Signaling standout graduate employability: The employer perspective

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Valerie Anderson,Michael Tomlinson
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12334

Received: 1 February 2019

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Revised: 18 November 2020

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Accepted: 18 November 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12334

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Signaling standout graduate employability: The

employer perspective

Valerie Anderson

1

|Michael Tomlinson

2

1

Faculty of Business and Law, Portsmouth

Business School, University of Portsmouth,

Portsmouth, UK

2

School of Education, University of

Southampton, Southampton, UK

Corresponding author

Valerie Anderson, University of Portsmouth

Faculty of Business and Law, Portsmouth

Business School, Richmond Building, Portland

Street, Portsmouth PO1 3DE, UK.

Email: Valerie.anderson@port.ac.uk

Abstract

This study examines employers' graduate employability

expectations. In an overcrowded graduate labour market,

employers must distinguish between equally qualified

graduates to determine ‘standout employability’. Grounded

in a dramaturgical perspective, we integrate concepts of

skilful social action with signaling theory to extend the

processual conceptualization of graduate employability.

We report a qualitative abductive analysis of employers'

expectations of graduates' employability performances. We

theorise that employers frame and decode signals of

standout employability from graduates' narrations of

experientially referenced skilful social action. These form

the dramaturgical backdrop from which employers infer

unique personal brand assets and qualities they associate

with standout employability. Our analysis has important

implications for higher education (HE), human resource

management and career counselling practitioners. It in-

dicates that the employability value of non‐HE experience

is as a backdrop for the dramaturgical performance of

graduate employability rather than for the acquisition of

work‐related skills or the enablement of work ready

behaviours.

KEYWORDS

dramaturgy, graduate employability, signaling theory, work

experience

Abbreviations: BIS, UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; HE, Higher Education; HR, Human Resource; HRD, Human Resource

Development; HRM, Human Resource Management; ISE, Institute of Student Employers; NVivo 12, Proprietary name for a qualitative data analysis

computer software package; OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Hum Resour Manag J. 2021;31:675–693. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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SIGNALING STANDOUT GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY: THE

EMPLOYER PERSPECTIVE

The employment readiness of the next generation of graduate workers is a central concern for human resource

management (HRM; Costea, Amiridis, & Crump, 2012), and employability is an important concept within managerial

and HRM toolkits (Rothwell & Rothwell, 2017). Graduate employability also dominates the agenda of graduates,

employers, policy makers, practitioners and scholars (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS], 2011;

Handley, 2018). Much of the HRM literature assumes that individuals need to take proactive ownership over their

own employability (Forrier, de Cuyper, & Akkermans, 2018). However, in a graduate labour market context where

the supply of qualified and skilled graduates exceeds demand by employing organizations, employers must

distinguish between graduates with similar skills and qualifications to make judgements about which graduates will

make the transition from higher education into employment (McCracken, Currie, & Harrison, 2016; Nilsson &

Ellström, 2012). Studies show that employers associate personal and intangible qualities such as ‘talent’, ‘creativity’,

‘dynamism’ and ‘potential’ with exceptional employability but little is known about how they recognise and respond

to the qualities of what we refer to here as standout graduate employability. Our study contributes to this gap in

knowledge. Our approach is grounded in a Goffmanian dramaturgical perspective (1959, 1974). Employers

constitute the principal audience for graduates' employability ‘performance’ and, using the analogy of employers as

Practitioner notes

What is currently known?

�The ‘employer voice’ is central in understanding graduate employability

�In an overcrowded graduate labour market where supply of graduates exceeds organizational demand

for graduate level recruits, employers must distinguish between graduates with similar skills, qualifi-

cations and accomplishments

�Work and other forms of experience are assumed to enhance employability but their relationship to

employability outcomes is not clear.

What this paper adds?

�Empirical description of the dimensions of employer's graduate employability expectations

�Identification of the signals employers utilise to determine qualities of standout employability

�Explanation of the role of skilled social action grounded in work and other experience for employers'

framing of signals of standout employability

The implications for practitioners

�For higher education and career counselling practitioners—graduates' standout employability perfor-

mances must be grounded in narratives of experience that signal a shared social context from which

employers can infer organizational belonging and fit

�For graduate recruiters—reliance on signals from which idealized personal, social and cultural qualities

are inferred may limit the effectiveness of organizations' diversity and inclusion policies and systems

�For career development and human resource development practitioners—further development of

graduate recruits' skilful social action capabilities may be important to ensure their ongoing internal

employability development beyond the point of their transition into the organization.

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ANDERSON AND TOMLINSON