The top three ways to support international graduate employability

As those working in UK universities know all too well, the Teaching Excellence Framework and National Student Survey are not the only determining metrics affecting UK universities’ reputations. In recent years there has been an ever-increasing focus on “graduate outcomes”.

The Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) is used by the English regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), to measure universities’ performances, how they support home graduate employability and their value for taxpayers’ money. This metric is now also frequently used in methodologies for university rankings lists, potentially helping international students choose the university that may improve their employability the most.

• Struggle, strength and growth: preparing students for the changing future
• The power of ‘active feedback’ to prepare students for professional experience
• Half of students feel they’re not ready for a job – we must solve the HE-industry disconnect

The OfS recently commissioned independent research on the international student experience, and one finding suggested that further employment is one of the most frequent concerns for international students coming to the UK. Skills shortages were a hot topic throughout 2022 and remain so into 2023. Universities should be ideally placed to help employers fill vacancies, especially with many international students currently obtaining Graduate Route visas. Yet, according to the Confederation of British Industry’s latest Education and Skills Survey, engagement between education providers and employers is still below the pre-pandemic level (and falling) and “time constraints are the top barrier for employers to engage with education providers”.

Universities are working to help employers tackle skills shortage issues and create EDI cultures in the workplace with international students, but there is a need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to build effective partnerships with employers and raise their awareness on how they can engage with universities in this area, especially for post-92, non-Russell Group universities, which face fierce competition. Here are some ideas on how HEIs can help support international student employability:

Industry engagement

UK HEIs should have a clear, systematic approach and guidance available for employers. Many employers, particularly SMEs, seem to be unfamiliar with how the recruitment process with a university works and also with international students’ rights to work. Spending considerable time understanding an employer’s business needs and familiarising them with the process is crucial for industry partnership management.

At the University of East London, we found that supporting employers and freeing up their time allowed them to identify skills needed in their business. This, for example, led to one central London hotel recruiting two of our computer science students, rather than just the one they initially intended, to help them analyse guest data and improve digital operations. With help from the university, the hotel partner was able to work with its parent company to identify scope for the additional vacancy.

There could also be a bigger presence from HEIs at many business conferences and networking events. Each HEI has its own careers service, and having them attend such events would be a great way to showcase its offerings to businesses. While there might not be full vacancies at some businesses, HEIs can then also suggest other engagement means such as mentoring schemes, guest lectures and R&D projects.

Curriculum design

Building effective industry engagement can also, in turn, help HEIs shape curriculum design and career services. Many HEIs have career coaches or career consultants to advise students on job applications and interview techniques, so one tip for career coaches is to sit in on interviews with employers to witness first-hand how international students are performing. The resulting feedback and knowledge should be extremely valuable, especially in terms of being able to see students’ cross-cultural awareness, their understanding of the UK labour market, business etiquette and the way they demonstrate their skills. Academic colleagues can then take on board that feedback for future curriculum development.

Embedding activities such as guest lectures into the curriculum is also becoming a popular approach to help improve student employability. For international students, hearing directly from employers is extremely useful for understanding any cultural differences from their home countries and the expectations in their targeted careers/industries.

Cross-service promotion

For HEI professionals in global engagement/international student recruitment, employer partnerships struck up by their institutions, along with their GOS scores, can be used as important tools to attract international students. While GOS-based data evidence allows students to see their prospective university’s performance, the Longitudinal Employment Outcomes dataset can also be useful and gives students a flavour of the average median salary of a specific university’s graduates.

At one seminar, it was clear that students were intrigued and eager to find out more when I mentioned a top London law firm’s training contract salary. This demonstrates that, apart from teaching quality and student experience, students are interested in improving their employability and boosting earning potential. Thus, HEIs could also try emphasising employability services to improve enrolment conversion rates.

While international graduate outcomes are not included in the regulator’s metrics, international students are valuable fee-paying customers, and those who are highly skilled are sought after by employers. HEIs can and should build effective partnerships with employers and address their needs using both the national and international talent pool. Meanwhile, HE staff in international recruitment should develop a good knowledge of the labour market and which employer partnerships and services are available within their institutions.

Eric Huang is strategic planning manager at the University of East London. He leads on Graduate Outcomes Survey analysis and has extensive experience in industry engagement, academic partnerships and in supporting both inward and outward student mobility.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the THE Campus newsletter.