Engaging Students, Staff, and Employers in Developing Student Employability

Graduates who leave university almost invariably enter the world of work, ideally, at graduate-level, and therefore must be equipped to survive and prosper in increasingly-competitive regional, national and global jobs markets. Curricular design that combines academic, subject-related practical and transferable skills to meet the needs and expectations of employers, industries, and professional bodies is therefore of tremendous importance. This has wide implications for teaching staff: it is essential to also identify and explore their developmental needs. It is vital that academics be afforded opportunities to develop their conceptual and procedural knowledge around the developing of student employability skills, to build repertoires of varied techniques and activities within teaching, assessing, and subsequent evaluating, and to amass knowledge of a variety of resources, grounded within their own discipline and at various levels.