology. College students can apply for corresponding departments according to the employability which they are good, thus reducing the pressure on enterprises for new employee training. Furthermore, when graduates enter the labor market with a clear career goal, they will not have incompatibility problems of the relevant occupational ability, thus they would not have a lot of turnover problems and reduce the labor market pressure.

Limitations and future prospects

This study tries to obtain a better understanding of employability factors in the new situation, and it has some limitations.

First, as the quantitative method, this research used is based on the self-evaluation of the subjects on their own skill. It is difficult to keep people from being biased in evaluating themselves. This research has not identified the extent of bias people have on their own skills and has not adjusted the data based on bias. As a result, the data collected might differ if the research is done by peer review. In future research, more objective data can be used, or experiments can be carried out to explore.

Second, this thesis has only investigated one specific period and area, the number of subjects who participated in the quantitative research is 220, which is largely composed of people with direct or indirect personal relationships with the researcher. This likely created some bias in geographical location and common experiences of research subjects, how much the results are replicable throughout different parts of Shaanxi is unproven, and it is undiscovered how employability in the other region. The scope of data surveys can be expanded in future research to improve the reasonableness and representativeness of the sample and make the research results more convincing.

This research takes the university graduates’ employability as the breakthrough point, and comprehensively analyzes the factors that influence the improvement of the employability of college students, as well as the factors that employability involved. This study uses SPSS software to conduct 220 valid questionnaires and verifies questionnaire quality through reliability and validity analysis. It uses factor analysis and multiple linear regression methods to expound the correlation between factors in the structure of college students’ employability, and finally obtains the research results which are three factors that influence employability improvement and the six factors that college graduates’ employability includes.

According to the research findings, individual characteristics, social experience, and workplace training have a significant positive impact on employability. The employability hierarchy factors of college students are as follows: Knowledge understanding and learning ability, professional ability, emotional intelligence, self-management ability, career planning ability, generic ability, knowledge understanding, and learning ability are the most important employability for college graduates.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

LJ performed conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, visualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and resources. ZC performed investigation, formal analysis, software, formal analysis, project administration, and methodology. CL performed supervision, visualization, validation, and funding acquisition. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Funding Statement

This research was funded by the Basic Research Program in Shanxi (Grant No. 20210302124349) and the Scientific and Technological Innovation Programs of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (Grant No. 2021L054).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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