The UK HE sector is light years ahead of Australia in terms of ensuring links with industry and cohesion between the careers advising team, alumni office and the international office at university level, resulting in better success rates for international graduates seeking employment.
This is one key finding of new and extensive research that Rob Lawrence of Prospect Research & Marketing revealed at AIEC. The research has been commissioned by AUIDF and saw him spend significant time learning and comparing university strategy around employment and employability in both countries.
“We couldn’t understand why it was that graduate employment rates in the UK were showing a different pattern than they were here,” Lawrence told The PIE News, explaining the rationale behind undertaking the research.
“Whilst sharing knowledge around marketing in Australia is so good, the sharing of knowledge around careers and development of graduate attributes is so much better in the UK,” he added.
Co-locating careers advisers and the international office was one example of an approach that helped ensure that there was a uniform message and agenda being delivered on the recruiting front-line by international office staff from the UK, he said.
There was also often significantly larger resources allocated to careers advising at UK institutions, and graduates typically stayed in touch with their university careers office for up to two years.
Good practice could include using existing international alumni to support job search efforts for international alumni in other countries, significant liaison with other jobs fairs and careers organisations in Europe, careers fairs being organised by universities and separate staff or teams focused variously on employer-facing activities and student-facing activities.
The ability to work in a team, interpersonal skills and creative problem solving were all attributes strongly regarded by employers
Helping establish internship opportunities or running “The Apprentice” style contests were other examples of successful approaches to developing the right skills among students to make them attractive to employers.
Lawrence also conducted research with employers, both in Southeast Asia and in the UK and Australia, to ascertain just what skills and attributes were most valued.
The ability to work in a team, interpersonal skills and creative problem solving were all attributes strongly regarded, as was a willingness to learn, although there were interesting regional variations too.
Lawrence did uncover some scepticism among some Australian employers around international students’ right to work without being sponsored, and some hesitation around the “soft skills” of international students – leading him to call for greater focus on active English language ability throughout a study programme.
One-third of Australian employers canvassed who had not hired an international graduate in the last year had said that they were not in a position to sponsor an international student, despite PSW rights now being widely available for at least two years upon graduation.
Similar findings were also reported this week by Cate Gribble, one of the authors of an in-depth report by Deakin University, Australian International Graduates and the Transition to Employment.
Gribble explained that the change to Post-Study Work rights in Australia happened halfway through the report, but she felt many employers were still not adequately aware of latest policy for international students and historically, they had used this as a reason to not hire internationals.
She also echoed concerns made by employers about the “soft skills” and ability to assimilate of international students.
Both Gribble and Lawrence called for more to be done in terms of educating employers of the value in employing an international student.
Back in the UK, Dr Jean-Bernard Adrey, Director – Centre for Global Engagement [CGE] at Coventry University, commented, “At Coventry University, our students benefit from worldwide opportunities to work in their field of studies to become global graduates.”
Coventry University was cited by Lawrence as one of the UK universities which is moving towards trying to guarantee placements for its students.
