Understanding difficulties with generic conceptions of employability

A paper from the STEM Annual Conference 2012.

Graduate employability tends to be understood in terms of generic skills to be acquired by everyone irrespective of background or career intention. In contrast we argue for a relational approach. In particular we argue that an individual’s positions dispositions and abilities – their habitus – make it easier to acclimatise to some fields and make it more difficult to fit in to others. Our argument based on a longitudinal study is illustrated here by a single case study. We conclude that employability should be understood in terms of a good fit between the individual’s habitus and both the work to be undertaken and the organisational culture in which it is performed.