A New Framework for Preparing Indonesian Graduates for Employability: A Capitals-Based Approach

Introduction

Graduate employability continues to dominate the Higher Education (HE) strategic agenda as universities seek to enhance their students’ career readiness and produce skilled graduates who are agile to the demands of evolving and complex work. Driven by government funding arrangements, measures for universities’ success in developing student employability remain primarily confined to their graduates’ employment outcomes, despite clear distinctions between employability and employment (Bridgstock & Jackson, 2019). To solve the employability problem, universities worldwide have heavily deployed the human capital approach, emphasizing the need for graduates to obtain qualifications and work experience to prepare themselves for post-study careers (Donald et al., 2018). Following the 1999 Bologna Process, skills have become a key goal of European HE reforms (Engelberg & Limbach-Reich, 2012). Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have also supported this agenda by establishing institutional and government-based skills frameworks (Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2004; Curtis & McKenzie, 2002). HE has aggressively incorporated graduate qualities such as 'soft skills,' 'graduate competencies,' 'work-ready skills,' 'generic skills,' and 'transferable skills' to improve graduate employability (Williams et al., 2016).

However, scholars have observed that a skills-based approach via human capital as a stand-alone form of capital is insufficient for developing students’ employability (Clarke, 2018; Donald et al., 2019; Pham, 2020; Tomlinson, 2017). Consequently, researchers have advocated approaches underpinned by other perspectives, of which sociological views about graduate employability have been increasingly deployed in employability research. These views emphasise that employability needs to be defined holistically, including employment outcomes, sustainable employment, job satisfaction, wellbeing, and personal and professional growth (Clarke, 2018; Donald et al., 2020; Jackson & Bridgstock, 2021; Pham, 2020). Researchers supporting these views claim that for students to obtain and sustain these components, a package of resources is required rather than human capital in isolation. A note to add here is that Donald et al. (2019) conceptualize human capital as a composite of six forms of capital (social, cultural, psychological, scholastic, market-value, and skills capital). Other scholars, such as Tomlinson (2017), use graduate capital as the composite of five forms of capital (human, social, cultural, psychological, and identity capital). These two models are the most cited in the context of graduate employability, and despite their differences, the shared theme is the need for different forms of capital made up as a composite of what has subsequently been termed employability capital (Pham, 2021).

Many graduates have to use social capital to mobilize educational outcomes. They also have to navigate cultural barriers in the workplace by seeking mentorships and strategically choosing what they do and whom they collaborate with. Sociological views about how employability should be defined and what constitutes employability have recently been seen in how employees perceive priorities and plans in their career development (Bridgstock, 2019; Pham, 2020).