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Flatter organisational structures and nonlinear career trajectories mean intrinsic value and subjective career success are increasingly important for motivating, guiding and rewarding contemporary workers. While objective measures of career success have been well explored, more research is needed to understand the dimensions of subjective career success, their relative importance to graduates and potential variations by personal factors. This is critical for supporting graduates’ transition into work and for organisations to attract and retain graduates amid global talent shortages.

Building on assertions of the power to understand how what one seeks in a career affects career achievement, this study investigated the importance and achievement of subjective career success among 324 recent graduates from two Australian universities.

Results include a notable emphasis on financial security and work-life balance, particularly among mature individuals, underscoring the value of adaptable work arrangements. Results suggest shifting priorities, with reduced importance placed on opportunities for innovation and assisting others, potentially indicating a move from collective to more individualised goals. Distinct graduate profiles emerged, showcasing diverse priorities and achievements in subjective career success, spanning from “humanistic” to “self-made” success.

Results underscore the significance of higher education embedding program-wide career development plans across the curriculum, including value-based assessments, labour market analyses and career planning and review processes. Comprehensively supporting students in career development will empower them to explore, understand and actively pursue their career goals in alignment with their values and motivations, enhancing their person-organisation fit, career satisfaction and organisational commitment.

Although there is increasing evidence that the creative industries are essential to national economic growth as well as social and cultural well‐being, creative graduates often find it difficult to become established professionally. This study aims to investigate the value of career management competence and intrinsic career motivations (as elements of “protean career orientation”) in predicting positive graduate outcomes.

Self‐report surveys were administered to 208 creative industries graduates from two Australian universities at two points in time: at course completion, and one year later.

The paper finds that individual career management competence and intrinsic work motivations, measured at course completion, were significant predictors of early career success, using both subjective and objective measures, measured one year later.

This study suggests that an emphasis on student development beyond the traditional “key” employability skills may well be worthwhile. The paper also suggests a broad learning and teaching approach by which universities can encourage the development of student career identity, and thus engender student intrinsic career motivations and career self management skills and behaviours.

This is one of the first studies to demonstrate empirically a link between a particular set of skills and graduate outcomes. In addition, it provides insights into the role of student career motivations in positive transitions to the world of work in the creative industries.

Professional networks are conduits for career insight, vehicles for career exploration and incubators of professional identity. Accordingly, LinkedIn is a rich environment for university students' careers and employability learning. In this article, the authors review how the pedagogical use of LinkedIn has been conceived, implemented and evaluated in higher education research.

The authors conducted a scoping literature review on research articles and chapters investigating the use of LinkedIn for careers and employability learning. The authors conducted a systematic database search and screened the results, resulting in 30 eligible studies. Each study was analysed for research characteristics, theoretical foundations, reported affordances or outcomes and critical concerns.

The authors find little evidence of cohesion or consistency in the existing research. Studies draw on different theoretical and methodological approaches and use different measures of networking behaviours and competencies. Studies tend not to consider ethical concerns about using LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool.

The authors argue this is not yet a body of research that supports the synthesis necessary for a reliable evidence base. The authors recommend that educators employing LinkedIn in the curriculum ground their work in more coherent, cohesive and integrated theories of careers and employability learning.

This review summarises a body of literature on the use of LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool for careers and employability learning in higher education. This review describes and critiques the beginnings of an evidence-base from which educators can further investigate how students can be supported to develop their online professional networking skills.

Understanding disabled people as gray-collar workers who are under-paid, under-valued and under-employed is recognized as in urgent need of attention but remains unaddressed. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with disabled people, observations and document analysis, the authors argue that the disabled gray-collar workers in the performing arts provide a context and socio-cultural perspective on how gray-collar workers can attain dignity through social inclusion. Building on a novel framework of four dimensions of social inclusion theory – access, participation, representation and empowerment – the authors identify social interactions portrayed in the performing arts in order to deconstruct the processes that normalize and reinforce exclusion and inequality. The authors demonstrate how social inclusion can be “enabled” which has implications for theory, policy and practice.

The peer-assisted study sessions program (PASS) – variously known as supplemental instruction, peer mentoring and peer-assisted learning – is regarded as a global phenomenon in academic support interventions and has well established presence in higher education. The purpose of this study was to add to the body of knowledge of how PASS may add value to the employability of the student leaders, in relation to the CareerEDGE model.

This qualitative research was based on interviews from a sample of 18 former PASS leaders who have since obtained employment.

Findings demonstrate that being a PASS leader enhanced many of their competencies as defined by CareerEDGE model, for example subject related knowledge, interpersonal skills and some generic skills. However, many of the reported competency enhancements led to unexpected future career advancement.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge relating to how PASS may add value to the employability of student leaders in relation to the CareerEDGE model using a sample of leaders who have already graduated and have obtained employment. Limitations of this study include: lack of generalisability of small geographically isolated sample; coding and analsysis not comparing findings from different demographic groups; only explores individual perceptions and relies on self-reported data.

The results of this study have implications for the development of future PASS programs and other similar academic support interventions. Given the global prevalence of such programs in higher education institutions, this research may have wide-scale transferability. Insights from this paper will allow future PASS leaders to proactively reflect and evaluate their experience and increase their confidence in pursuing their employment opportunities.

While there is much understanding on the role that PASS has in improving students grades and in improving retention rates, less is known about the value of this experience on improving student employability, and little attempt has been made in examining this within relevant employability models post-employment.

Many graduate attributes (such as adaptability, resilience, cultural awareness and professionalism) are often considered aspirational or invisible and conventionally go “under the radar” of standard university dance education. The purpose of this paper is to add to existing theories of dance as an academic discipline and contributes to studies identifying and mapping graduate attributes across the academy.

The research project Making the Invisible Visible contextualises this paper. It has involved a two-year, cyclical data-gathering process, involving interviews with leading dance employers and academics, and surveys of students from diverse disciplines entering and completing full-time dance degrees.

Due to the centrality of embodiment in studio learning, dance is an unusual discipline within research on graduate attributes and holds a unique place in academia. The creative, embodied, collaborative activities typical to dance learning offer fresh insight to the literature on graduate attributes – both visible and invisible – all graduates from a given institution are expected to hold.

A narrative methodology is employed to present a series of amalgam characters manifesting specific ways in which invisible graduate attributes inform pedagogies, student–teacher relationships and student understandings of their professional skills.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the critical role reflection plays in work-based learning (WBL).

This paper presents an contextualist examination of reflection in the WBL environment.

People consciously reflect in order to understand events in their lives and as a consequence hopefully add and enhance meaning.

Reflection is associated therefore with “looking back” and examining the past in order to learn from what happened and perhaps not repeat mistakes. However, it is also increasingly associated with reflecting on action (Schon, 1983) and encourages an exploring of thoughts and feelings; looking for insights; and maximizing on self-awareness which all tie the process closely to identity formation (Lacan, 1977).

If used effectively and purposefully reflection facilitates ongoing personal and professional learning, and creates and develops practitioners capable of demonstrating their progression towards learning outcomes and required standards. Reflection can also provide a structure in which to make sense of learning, so that concepts and theories become embedded in practice, and constant thought and innovation are simultaneously fostered.

By actively considering the thoughts and actions one becomes aware of the power of reflective thinking as a tool for continuous improvement, and one that has implications beyond the personal.

This paper represents the first study which examines the role reflection plays in WBL.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of work experience and gender on graduates’ perception of competencies, preparation and expectations of success in labour market (LM) transition. The research questions that guide this study are: How do graduates evaluate the competencies acquired during their masters’ degree? How do graduates evaluate their preparation for transition to the LM and their expectations of success?

Within the framework of employability models, the authors explore the perception of competencies developed during higher education (HE). Given previous reported effects of gender and work experience on the process of work transition, these two variables are also considered. A questionnaire was administered to 411 students in their final masters’ degree year. Descriptive and inferential statistics, namely, univariate analysis of variance (F-anova 2×3) with post-hoc multiple comparison test (post-hoc HSD of Tukey), are developed to analyse the data and address the research questions.

The main results show that there are no significant group differences concerning perception of the development of competencies; the effect of work experience on perceptions related to preparation for transition to the LM depends on gender; and expectations of successful transition to the LM are related to gender, with no significant influence of prior work experience.

These data suggest that, in developing their programmes, it is important for HE institutions to consider self-beliefs related to students’ diversity, in order to maximize the development and effective use of competencies and individual resources in work contexts, for all students. Exploration of the effect of gender and work experience on perceptions of competencies and preparation for the LM should help HE institutions define curricular programmes and support graduates in preparing for entry to the LM.