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International experience and graduate employability: Perceptions of Chinese international students in the UK
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 13 (2013) 87–96
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Academic Papers
International experience and graduate employability: Perceptions of Chinese international students in the UK Rong Huang n School of Tourism and Hospitality, Plymouth University, Plymouth, United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o
Keywords: Employability International students Chinese students Career intention Tourism
abstract A review of relevant literature regarding international students and also employability shows that there is a little research on international student mobility, careers intention and their approaches to manage employability. This research interviews Chinese students who are currently studying tourism related programmes in a post-1992 university in the UK. It attempts to understand their initial motivation for studying abroad, and the importance of future career developments in that decision. It also discusses the Chinese students' planning of future career and their approaches to enhance their future employability capabilities at one higher education institution in the United Kingdom. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In her review of literature, Pelletier (2003) argues that studies of international students are based on a particular student cohort and most often look at the experiences of international students from the researcher's own country of origin. Equally, Huang (2008a) argues that previous research in relation to international students either focuses on their country/region of origin, or specific aspects, for example, the academic or social experience. The stress is now more on the contribution international students make to the prestige and income of individual universities and the UK's GNP. Leonard and Morley (2003) note that it is surprising that there is little research on international students' progress and achievements, and the students' subsequent careers, despite some recognition that a major consequence of overseas study can be a ‘brain drain’ from their home countries. This ‘brain drain’ is because graduates from low income countries, who are often expensively trained in the west, regularly prefer to remain in the West to pursue their careers. The employability of university graduates has dominated much educational and economic policy over the past decade, and also attracts increasing interests among researchers in the ‘education-to-work’ transition of new graduates, and the extent to which they are readily ‘employable’ (e.g., Lindberg (2007), Mason, Williams, and Cranmer (2009), Shafie and Nayan (2010)). However a review of literature on employability makes it apparent that there has been very little recent empirical work exploring the way in which students and graduates are beginning to understand and manage their employability in the context of recent higher education and labour market changes (Tomlinson, 2007; Tymon, 2011). Furthermore, existing literature on employability has a strong ‘national’ focus in the UK or USA, and little reference is made to the increasingly international dimensions of Higher Education and graduate employability (Waters, 2009; King, Findlay, & Ahrens, 2010). If today's students are to become tomorrow's effective tourism practitioners, then it is fundamentally important to understand their perceptions of tourism employment. Without knowledge of the career intentions and attitudes
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of international students, then efforts at improving this aspect of the experience for this group of students may be unnecessarily disjointed. Thus the making sure that international students have a satisfactory experience abroad may be compromised. Therefore this research attempts to understand their initial motivation for studying abroad, and the importance of future career developments in that decision. It also discusses the future career planning of Chinese students at one higher education institution in the UK, and their approaches to managing employability. 2. Employability Gracia (2009) argues that the global knowledge economy positions employability as a central driver of political and business thinking, underpinning national competitive advantage, catalysing demand for flexible, creative, life-long learners. However McQuaid and Lindsay (2005) point out that the historical antecedents of the current employability debate can be traced back at least a century. Gazier's (1998a, 1998b, 2001) work on employability provides a useful overview of the concept's development towards currently accepted definitions. Much debate has been stimulated surrounding notions of employability (Harvey, 2001; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005), and in particular the role of higher education in developing employability (Gibbs, 2000). However, employability remains a poorly defined concept that is often narrowly considered to mean the development of an individual's skills, such that “the rhetoric that shrouds the idea of employability has been subjected to little conceptual examination” (Brown, 2003; pp. 107). Holmes (2013) examines three competing perspectives on employability, termed here as the ‘possessive’, ‘positioning’ and ‘processual’ approaches. The first of these, ‘possessive’, is based on notions of skills and attributes, and dominates policy and practice discourse. Harvey (2001) recognises that graduates' employability is high on the Government agenda, with expectations that higher education should contribute to national economic growth. Researchers (e.g., Hillage and Pollard (1998), Yorke (2004), Moreau and Leathwood (2006)) argue that employability is constructed as primarily a matter of an individual’s skills. As a consequence, many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have attempted to embed skills in their curriculum (Atlay and Harris, 2000; Chapple and Tolley, 2000; Harvey, Locke, & Morey, 2002). Mason et al. (2009) summarise that the HEI's response to developing employability amongst their students has centred principally on the provision of opportunities to develop employability skills by embedding them within the curriculum, or bolting them on to the curriculum (Coopers and Lybrand, 1998). In the same vein, from the perspective of employers, ‘employability’ often seems to refer to ‘work readiness’; i.e., the possession of the skills, knowledge, attitudes and commercial understanding that, soon after commencing employment, will enable new graduates to make productive contributions to organisational objectives (Mason et al., 2009). Within higher education, the skills agenda has been criticised as reflecting a narrow view of educational aims and a threat to academic freedom (Morley, 2001), and the definition and identification of the skills agenda has been problematised (Holmes, 2001). It has often resulted in purely supply-side ‘employability’ policies (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). Furthermore the success of such mechanisms is typically evaluated by sector benchmarks, for example the first employment destination of graduates that treat employability as a unique trait of the individual. Such simplistic measures ignore the influence of sociocultural factors such as gender, ethnicity and social class on employability and its development (Morley 2001; Garsten and Jacobsson, 2003; Gracia, 2009). Viewing employability in isolation from its context makes issues of inequality invisible (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006), shifting the burden of employment success away from institutions and onto the individual. Hence such approach of employability is deeply flawed in theoretical terms. It is increasingly accepted that discussions of employability cannot be limited to the orthodoxies of solely supply-side and demand-side economic theory, and a growing number of researchers (e.g., Kleinman, West, and Sparkes (1998), Hillage and Pollard (1998), Evans, Nathan, and Simmons (1999), McQuaid and Lindsay (2005), Tomlinson (2007)) have emphasised the need to understand the interaction of individual and external factors affecting the individual's ability to operate effectively within the labour market. The second approach as suggested by Holmes (2013), the positional approach, seems to support the concept that graduate skills relate strongly to issues of social positioning. The graduate recruitment processes and practices could be analysed through positional conflict theory (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). However Holmes (2013; pp. 549) argues that this approach of employability, based on social positioning theory, is shown to be more in accord with the evidence of employment outcomes, but tends, arguably, to lead to a “counsel of despair”. The work of Holmes (2001) has been important in highlighting this issue and argues that employability should be conceptualised as a form of identity; it is relational, emergent and influenced largely by the graduates' actual experiences of the labour market. Tomlinson (2007) argues that the discourse into employability continually overlooks the subjective dimension of employability; in particular, how it relates to not only the way individuals come to perceive and understand the labour market they are entering, but also the types of dispositions, attitudes and identities they develop around their future work and employability. Hence the third approach as suggested by Holmes (2013), the processual perspective of employability, particularly focusing on the concept of graduate identity, is theoretically robust, is supported by empirical evidence, and provides a sound basis for curriculum and other forms of intervention to enhance graduate employability. Tomlinson (2007) argues that the problem of employability and its management now appears to be informing students' understanding and approaches towards the labour market. He points out that this not only involves the students developing their individual graduate profiles and credentials, but also particular attitudes and appropriate labour market strategies (Tomlinson, 2007). In relation to this notion of personal responsibility, Brown and Hesketh (2004) identify two ideal-types of job seekers ‘players’ and ‘purists’. Players understand employability as a ‘positional game’. In contrast, purists view
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employability as a meritocratic struggle and success (or lack of it) as a consequence of innate ability. Influenced by Merton's theory of social adaptation (Merton, 1968), Tomlinson (2007) outlines the types of goals that students are developing around the labour market, and also the differences in the ends and means by which they approached their future work and employability. Careerists develop a strong orientation around future work and careers, and are more active in their attempt to realise their labour market goals and manage their employability. Ritualists are more passive in their approach and tend to lower their ambitions for their future employment (Tomlinson, 2007). Retreatists, whose approach involved abandoning labour market goals, form a minority of the sample. Rebels, a category from Tomlinson's model, are a hypothetical construct that shows where this type of student would lie in relation to the other types of orientations, and in this approach they actively abandon labour market goals. 3. Tourism careers as perceived by students Tourism is a rapidly growing industry and a major source of employment. A principal argument made for encouraging the development of tourism is that it produces a considerable number of jobs, both directly in the sectors in which tourist expenditure occurs and more widely via inter-industry linkages (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert, & Wanhill, 2005). Hjalager (2003) goes even further to argue that the tourism sector provides many opportunities for well-qualified people aiming at international careers; this is due to both the nature of the business and the strong international affiliation of tourism enterprises (Baum, 1995). A review of relevant literature in tourism and hospitality makes it clear that there is substantial research related to employability. Many studies (Verhaar and Smulders, 1999; Byrne, 2001; Zinser, 2003; Raybould and Sheedy, 2005; Cassidy, 2006) have been conducted in terms of the employability of graduates and the job requirements in tourism-related fields; and a number of qualifications—communication skills, empathy, motivation, decision-making abilities, planning abilities and improvisation abilities—have been identified (Zehrer and Mössenlechner, 2009). Maher and Graves (2007) explore how British universities have responded to the increasing external pressures to produce ‘employable’ graduates, and present some actual examples of pedagogical case studies designed to more effectively embed employability into courses in hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism in the UK. Becket and Kemp (2006) share among British universities good practice about enhancing graduate employability in Business and Management, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. Some authors (Zehrer and Mössenlechner, 2009; Dhiman, 2012) argue that different employers seem to approach the issue of employability from different perspective. Many tourism employers have indicated that students are often not prepared for the workplace, and call on universities to produce more employable graduates by way of providing transferable skills that can be taken into the workplace (Kember and Leung, 2005; Barrie, 2006; Mohinder, 2008). 4. International experience and employability Kneale (2008) illustrates that studying in a different country, or working internationally, should be an extremely exciting and rewarding experience. Archer and Davison (2008) argue that the value of international experience is not limited to purely learning the language; the value also lies in the ability to see business and personal issues from outside of an individual's own cultural background. The cultural sensitivity and experiences of international graduates makes them better able to build relationships and conduct business interculturally (Campbell, 2010). Such experiences are thought to have an important role in personal growth and change (Li, 2012). Many students believed that their international experiences helped to confirm their chosen career paths (MacDonald and Arthur, 2004). Yet, despite acceptance of the need for, and value of, an international perspective, it is surprising to note that little appears to have been written about the connection between international experience amongst students and graduate employability (Crossman and Clarke, 2010). There has been little qualitative work on the experiences of young graduates as they confront their own employability and positional advantage in the labour market (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Brooks, 2006; Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Brooks and Everett, 2008). As Johnston (2003; pp. 419) argues, one of the limitations of research on graduate employment is its tendency to focus on groups with the potential to influence the government, while “the voices of other partners in the graduate recruitment process, the graduates, are deafening in their silence”. Even less is known about the employability of overseas-educated graduates outside the West (Waters, 2009). This is surprising, given the significant number of Chinese and Indian students that have gone abroad for higher education, before returning home to seek employment. Since the continued prosperity of tourism depends, to a large extent, on the employment of well educated, motivated and committed people who are satisfied with their jobs, it is important to provide qualified tourism students with a positive attitude towards working in the tourism industry (Roney and Oztin, 2007). While many international students who are studying in the UK are now taking tourism subjects in order to secure potential ‘good jobs’ in the tourism industry in their home countries or the UK (Huang, 2008b), little research has been undertaken to research this group. Pelletier (2003) points out that expensively trained graduates from low income countries often prefer to remain in the West and pursue their careers there. There is a lack of an integrated policy on international students in the UK, and the discussions that do take place are also surprisingly separate from similar discussions and policy making around the UK's own economic, social and institutional needs. Based on the above review, research into international students' perspective in graduate employability,
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Chinese international students in particular, is in urgent need to fill in gaps in research in graduate employability and also in tourism education. 5. Methodology This research adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the career intentions and approaches that Chinese international students have towards enhancing their future employability. After a detailed literature review, a three-part semi-structured interview guide was developed for in-depth interviews. The first part was interested in the students' initial decision to study abroad, their main motivation and the importance of employment in such decision. The second part was related to their understanding of future career. The third part was mainly related to their approaches to managing employability. This research does not aim to present a statistical representative of all the career intentions of international students. Rather, emphasis is placed on the richness of information being accessed, and also the meaningful comparisons between the students. In this sense, the research worked on the principle of theoretical sampling. In the year 2011–2012, there were 47 Chinese students studying at [name of the institution]. Using this sampling strategy, new cases were consciously added to extend the data comparison. After the first interview was recorded and analysed, the research participants were invited to participate in a further interview. By doing so, the information gaps between the first and successive interviews were filled. The research does not stop sampling until no new information emerged from the latest interview. In the end, nine students were interviewed for this research. The interviews were carried out in November 2011, in the interviewees' natural environment: i.e., in their universities, their home or social activity places. This was informed by the naturalistic assumption that realities cannot be understood in isolation from their contexts. The interviews are numbered IS 1–9; and throughout the discussion of the results, these numbers are given in the brackets that follow each excerpt. The data analysis overlapped with data collection so as to build a coherent interpretation of the data. Using a manual process, the researcher made interview transcriptions immediately after each interview, and simultaneously conducted an analysis. Framework analysis is adopted as it is better adapted to research that has specific questions, a limited time frame, a pre-designed sample and a priori issues (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994; Srivastava and Thomson, 2009). Themes were identified after a lengthy process of engagement and reflection. From this process, it was clear that there were three main motivations for the students to study abroad; these were (1) good quality education; (2) better job opportunities after international education; and (3) better understanding of western culture. Each motivation category created a specific focus for interpretation. As for the students planning for a future career, two themes were identified: (1) flexibility in career planning; (2) influence of social structure on their career progress. Tomlinson's (2007) typology of student career intention and their way to deal with employability is used to analyse the interviewees' approach to manage their employability. 6. Findings and discussion 6.1. Reasons for studying abroad ‘Good quality education’ was the most common motivation for Chinese students (five out of nine students) choosing to study in the UK. The following quotes from the interviewees clearly illustrate their motivation. Although my previous university has a good reputation in foreign language training, their business subjects are rather weak. Some of the part-time lecturers we had were good at practice but have no idea of academic theories. Studying in [name of the institute] provides my theoretical understanding to behaviours demonstrated by tourism industry (IS 3) Although we have English textbooks for International Finance, our lectures were delivered in Chinese and then we needed to finish our assessments in English. When I heard talks from a professor from a British university, I straightway called my parents for financial support to come to [name of the institute]. Good quality education is definitely my reason for study abroad. (IS 2) The above findings confirm Bodycott (2009) research which argues that, when considering study abroad, good quality education is perceived as an important factor for both parents and students. Some of the interviewees clearly recognise the benefits of international experience to their career. Two interviewees admitted: Nowadays, it is really not easy to find a good job. Going abroad to learn English properly and getting more of an understanding of western cultures, will possibly help me in future job applications in China. (IS 3) International experience is regarded as an informal pre-requisite for promotion (IS 9). This finding is consistent with other recent findings in that in countries that use English as a second language, then proficiency in the English language is found to have a favourable impact upon one’s employment outcomes (Dabalen, Bankole, & Olatunde, 2001; Lan, 2003).
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An interviewee summarised The main benefits of international experience included the potential for networking, the opportunity for experiential learning, additional language acquisition, and finally the development of soft skills. These skills are important for me when I look for jobs. In order to obtain these potential benefits I came to the UK. (IS 1) This argument seems to confirm that international experience reportedly impacts upon cognition, learning, cultural sensitivity, personal and professional development and employability (Koskinen and Tossavainen, 2003; Clarke, 2005; Cowen, 2007; Bird, 2008; Osland, 2008). The above quotations appear to be consistent with recent findings linking ‘international mobility and career advancement’ (Marcotte, Desroches, & Poupart, 2007; pp. 654). Some participants in this research are very interested in western cultures; the participants mostly come from very comfortable middle-class families, and the parents are very supportive of their children's idea. Two quotes below serve to illustrate: I started Business English degree back in China. To be honest after the first year of my university, I was bored! Soon I realised that studying abroad might be a better option to satisfy my strong need of better understanding of western culture (IS 7). I have many relatives who live and work abroad. When we gathered for New Year celebration, I heard a lot of their experience. I really want to check out cultural difference between China and western countries. With my parents' full support I am very interested in exploring western culture in Britain for a few years. The qualification is of secondary importance (IS 8). The above findings coincide with Huang's (2005) emphasis that international students go abroad not just to study, but also for cultural experiences. This motivation appears to support the claim by Mazzarol and Soutar (2002; pp. 85) that the most important factor influencing Mainland Chinese international students decisions to come to a foreign country is “to gain a better understanding of ‘western culture’ through an international educational way instead of only for foreign qualifications”. To summarise, some students clearly recognised that better employment opportunities was a key driver for their decision to study abroad. But for others, better education and better understanding of British culture seems to be more important. Regardless of their main reasons for studying abroad, it is interesting to note that all of interviewees seem to agree that their international experience will give them advantages in job-hunting and subsequent career development. 6.2. Understanding of future career When the students were asked about their career intentions, the findings of the present study show somewhat different intentions were expressed by the students. It was evident that whilst some students still have idealised views, such as one job for life, or only needing to work Monday to Friday, and then relaxing at weekends; the majority of the students anticipated a much more difficult process of career progression. For the most part, the students (five out of nine students) appeared to interpret the labour market back home in China as being increasingly flexible but with higher risk. For instance, a student who directly joined the second year study in 2011/2012 argues that; I think my generation has grown up on the fact that, unlike for our parents, there is no more such a thing as the job for life. That is reality although it is not ideal. Instead of having one career, we will have a range of different careers. (IS 7) This argument is consistent with Tomlinson's (2007; pp. 4) statement about the ‘end of the job for life’. As a result, the interviewees appeared to be concerned with the need to adopt a more flexible and adaptive approach to careers, involving the active management of their own employability. To some extent, it would appear that those five students see flexibility as a crucial model of career management; this is illustrated by the following quotes from different students: I am very aware that there isn’t a job for life any more. This means you have to be more flexible, like if jobs are not available in my industry I might have to work in other industry which will also involve re-training to some extent. The experience of different forms of employment would facilitate development and renewal of knowledge and skills, in turn enriching our work profile. (IS5) The tendency of some participants to emphasise active over passive experience was also consistent with the argument, by Crossman and Clarke (2010), that the experiential nature of international experience prepares graduates for employment. Furthermore, there was a tendency for the participants to look at factors relating to personal disposition, attitudes and individual characteristics as determining their labour market trajectories. These participants (four of the nine students) largely saw themselves as active agents, but they also recognise clearly social and economic structures which might shape their opportunities and outcomes; as illustrated by the following quotes: The attitude of the graduate plays a big role, and a lot of university students need to shake off their attitudes and make that adjustment quickly. For our future, a lot of it is about going out there and selling oneself. (IS 1)
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As a female going into corporate world, you will have the ‘glass ceiling’ dilemma. Furthermore, giving birth and looking after kids will occupy a lot of my time even though my parents will help. I see my career as having before kids and after kids stages. (IS 8) Very few females have occupied top positions in Chinese companies. Even when I am well qualified, I have doubts that I can progress to a high position. (IS 7) The above finding seems to contradict Tomlinson (2007) argument that even female students overlook structural factors, in particular gender, which might influence employment outcomes. However the above finding does support Gracia's (2009) argument that the absence of senior female role models undermines the legitimacy of women's presence, and hence is manifested through the existence of pre-existing gendered patterns of expectation that normalise aspects of gendered behaviours that underpin role allocation. Therefore this research provides supporting evidence to the argument that viewing employability in isolation from its context makes issues of inequality invisible (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006). 6.3. The participants' approaches to managing their employability When the students were asked about their approaches to managing their employability, six out of the nine students discussed the different types of skills and attitudes that they needed to obtain; the following quote clearly illustrates this: In order to manage my employability, I need to identify what I should have first: not just a set of skills but also the right mentality, not just for my first job but also for the many jobs after the first one. Studying abroad gives me plenty of opportunities to improve myself (IS 5). This argument is consistent with Willott and Stevenson (2006) emphasis that training for employability needs to equip learners with the appropriate skills and attitudes to gain initial employment (such as relevant work-related and job-search skills), the confidence and motivation to look for work, and the appropriate personal skills and social competencies required to sustain employment (including adaptability, flexibility and team and group-work skills). Certainly I should master a range of appropriate skills, but the right attitude to changeable employment is more important. (IS 9) This finding resonates with the Equal Opportunities Commission (2005) discussion of the need to embed, into employability training initiatives, the personal and social skill development activities, and also flexible, person-centred, tailor-made training courses which meet the needs of all learners. However, it is also apparent there was less alignment with the longer-term, wider definitions of employability that McQuaid and Lindsay (2005) provide. This finding could suggest that the research participants are more concerned with the instrumental or economic view of employability discussed by Cornford (2005) and Wilton (2008), or their views are due to strong influences from their education. Seven out of nine participants agreed about the importance of packaging their employability into a narrative which encompassed their hard credentials and also ‘soft’ currencies in terms of their experiences and achievements outside formal university learning, as illustrated in the following quote: Getting a qualification is important, but skills gained outside of the classroom are also important. Studying abroad provides me with plenty of opportunities to gain cultural understanding and also self-management skills (IS8). It would appear that international experience enhances learning, the acquisition of competencies, the development of critical soft skills and, potentially, overall employability (Crossman and Clarke, 2010). The experience of different forms of employment would facilitate the development and renewal of knowledge and skills, in turn enriching our work profile (IS 1). Doing different part-time jobs, and participating in different social clubs, gives me opportunities to apply in reality what I learned in the classroom. My writing of CV's or covering letters is possibly better because of my applications for various jobs (IS 8). This finding also resonates with literature suggesting that despite the best efforts of academics, classroom learning is not the most effective way to enhance the employability of graduates (Cranmer, 2006). Although different policies related to graduate employability tend to address wider society, the problem of employability and career progression are largely viewed as being a problem for individual graduates. Self-funding (often, crucially, with the continuing support of family members even when some measure of ‘saving up’ is apparent) was common amongst the Chinese participants. This reflects the perception that employability is a ‘personal’ responsibility' (Brooks, 2006). The following extracts illustrate this responsibility: When I started at higher school, my parents started to save money for me to study abroad. They both have their own companies and this means when I called them after a presentation in my Chinese university, they straightway agreed to support me. (IS 6) Getting their sons or daughters educated abroad to gain potential advantage in securing a good job, either abroad or in China, is a wish of middle class Chinese families. That's one of reasons that China has one of the largest savings accounts
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in the world. Chinese parents take it for granted that it is their responsibility to make sure that their kids are educated and subsequently get good jobs. (IS 2) Their child's education is perceived as the most important thing for a Chinese family. Talking with my mother I realised that, a long time ago, my parents were preparing to send me abroad to study once I finished my higher school. I chose to stay in Chongqing because I like to stay at home with them. They convinced me to come to the UK. (IS 9) These findings clearly suggest the need to understand emerging international geographies of graduate employability, as well as existing discussions which have tended only to consider limited national contexts (Waters, 2009). China has recently seen a significant increase in the number of Higher Education and further-education institutions. This has had the effect of both diluting the value of a local degree and increasing the risks for those who fail to get into the so-called ‘best’ universities. Their degree credentials on their own are seen as ‘not being enough’; it was no longer seen as representing a ‘badge of distinction’ for graduates in the pursuit for graduate job. ‘Employability’ is assumed to necessitate higher levels of education. However, rather paradoxically, as access to Higher Education has increased globally, so credential inflation has taken place. Collins (1979) writes that with the democratisation of education then the ‘end point’ of schooling has moved consistently upwards, from high school to undergraduate degrees, to postgraduate and increasingly specialised qualifications, has resulted in the relative devaluation of undergraduate degrees. This has happened just as the demand for highly skilled jobs has been unable to keep up with the supply of skilled graduates (Thompson, Warhurst, & Callaghan, 2001; Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Waters, 2009). This situation has forced individuals who are concerned with their employability, to undertake specialised postgraduate study, with the aim of increasing the (scarcity) value of their credentials and securing ‘positional advantage’ (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). As demonstrated below, in the pursuit of a first degree, all the Chinese students displayed an awareness of the ‘positional advantage’ conferred by different credentials, thus reflecting the hierarchical nature of HE (Brooks, 2006). Their intentions towards postgraduate study were closely linked to a personal sense of job insecurity that arises from broader concerns about the future economic competitiveness of China. After my undergraduate study, I’ll definitely apply for a postgraduate study here. Bachelor qualification is no use any more, too many Chinese people have it. Getting a Master degree abroad is a necessity for a reasonable job in Chongqing. (IS 4) I intend to get a PhD here as I want to teach in Chinese universities. A PhD becomes a common requirement for this kind of teaching position. (IS 5) The issues raised in this paper reflect claims that discourses of ‘employability’ are linked to an oversupply of graduates (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). This also provides evidence to what Brown (2003) and Taylor argue that the returns that graduates can expect from higher education are less certain than in the past. Based on Tomlinson's (2007) typology, the nine respondents are categorised into the following three groups: (1) five out of nine respondents were beginning to define themselves largely around their career aspirations. Their future work and careers could be viewed in terms of what Giddens refers to as a ‘life project’ or a projection of the self (Giddens, 1991). They develop a ‘player’ approach (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) to their employability management, and were more likely to shape themselves and their credentials around what they perceive companies would require and value. This involved an attempt to ‘package’ their profiles in accordance with their understanding of employers' demands. These students tend to take a more active approach to managing their future employability, and are further guided by a clear sense of fluid labour market opportunities (Tomlinson, 2007). (2) Two respondents perceived work to be largely a ‘means to an end’ and tangential to their lives as a whole. Work is something ‘you have to do’; it is a means of achieving a future income, gaining a return from education and facilitating an adult role and identity. (3) Two respondents had developed a dislocated sense of where they stood in relation to their future labour market trajectories. The process of developing a career was viewed as a daunting one. Their response instead was to abandon this task and pursue other goals which clearly fell outside the sphere of careers and employability. These students looked to extend their youth and continue to enjoy the relatively loosely regulated lifestyles they had so far experienced. Entering the job market was viewed as a forced pressure which they were unprepared to negotiate at this stage in their lives. 7. Conclusions In the context of recent discussion around the disappearance of the ‘organisational’ lifelong career together with the emergence of a knowledge-based economy, this research offered a much-needed international dimension to recent debates on the expansion of higher education and credential inflation, and ‘employability’; as previously these debates have overwhelmingly focused on the employability of graduates in the UK and the US. Empirically, this research has explored the motivations of young Chinese international students seeking undergraduate qualifications in the UK. The findings of this research suggest that the main reasons for studying abroad are to get a good quality education, to gain international experience in order to secure a better job opportunity and also better understand western culture. The analysis of career intention of those participants suggests the students realise there is rarely a single career, but instead a range of careers, and flexibility, are very important. Due to credential inflation, an overseas education for bachelor is no longer a badge of distinction, and postgraduate study is becoming a necessity. Furthermore the participants clearly
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understood that external influences, such as social and economic structural factors, will also influence their employment outcomes. Students viewed their employability as a crucial issue to be negotiated and worked at. Whilst recognising that there is no universally accepted definition of employability, most of the participants had narrow views, which to some extent is a reflection of what they learned from their universities. Through their parents' behaviour, this group of Chinese students clearly understood that employability was their personal responsibility. The students made clear associations between perceived outcomes of international experience and graduate employability. International experience appears to support the development of cultural sensitivity and adaptability as well as enhancing the attractiveness of the graduate, and these are key factors in determining individual employability in a globalised labour market. The analysis of student attitudes and orientations highlights the differences amongst the students in their approaches to manage their employability. 8. Limitations and future research This research only used Chinese students from one school in one British University; therefore the results may not be representative. A research by Rothwell, Herbert, and Rothwell (2008) indicates there was little difference in student perceptions among three different types of British universities. This, along with the reasonable sample size for second and final year international students in tourism programmes, should enable this data to make a useful contribution. However, further studies especially with first-year students, are recommended to validate the results. Various authors have suggested that business students should be more interested in, and have a greater awareness of, employability as they have opted to study a vocationally oriented subject (Berman and Ritchie, 2006; Jackson, 2009; Parrott, 2010). Therefore, the students participating in this research could have a more informed perspective of employability, and this may limit the potential for generalisation of the results. What remains for other researchers to pursue is a comparison of the nature and extent of overall graduate employability skills gained by students who have international experience when compared with those students without international experiences. This would help clarify whether the skills gained through international experience are merely enhancements of those developed by all graduates or whether they in fact represent a unique skill set that can only be acquired through intense engagement with another culture. As this research relates to Chinese international students in the UK, it would be useful to compare whether the findings from this research are similar to, or different from, research related Chinese international students in other countries. Moreover, it would useful to confirm whether other nationalities of international students share the views held by students from China. The broader concept of international experience has the potential to include work experience and experiential learning, both of which are attractive to employers; therefore, given the findings reported here, it would be useful to tease out the extent to which international experience is connected with graduate employability primarily because of these factors. References Archer, W., & Davison, J. (2008). Graduate employability: What do employers think and want? Council for Industry and Higher Education /http://ec.europa. eu/education/higher-education/doc/business/graduate_en.pdfS, (accessed 29.08.2013). 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Oxford: Elsevier (Advances in Tourism Research Series): Oxford: Elsevier (Advances in Tourism Research Series), 2008. Huang, R. (2008b). Mapping educational tourists' experience in the UK. Third World Quarterly, 29(5), 1003–1020. Jackson, D. (2009). Profiling industry-relevant management graduate competencies: The need for a fresh approach. International Journal of Management Education, 8(1), 85–98. Johnston, B. (2003). The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues. Studies in Higher Education, 28(4), 413–426. Kember, D., & Leung, D. Y. P. (2005). The influence of the teaching and learning environment on the development of generic capabilities needed for a knowledge-based society. Learning Environments Research, 8, 245–266. King, R., Findlay, A., & Ahrens, J. (2010). International student mobility literature review. Available from: 〈http://www.britishcouncil.org/hefce_bc_report2010. pdf〉; accessed 12.12.11. 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Rothwell, A., Herbert, I., & Rothwell, F. (2008). Self-perceived employability: Construction and initial validation of a scale for university students. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 73, 1–12. Srivastava, A., & Thomson, S. B. (2009). Framework analysis: A qualitative methodology for applied policy research. Journal of Administration & Governance, 4(2), 72–79. Shafie, L. A., & Nayan, S. (2010). Employability awareness among Malaysian undergraduates. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(8), 119–123. Thompson, P., Warhurst, C., & Callaghan, G. (2001). Ignorant theory and knowledgeable workers: Interrogating the connections between knowledge, skills and services. Journal of Management Studies, 38, 923–942. Tomlinson, M. (2007). Graduate employability and student attitudes and orientations to the labour market. Journal of Education and Work, 20(4), 285–304. Tymon, A. (2011). The student perspective on employability. Studies in Higher Education, 1–16 (iFirst Article). Verhaar, C. H. A., & Smulders, H. R. M. (1999). Employability in practice. Journal of European Industrial Training, 23(6), 268–274. Waters, J. (2009). In pursuit of scarcity: Transnational students, ‘employability’, and the MBA. Environment and Planning, 41, 1865–1883. Wilton, N. (2008). Business graduates and management jobs: An employability match made in heaven?. Journal of Education and Work, 21(2), 143–158. Willott, J., & Stevenson, J. (2006). An analysis of gendered attitudes and responses to employability training. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 58 (4), 441–453. Yorke, M. (2004). Employability in higher education: What it is–what it is not. Learning and employability guides. York: LTSN-ESECT. Zehrer, A., & Mössenlechner, C. (2009). Key competencies of tourism graduates: The employers' point of view. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 9(3– 4), 266–287. Zinser, R. (2003). Developing career and employability skills: A US case study. Education þ Training, 45(7), 402–410.
Rong Huang is a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy. Her pedagogic research experience centres on tourism education, international student experience, internationalisation, and new academics.
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Academic Papers
International experience and graduate employability: Perceptions of Chinese international students in the UK Rong Huang n School of Tourism and Hospitality, Plymouth University, Plymouth, United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o
Keywords: Employability International students Chinese students Career intention Tourism
abstract A review of relevant literature regarding international students and also employability shows that there is a little research on international student mobility, careers intention and their approaches to manage employability. This research interviews Chinese students who are currently studying tourism related programmes in a post-1992 university in the UK. It attempts to understand their initial motivation for studying abroad, and the importance of future career developments in that decision. It also discusses the Chinese students' planning of future career and their approaches to enhance their future employability capabilities at one higher education institution in the United Kingdom. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In her review of literature, Pelletier (2003) argues that studies of international students are based on a particular student cohort and most often look at the experiences of international students from the researcher's own country of origin. Equally, Huang (2008a) argues that previous research in relation to international students either focuses on their country/region of origin, or specific aspects, for example, the academic or social experience. The stress is now more on the contribution international students make to the prestige and income of individual universities and the UK's GNP. Leonard and Morley (2003) note that it is surprising that there is little research on international students' progress and achievements, and the students' subsequent careers, despite some recognition that a major consequence of overseas study can be a ‘brain drain’ from their home countries. This ‘brain drain’ is because graduates from low income countries, who are often expensively trained in the west, regularly prefer to remain in the West to pursue their careers. The employability of university graduates has dominated much educational and economic policy over the past decade, and also attracts increasing interests among researchers in the ‘education-to-work’ transition of new graduates, and the extent to which they are readily ‘employable’ (e.g., Lindberg (2007), Mason, Williams, and Cranmer (2009), Shafie and Nayan (2010)). However a review of literature on employability makes it apparent that there has been very little recent empirical work exploring the way in which students and graduates are beginning to understand and manage their employability in the context of recent higher education and labour market changes (Tomlinson, 2007; Tymon, 2011). Furthermore, existing literature on employability has a strong ‘national’ focus in the UK or USA, and little reference is made to the increasingly international dimensions of Higher Education and graduate employability (Waters, 2009; King, Findlay, & Ahrens, 2010). If today's students are to become tomorrow's effective tourism practitioners, then it is fundamentally important to understand their perceptions of tourism employment. Without knowledge of the career intentions and attitudes
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of international students, then efforts at improving this aspect of the experience for this group of students may be unnecessarily disjointed. Thus the making sure that international students have a satisfactory experience abroad may be compromised. Therefore this research attempts to understand their initial motivation for studying abroad, and the importance of future career developments in that decision. It also discusses the future career planning of Chinese students at one higher education institution in the UK, and their approaches to managing employability. 2. Employability Gracia (2009) argues that the global knowledge economy positions employability as a central driver of political and business thinking, underpinning national competitive advantage, catalysing demand for flexible, creative, life-long learners. However McQuaid and Lindsay (2005) point out that the historical antecedents of the current employability debate can be traced back at least a century. Gazier's (1998a, 1998b, 2001) work on employability provides a useful overview of the concept's development towards currently accepted definitions. Much debate has been stimulated surrounding notions of employability (Harvey, 2001; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005), and in particular the role of higher education in developing employability (Gibbs, 2000). However, employability remains a poorly defined concept that is often narrowly considered to mean the development of an individual's skills, such that “the rhetoric that shrouds the idea of employability has been subjected to little conceptual examination” (Brown, 2003; pp. 107). Holmes (2013) examines three competing perspectives on employability, termed here as the ‘possessive’, ‘positioning’ and ‘processual’ approaches. The first of these, ‘possessive’, is based on notions of skills and attributes, and dominates policy and practice discourse. Harvey (2001) recognises that graduates' employability is high on the Government agenda, with expectations that higher education should contribute to national economic growth. Researchers (e.g., Hillage and Pollard (1998), Yorke (2004), Moreau and Leathwood (2006)) argue that employability is constructed as primarily a matter of an individual’s skills. As a consequence, many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have attempted to embed skills in their curriculum (Atlay and Harris, 2000; Chapple and Tolley, 2000; Harvey, Locke, & Morey, 2002). Mason et al. (2009) summarise that the HEI's response to developing employability amongst their students has centred principally on the provision of opportunities to develop employability skills by embedding them within the curriculum, or bolting them on to the curriculum (Coopers and Lybrand, 1998). In the same vein, from the perspective of employers, ‘employability’ often seems to refer to ‘work readiness’; i.e., the possession of the skills, knowledge, attitudes and commercial understanding that, soon after commencing employment, will enable new graduates to make productive contributions to organisational objectives (Mason et al., 2009). Within higher education, the skills agenda has been criticised as reflecting a narrow view of educational aims and a threat to academic freedom (Morley, 2001), and the definition and identification of the skills agenda has been problematised (Holmes, 2001). It has often resulted in purely supply-side ‘employability’ policies (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). Furthermore the success of such mechanisms is typically evaluated by sector benchmarks, for example the first employment destination of graduates that treat employability as a unique trait of the individual. Such simplistic measures ignore the influence of sociocultural factors such as gender, ethnicity and social class on employability and its development (Morley 2001; Garsten and Jacobsson, 2003; Gracia, 2009). Viewing employability in isolation from its context makes issues of inequality invisible (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006), shifting the burden of employment success away from institutions and onto the individual. Hence such approach of employability is deeply flawed in theoretical terms. It is increasingly accepted that discussions of employability cannot be limited to the orthodoxies of solely supply-side and demand-side economic theory, and a growing number of researchers (e.g., Kleinman, West, and Sparkes (1998), Hillage and Pollard (1998), Evans, Nathan, and Simmons (1999), McQuaid and Lindsay (2005), Tomlinson (2007)) have emphasised the need to understand the interaction of individual and external factors affecting the individual's ability to operate effectively within the labour market. The second approach as suggested by Holmes (2013), the positional approach, seems to support the concept that graduate skills relate strongly to issues of social positioning. The graduate recruitment processes and practices could be analysed through positional conflict theory (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). However Holmes (2013; pp. 549) argues that this approach of employability, based on social positioning theory, is shown to be more in accord with the evidence of employment outcomes, but tends, arguably, to lead to a “counsel of despair”. The work of Holmes (2001) has been important in highlighting this issue and argues that employability should be conceptualised as a form of identity; it is relational, emergent and influenced largely by the graduates' actual experiences of the labour market. Tomlinson (2007) argues that the discourse into employability continually overlooks the subjective dimension of employability; in particular, how it relates to not only the way individuals come to perceive and understand the labour market they are entering, but also the types of dispositions, attitudes and identities they develop around their future work and employability. Hence the third approach as suggested by Holmes (2013), the processual perspective of employability, particularly focusing on the concept of graduate identity, is theoretically robust, is supported by empirical evidence, and provides a sound basis for curriculum and other forms of intervention to enhance graduate employability. Tomlinson (2007) argues that the problem of employability and its management now appears to be informing students' understanding and approaches towards the labour market. He points out that this not only involves the students developing their individual graduate profiles and credentials, but also particular attitudes and appropriate labour market strategies (Tomlinson, 2007). In relation to this notion of personal responsibility, Brown and Hesketh (2004) identify two ideal-types of job seekers ‘players’ and ‘purists’. Players understand employability as a ‘positional game’. In contrast, purists view
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employability as a meritocratic struggle and success (or lack of it) as a consequence of innate ability. Influenced by Merton's theory of social adaptation (Merton, 1968), Tomlinson (2007) outlines the types of goals that students are developing around the labour market, and also the differences in the ends and means by which they approached their future work and employability. Careerists develop a strong orientation around future work and careers, and are more active in their attempt to realise their labour market goals and manage their employability. Ritualists are more passive in their approach and tend to lower their ambitions for their future employment (Tomlinson, 2007). Retreatists, whose approach involved abandoning labour market goals, form a minority of the sample. Rebels, a category from Tomlinson's model, are a hypothetical construct that shows where this type of student would lie in relation to the other types of orientations, and in this approach they actively abandon labour market goals. 3. Tourism careers as perceived by students Tourism is a rapidly growing industry and a major source of employment. A principal argument made for encouraging the development of tourism is that it produces a considerable number of jobs, both directly in the sectors in which tourist expenditure occurs and more widely via inter-industry linkages (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert, & Wanhill, 2005). Hjalager (2003) goes even further to argue that the tourism sector provides many opportunities for well-qualified people aiming at international careers; this is due to both the nature of the business and the strong international affiliation of tourism enterprises (Baum, 1995). A review of relevant literature in tourism and hospitality makes it clear that there is substantial research related to employability. Many studies (Verhaar and Smulders, 1999; Byrne, 2001; Zinser, 2003; Raybould and Sheedy, 2005; Cassidy, 2006) have been conducted in terms of the employability of graduates and the job requirements in tourism-related fields; and a number of qualifications—communication skills, empathy, motivation, decision-making abilities, planning abilities and improvisation abilities—have been identified (Zehrer and Mössenlechner, 2009). Maher and Graves (2007) explore how British universities have responded to the increasing external pressures to produce ‘employable’ graduates, and present some actual examples of pedagogical case studies designed to more effectively embed employability into courses in hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism in the UK. Becket and Kemp (2006) share among British universities good practice about enhancing graduate employability in Business and Management, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. Some authors (Zehrer and Mössenlechner, 2009; Dhiman, 2012) argue that different employers seem to approach the issue of employability from different perspective. Many tourism employers have indicated that students are often not prepared for the workplace, and call on universities to produce more employable graduates by way of providing transferable skills that can be taken into the workplace (Kember and Leung, 2005; Barrie, 2006; Mohinder, 2008). 4. International experience and employability Kneale (2008) illustrates that studying in a different country, or working internationally, should be an extremely exciting and rewarding experience. Archer and Davison (2008) argue that the value of international experience is not limited to purely learning the language; the value also lies in the ability to see business and personal issues from outside of an individual's own cultural background. The cultural sensitivity and experiences of international graduates makes them better able to build relationships and conduct business interculturally (Campbell, 2010). Such experiences are thought to have an important role in personal growth and change (Li, 2012). Many students believed that their international experiences helped to confirm their chosen career paths (MacDonald and Arthur, 2004). Yet, despite acceptance of the need for, and value of, an international perspective, it is surprising to note that little appears to have been written about the connection between international experience amongst students and graduate employability (Crossman and Clarke, 2010). There has been little qualitative work on the experiences of young graduates as they confront their own employability and positional advantage in the labour market (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Brooks, 2006; Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Brooks and Everett, 2008). As Johnston (2003; pp. 419) argues, one of the limitations of research on graduate employment is its tendency to focus on groups with the potential to influence the government, while “the voices of other partners in the graduate recruitment process, the graduates, are deafening in their silence”. Even less is known about the employability of overseas-educated graduates outside the West (Waters, 2009). This is surprising, given the significant number of Chinese and Indian students that have gone abroad for higher education, before returning home to seek employment. Since the continued prosperity of tourism depends, to a large extent, on the employment of well educated, motivated and committed people who are satisfied with their jobs, it is important to provide qualified tourism students with a positive attitude towards working in the tourism industry (Roney and Oztin, 2007). While many international students who are studying in the UK are now taking tourism subjects in order to secure potential ‘good jobs’ in the tourism industry in their home countries or the UK (Huang, 2008b), little research has been undertaken to research this group. Pelletier (2003) points out that expensively trained graduates from low income countries often prefer to remain in the West and pursue their careers there. There is a lack of an integrated policy on international students in the UK, and the discussions that do take place are also surprisingly separate from similar discussions and policy making around the UK's own economic, social and institutional needs. Based on the above review, research into international students' perspective in graduate employability,
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Chinese international students in particular, is in urgent need to fill in gaps in research in graduate employability and also in tourism education. 5. Methodology This research adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the career intentions and approaches that Chinese international students have towards enhancing their future employability. After a detailed literature review, a three-part semi-structured interview guide was developed for in-depth interviews. The first part was interested in the students' initial decision to study abroad, their main motivation and the importance of employment in such decision. The second part was related to their understanding of future career. The third part was mainly related to their approaches to managing employability. This research does not aim to present a statistical representative of all the career intentions of international students. Rather, emphasis is placed on the richness of information being accessed, and also the meaningful comparisons between the students. In this sense, the research worked on the principle of theoretical sampling. In the year 2011–2012, there were 47 Chinese students studying at [name of the institution]. Using this sampling strategy, new cases were consciously added to extend the data comparison. After the first interview was recorded and analysed, the research participants were invited to participate in a further interview. By doing so, the information gaps between the first and successive interviews were filled. The research does not stop sampling until no new information emerged from the latest interview. In the end, nine students were interviewed for this research. The interviews were carried out in November 2011, in the interviewees' natural environment: i.e., in their universities, their home or social activity places. This was informed by the naturalistic assumption that realities cannot be understood in isolation from their contexts. The interviews are numbered IS 1–9; and throughout the discussion of the results, these numbers are given in the brackets that follow each excerpt. The data analysis overlapped with data collection so as to build a coherent interpretation of the data. Using a manual process, the researcher made interview transcriptions immediately after each interview, and simultaneously conducted an analysis. Framework analysis is adopted as it is better adapted to research that has specific questions, a limited time frame, a pre-designed sample and a priori issues (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994; Srivastava and Thomson, 2009). Themes were identified after a lengthy process of engagement and reflection. From this process, it was clear that there were three main motivations for the students to study abroad; these were (1) good quality education; (2) better job opportunities after international education; and (3) better understanding of western culture. Each motivation category created a specific focus for interpretation. As for the students planning for a future career, two themes were identified: (1) flexibility in career planning; (2) influence of social structure on their career progress. Tomlinson's (2007) typology of student career intention and their way to deal with employability is used to analyse the interviewees' approach to manage their employability. 6. Findings and discussion 6.1. Reasons for studying abroad ‘Good quality education’ was the most common motivation for Chinese students (five out of nine students) choosing to study in the UK. The following quotes from the interviewees clearly illustrate their motivation. Although my previous university has a good reputation in foreign language training, their business subjects are rather weak. Some of the part-time lecturers we had were good at practice but have no idea of academic theories. Studying in [name of the institute] provides my theoretical understanding to behaviours demonstrated by tourism industry (IS 3) Although we have English textbooks for International Finance, our lectures were delivered in Chinese and then we needed to finish our assessments in English. When I heard talks from a professor from a British university, I straightway called my parents for financial support to come to [name of the institute]. Good quality education is definitely my reason for study abroad. (IS 2) The above findings confirm Bodycott (2009) research which argues that, when considering study abroad, good quality education is perceived as an important factor for both parents and students. Some of the interviewees clearly recognise the benefits of international experience to their career. Two interviewees admitted: Nowadays, it is really not easy to find a good job. Going abroad to learn English properly and getting more of an understanding of western cultures, will possibly help me in future job applications in China. (IS 3) International experience is regarded as an informal pre-requisite for promotion (IS 9). This finding is consistent with other recent findings in that in countries that use English as a second language, then proficiency in the English language is found to have a favourable impact upon one’s employment outcomes (Dabalen, Bankole, & Olatunde, 2001; Lan, 2003).
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An interviewee summarised The main benefits of international experience included the potential for networking, the opportunity for experiential learning, additional language acquisition, and finally the development of soft skills. These skills are important for me when I look for jobs. In order to obtain these potential benefits I came to the UK. (IS 1) This argument seems to confirm that international experience reportedly impacts upon cognition, learning, cultural sensitivity, personal and professional development and employability (Koskinen and Tossavainen, 2003; Clarke, 2005; Cowen, 2007; Bird, 2008; Osland, 2008). The above quotations appear to be consistent with recent findings linking ‘international mobility and career advancement’ (Marcotte, Desroches, & Poupart, 2007; pp. 654). Some participants in this research are very interested in western cultures; the participants mostly come from very comfortable middle-class families, and the parents are very supportive of their children's idea. Two quotes below serve to illustrate: I started Business English degree back in China. To be honest after the first year of my university, I was bored! Soon I realised that studying abroad might be a better option to satisfy my strong need of better understanding of western culture (IS 7). I have many relatives who live and work abroad. When we gathered for New Year celebration, I heard a lot of their experience. I really want to check out cultural difference between China and western countries. With my parents' full support I am very interested in exploring western culture in Britain for a few years. The qualification is of secondary importance (IS 8). The above findings coincide with Huang's (2005) emphasis that international students go abroad not just to study, but also for cultural experiences. This motivation appears to support the claim by Mazzarol and Soutar (2002; pp. 85) that the most important factor influencing Mainland Chinese international students decisions to come to a foreign country is “to gain a better understanding of ‘western culture’ through an international educational way instead of only for foreign qualifications”. To summarise, some students clearly recognised that better employment opportunities was a key driver for their decision to study abroad. But for others, better education and better understanding of British culture seems to be more important. Regardless of their main reasons for studying abroad, it is interesting to note that all of interviewees seem to agree that their international experience will give them advantages in job-hunting and subsequent career development. 6.2. Understanding of future career When the students were asked about their career intentions, the findings of the present study show somewhat different intentions were expressed by the students. It was evident that whilst some students still have idealised views, such as one job for life, or only needing to work Monday to Friday, and then relaxing at weekends; the majority of the students anticipated a much more difficult process of career progression. For the most part, the students (five out of nine students) appeared to interpret the labour market back home in China as being increasingly flexible but with higher risk. For instance, a student who directly joined the second year study in 2011/2012 argues that; I think my generation has grown up on the fact that, unlike for our parents, there is no more such a thing as the job for life. That is reality although it is not ideal. Instead of having one career, we will have a range of different careers. (IS 7) This argument is consistent with Tomlinson's (2007; pp. 4) statement about the ‘end of the job for life’. As a result, the interviewees appeared to be concerned with the need to adopt a more flexible and adaptive approach to careers, involving the active management of their own employability. To some extent, it would appear that those five students see flexibility as a crucial model of career management; this is illustrated by the following quotes from different students: I am very aware that there isn’t a job for life any more. This means you have to be more flexible, like if jobs are not available in my industry I might have to work in other industry which will also involve re-training to some extent. The experience of different forms of employment would facilitate development and renewal of knowledge and skills, in turn enriching our work profile. (IS5) The tendency of some participants to emphasise active over passive experience was also consistent with the argument, by Crossman and Clarke (2010), that the experiential nature of international experience prepares graduates for employment. Furthermore, there was a tendency for the participants to look at factors relating to personal disposition, attitudes and individual characteristics as determining their labour market trajectories. These participants (four of the nine students) largely saw themselves as active agents, but they also recognise clearly social and economic structures which might shape their opportunities and outcomes; as illustrated by the following quotes: The attitude of the graduate plays a big role, and a lot of university students need to shake off their attitudes and make that adjustment quickly. For our future, a lot of it is about going out there and selling oneself. (IS 1)
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As a female going into corporate world, you will have the ‘glass ceiling’ dilemma. Furthermore, giving birth and looking after kids will occupy a lot of my time even though my parents will help. I see my career as having before kids and after kids stages. (IS 8) Very few females have occupied top positions in Chinese companies. Even when I am well qualified, I have doubts that I can progress to a high position. (IS 7) The above finding seems to contradict Tomlinson (2007) argument that even female students overlook structural factors, in particular gender, which might influence employment outcomes. However the above finding does support Gracia's (2009) argument that the absence of senior female role models undermines the legitimacy of women's presence, and hence is manifested through the existence of pre-existing gendered patterns of expectation that normalise aspects of gendered behaviours that underpin role allocation. Therefore this research provides supporting evidence to the argument that viewing employability in isolation from its context makes issues of inequality invisible (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006). 6.3. The participants' approaches to managing their employability When the students were asked about their approaches to managing their employability, six out of the nine students discussed the different types of skills and attitudes that they needed to obtain; the following quote clearly illustrates this: In order to manage my employability, I need to identify what I should have first: not just a set of skills but also the right mentality, not just for my first job but also for the many jobs after the first one. Studying abroad gives me plenty of opportunities to improve myself (IS 5). This argument is consistent with Willott and Stevenson (2006) emphasis that training for employability needs to equip learners with the appropriate skills and attitudes to gain initial employment (such as relevant work-related and job-search skills), the confidence and motivation to look for work, and the appropriate personal skills and social competencies required to sustain employment (including adaptability, flexibility and team and group-work skills). Certainly I should master a range of appropriate skills, but the right attitude to changeable employment is more important. (IS 9) This finding resonates with the Equal Opportunities Commission (2005) discussion of the need to embed, into employability training initiatives, the personal and social skill development activities, and also flexible, person-centred, tailor-made training courses which meet the needs of all learners. However, it is also apparent there was less alignment with the longer-term, wider definitions of employability that McQuaid and Lindsay (2005) provide. This finding could suggest that the research participants are more concerned with the instrumental or economic view of employability discussed by Cornford (2005) and Wilton (2008), or their views are due to strong influences from their education. Seven out of nine participants agreed about the importance of packaging their employability into a narrative which encompassed their hard credentials and also ‘soft’ currencies in terms of their experiences and achievements outside formal university learning, as illustrated in the following quote: Getting a qualification is important, but skills gained outside of the classroom are also important. Studying abroad provides me with plenty of opportunities to gain cultural understanding and also self-management skills (IS8). It would appear that international experience enhances learning, the acquisition of competencies, the development of critical soft skills and, potentially, overall employability (Crossman and Clarke, 2010). The experience of different forms of employment would facilitate the development and renewal of knowledge and skills, in turn enriching our work profile (IS 1). Doing different part-time jobs, and participating in different social clubs, gives me opportunities to apply in reality what I learned in the classroom. My writing of CV's or covering letters is possibly better because of my applications for various jobs (IS 8). This finding also resonates with literature suggesting that despite the best efforts of academics, classroom learning is not the most effective way to enhance the employability of graduates (Cranmer, 2006). Although different policies related to graduate employability tend to address wider society, the problem of employability and career progression are largely viewed as being a problem for individual graduates. Self-funding (often, crucially, with the continuing support of family members even when some measure of ‘saving up’ is apparent) was common amongst the Chinese participants. This reflects the perception that employability is a ‘personal’ responsibility' (Brooks, 2006). The following extracts illustrate this responsibility: When I started at higher school, my parents started to save money for me to study abroad. They both have their own companies and this means when I called them after a presentation in my Chinese university, they straightway agreed to support me. (IS 6) Getting their sons or daughters educated abroad to gain potential advantage in securing a good job, either abroad or in China, is a wish of middle class Chinese families. That's one of reasons that China has one of the largest savings accounts
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in the world. Chinese parents take it for granted that it is their responsibility to make sure that their kids are educated and subsequently get good jobs. (IS 2) Their child's education is perceived as the most important thing for a Chinese family. Talking with my mother I realised that, a long time ago, my parents were preparing to send me abroad to study once I finished my higher school. I chose to stay in Chongqing because I like to stay at home with them. They convinced me to come to the UK. (IS 9) These findings clearly suggest the need to understand emerging international geographies of graduate employability, as well as existing discussions which have tended only to consider limited national contexts (Waters, 2009). China has recently seen a significant increase in the number of Higher Education and further-education institutions. This has had the effect of both diluting the value of a local degree and increasing the risks for those who fail to get into the so-called ‘best’ universities. Their degree credentials on their own are seen as ‘not being enough’; it was no longer seen as representing a ‘badge of distinction’ for graduates in the pursuit for graduate job. ‘Employability’ is assumed to necessitate higher levels of education. However, rather paradoxically, as access to Higher Education has increased globally, so credential inflation has taken place. Collins (1979) writes that with the democratisation of education then the ‘end point’ of schooling has moved consistently upwards, from high school to undergraduate degrees, to postgraduate and increasingly specialised qualifications, has resulted in the relative devaluation of undergraduate degrees. This has happened just as the demand for highly skilled jobs has been unable to keep up with the supply of skilled graduates (Thompson, Warhurst, & Callaghan, 2001; Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Waters, 2009). This situation has forced individuals who are concerned with their employability, to undertake specialised postgraduate study, with the aim of increasing the (scarcity) value of their credentials and securing ‘positional advantage’ (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). As demonstrated below, in the pursuit of a first degree, all the Chinese students displayed an awareness of the ‘positional advantage’ conferred by different credentials, thus reflecting the hierarchical nature of HE (Brooks, 2006). Their intentions towards postgraduate study were closely linked to a personal sense of job insecurity that arises from broader concerns about the future economic competitiveness of China. After my undergraduate study, I’ll definitely apply for a postgraduate study here. Bachelor qualification is no use any more, too many Chinese people have it. Getting a Master degree abroad is a necessity for a reasonable job in Chongqing. (IS 4) I intend to get a PhD here as I want to teach in Chinese universities. A PhD becomes a common requirement for this kind of teaching position. (IS 5) The issues raised in this paper reflect claims that discourses of ‘employability’ are linked to an oversupply of graduates (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). This also provides evidence to what Brown (2003) and Taylor argue that the returns that graduates can expect from higher education are less certain than in the past. Based on Tomlinson's (2007) typology, the nine respondents are categorised into the following three groups: (1) five out of nine respondents were beginning to define themselves largely around their career aspirations. Their future work and careers could be viewed in terms of what Giddens refers to as a ‘life project’ or a projection of the self (Giddens, 1991). They develop a ‘player’ approach (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) to their employability management, and were more likely to shape themselves and their credentials around what they perceive companies would require and value. This involved an attempt to ‘package’ their profiles in accordance with their understanding of employers' demands. These students tend to take a more active approach to managing their future employability, and are further guided by a clear sense of fluid labour market opportunities (Tomlinson, 2007). (2) Two respondents perceived work to be largely a ‘means to an end’ and tangential to their lives as a whole. Work is something ‘you have to do’; it is a means of achieving a future income, gaining a return from education and facilitating an adult role and identity. (3) Two respondents had developed a dislocated sense of where they stood in relation to their future labour market trajectories. The process of developing a career was viewed as a daunting one. Their response instead was to abandon this task and pursue other goals which clearly fell outside the sphere of careers and employability. These students looked to extend their youth and continue to enjoy the relatively loosely regulated lifestyles they had so far experienced. Entering the job market was viewed as a forced pressure which they were unprepared to negotiate at this stage in their lives. 7. Conclusions In the context of recent discussion around the disappearance of the ‘organisational’ lifelong career together with the emergence of a knowledge-based economy, this research offered a much-needed international dimension to recent debates on the expansion of higher education and credential inflation, and ‘employability’; as previously these debates have overwhelmingly focused on the employability of graduates in the UK and the US. Empirically, this research has explored the motivations of young Chinese international students seeking undergraduate qualifications in the UK. The findings of this research suggest that the main reasons for studying abroad are to get a good quality education, to gain international experience in order to secure a better job opportunity and also better understand western culture. The analysis of career intention of those participants suggests the students realise there is rarely a single career, but instead a range of careers, and flexibility, are very important. Due to credential inflation, an overseas education for bachelor is no longer a badge of distinction, and postgraduate study is becoming a necessity. Furthermore the participants clearly
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understood that external influences, such as social and economic structural factors, will also influence their employment outcomes. Students viewed their employability as a crucial issue to be negotiated and worked at. Whilst recognising that there is no universally accepted definition of employability, most of the participants had narrow views, which to some extent is a reflection of what they learned from their universities. Through their parents' behaviour, this group of Chinese students clearly understood that employability was their personal responsibility. The students made clear associations between perceived outcomes of international experience and graduate employability. International experience appears to support the development of cultural sensitivity and adaptability as well as enhancing the attractiveness of the graduate, and these are key factors in determining individual employability in a globalised labour market. The analysis of student attitudes and orientations highlights the differences amongst the students in their approaches to manage their employability. 8. Limitations and future research This research only used Chinese students from one school in one British University; therefore the results may not be representative. A research by Rothwell, Herbert, and Rothwell (2008) indicates there was little difference in student perceptions among three different types of British universities. This, along with the reasonable sample size for second and final year international students in tourism programmes, should enable this data to make a useful contribution. However, further studies especially with first-year students, are recommended to validate the results. Various authors have suggested that business students should be more interested in, and have a greater awareness of, employability as they have opted to study a vocationally oriented subject (Berman and Ritchie, 2006; Jackson, 2009; Parrott, 2010). Therefore, the students participating in this research could have a more informed perspective of employability, and this may limit the potential for generalisation of the results. What remains for other researchers to pursue is a comparison of the nature and extent of overall graduate employability skills gained by students who have international experience when compared with those students without international experiences. This would help clarify whether the skills gained through international experience are merely enhancements of those developed by all graduates or whether they in fact represent a unique skill set that can only be acquired through intense engagement with another culture. 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Rong Huang is a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy. Her pedagogic research experience centres on tourism education, international student experience, internationalisation, and new academics.