Employability and determinants of employment outcomes

This chapter presents key themes emerging in the preceding narratives presented in the book and also in other narratives presented at the Alumni Experience Conference in 2018. The narratives revealed that graduates’ employability development is a complex process which was constructed by a range of factors at macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. At a macro-level, the graduates’ employability trajectories were determined by government policies like scholarship and exchange programmes and permanent residency (PR) policies. At a meso-level, their career choices and progression are influenced by prospects and expectations of parents, institutions, and employers. At a micro-level, graduates’ employability negotiation was found to largely depend on various forms of capital including human capital, social capital, cultural capital, psychological capital, and identity capital. Importantly, to navigate the labour markets, graduates needed to develop what is called ‘agentic capital’ – a capacity to use their capitals strategically.