Measuring the development of student's career readiness

Abstract

For many years the only available measure of employability (or more exactly 'employment') has been the annual Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education (DLHE) survey. The DLHE provides data primarily on the employment status of graduates six months after graduation. However there is much less data available on how students are developing their employability whilst still here. Gaining this data would help us to tailor interventions to particular students whilst at the same time gaining an overall understanding of the development of employability and enterprise learning. In the autumn of 2017 Careers and Employability piloted a project called the "Careers Support Survey".

Linked to the annual registration process students the survey invited participants to answer a number of questions about their employability development. Approximately 1500 students responded which has allowed us for the first time to target messages to students according to their employability needs, and to begin to gain a useful insight into the development of employability learning. Out of the data a new variable 'Career Readiness' is proposed. This paper discusses the results and explains the emerging construct of career readiness.