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This relational approach contrasts with a structural perspective which seeks to examine existing structures as objective features of the social world, and to examine the relationships between such objective features. In the field of graduate employment, such a structural approach would typically look for assumed objective attributes of graduates, and of jobs and employers, in order to identify how these connect with each other. So, for example, the concept of 'skill' is taken to refer to objectively observable (and measurable) attributes of graduates ('graduate skills'), and the concept of 'skills requirements' is treated as a characteristic of jobs, such that the relationship of 'fit' between the two can be examined. Similarly, employers may be treated as objects with particular characteristics (eg size, location) which are deemed to be significant for understanding the relationship with certain employment practices (eg tendency to recruit, or not recruit, graduates). Patterns of relationships between (what are taken to be) objective features of the social world are thus sought, mainly through large-scale survey-based research. This restricts the findings of such a study to a particular point in time or, in the case of comparative and longitudinal studies, to several separate points in time.
The currently dominant, structural approach to development work on graduate employment and employability is framed within the 'graduate skills' approach. This approach assumes that key aspects of the process by which graduates enter and function within employment can best be understood in terms of the linkage between the skills and qualities which graduates have (or are expected to have) and those required for effective performance in employment. Typically, projects within this approach attempt to develop a framework of such skills and qualities, based on the views of employers, graduate recruiters, higher education staff, and other key informants (eg Smith et al., 1989; Harvey et al., 1992; Allen, 1993; AGR, 1995; Nove, et al., 1997; Yorke, 1997; Hesketh, 1998). Various initiatives are then designed with the aim of enabling undergraduates to acquire and develop these skills and qualities. Thus, it is anticipated, graduates will be better prepared for gaining entry to appropriate employment and performing competently once employed.
A number of conceptual, theoretical and practical problems with the skills approach have been presented (eg Bridges, 1991; Wolf, 1991; Gubbay, 1994; Holmes, 1995; Hyland, 1997; Holmes, 1998a; Holmes, 1998b). Those projects which adopt a skills approach tend to assume that skills are objectively measurable, and make simplistic assumptions about the relationship between the purported skills and performance in various situations. There is a proliferation of lists of the purported skills, raising serious doubts about their supposed objective nature. Even where there are similar terms used by employers and others, there is no indication that these refer to the same concept (cf Hirsh and Bevan, 1987). Significantly, the use of the notion of 'skills', as the generic outcomes of degree courses and transferable to various contexts, can be dated back less than a decade and half. The study by Roizen and Jepson (1985) on employers' expectations does not use the notion of 'skills'. However, in the previous year a report on 'Higher Education and the Needs of Society' was jointly published by the National Advisory Board for Public Sector Higher Education and the University Grants Committee (NAB/ UGC, 1984), which stated that
"The abilities most valued in industrial, commercial and professional
life as well as in public and social administration are the transferable intellectual
and social skills."
"The personal or non-academic skills of students, which higher
education is expected to develop, include the general communication, problem-solving,
teamwork and inter-personal skills required in employment." (NAB, 1986: 3)
The skills approach is certainly not borne out by this research project.
There was no evidence that entry to jobs held by the respondents, in
the smaller businesses, was effected by any process of skills appraisal. Recruitment
practices tended to be very informal, with the most favoured selection method
being an interview, often conducted by the boss alone with the candidate. In
some cases, the post offered was different from that for which the graduate
applied:
LB applied for the post of course administrator with a training company,
and was interviewed. After being interviewed, the business manager took her into
his office, talked 'kind of informally' about the placement consultant post and
asked 'would you be interested?'
LA was working as a secretarial temp with the Human Resources department of
a finance company. Whilst she was with the company, a Human Resources Assistant
was appointed. Shortly after LA left to undertake another temping job, the HR
Assistant was dismissed. The finance company contacted LA and offered her the
HR Assistant position.
SA met his current boss (of an IT training company) when undertaking a final
year project for his degree. He met ('bumped into') him again a few months after
graduating, and was asked whether he was interested in taking on a job developing
the Internet side of the business.
"My area is the Internet ... what it is, is I set up the company
Website, and whatever there is to do for the Internet, if people need training
for the Internet, I do that; and if we have a contract for the Internet, I do
that." (SA)
"When I started as a secretary I hated it totally ... there were two people
in the organisation who were a few years older than me and, how I saw it, they
were doing very interesting work and I wanted to do work like them. ... I pushed
myself, and I had ideas. I think, you know, as I was typing his [my boss] file
notes, I would be the first in the organisation to see his views on things,
and I would say 'can I develop this as a project?'. So I got myself a few tasty,
juicy projects which were my own." (MC)"So the job I did when I first started
was fairly administrative, with an HR tilt to it. And what I do now is completely
different. I manage the people who relocate to our office in London ... And,
as I say, I do our pensions here. I do our graduate recruitment, I do annual
reviews, I do our ... charity programmes ... So what I'm doing now really bears
no resemblance to what I started doing." (LA)
Protagonists of the skills agenda might use terms such as 'flexibility',
'proactivity', 'self-reliance' (AGR, 1995) etc, with regard to these situations.
However, these terms serve merely to describe what the graduates do, in
a form of condensed terminology, rather than contribute to an analysis of the
processes by which these circumstances come about. They do not help us to understand
why the graduates act in the ways described, that is, how such ways of acting
relate to the graduates' understanding of what is involved in being a graduate.
A follow-up document continued this theme:
Since these two reports, it would appear, the 'skills agenda' has
become something of an orthodoxy, despite the problems which have been highlighted.
A significant factor in the rise to orthodoxy of the skills agenda is, no doubt,
the scale of funding for 'skills' projects (particularly under Enterprise in Higher
Education), coupled with the lack of funding for alternative approaches.
Often, the descriptions of their jobs which the graduates gave were
rather vague, and in many cases the job currently being undertaken differed
significantly from that which they undertook on appointment: