Chapter 5: Enhancing Employability of RMIT Graduates: Reflections on Practice

Chapter 5

Enhancing Employability of RMIT Graduates: Reflections on Practice

Anna Branford, Leoni Russell, Luella Leon, Gabrielle Hernan, Lynda Rohan

All authors from The Employability and Careers Education, Centre for Educational Innovation and Development, RMIT University

Abstract

RMIT University is engaged in the ongoing, evolving challenge faced by most contemporary universities to secure strong employability outcomes and career management skills for graduates. A key focus for addressing this challenge is the use of strategically designed and developed curricula. Under the umbrella term of Industry Partnered Learning, RMIT educators embed a diverse range of initiatives, approaches and scaffolded experiences into the student experience. These include Work Integrated Learning (WIL) that has long been fundamental to RMIT’s program design, Career Development Learning (CDL) embedded in assessments, and career-focused micro-credentials incorporated into curriculum. The development of Career Enrolment Data, now in use across RMIT, enables targeted insights into specific aspects of the effectiveness of these strategies, supporting their evolution. Further value is found in exploring and sharing new opportunities and innovations, acknowledging and celebrating successes,  and evaluating Industry Partnered Learning embedded across RMIT’s diverse curricula. These approaches support RMIT University’s capacity and commitment to further enhance and strengthen the employability of graduates.

Keywords: Industry Partnered Learning (IPL), Career Development Learning (CDL), Work Integrated Learning (WIL), Career Enrolment data, careers in curriculum, student employability, graduate outcomes.

Introduction

Enhancing student employability and skills in career management is a key component of RMIT’s curriculum design, and Industry Partnered Learning (IPL) plays a significant role. IPL is a recently developed overarching term encompassing RMIT’s industry engaged and informed learning and assessment activities, and co-designed curriculum. It includes Work Integrated Learning (WIL), Career Development Learning (CDL)[1] and other forms of embedded industry engaged activities. IPL extends beyond RMIT’s categories of WIL (placements, industry partnered projects and WIL in simulated workplace environments) and broadens the scope to other forms of industry engaged pedagogies such as industry networking events, hackathons and entrepreneurial activities, industry mentoring, industry speakers and workshops. IPL’s focus on CDL promotes student’s self-awareness and proactive agency over their career management and planning.

Through a range of IPL initiatives, program teams are engaged in a continual process of enhancing their courses to ensure RMIT graduates are lifelong learners, ready for the changing world of work. This chapter reflects on the progress RMIT has made to improve student employability through IPL activities and initiatives. Throughout the chapter the authors highlight the challenges and opportunities RMIT educators face in their endeavours to integrate and scaffold employability focused strategies into their curricula.

The RMIT University Context

RMIT’s complex approach to fostering and developing student employability has evolved through a range of historical strategies and interventions. In 2019, a process of program transformation set out to ensure the delivery of the student experience promised in RMIT’s Ready for Life and Work Strategy. The strategy set as priority that in 2020, RMIT graduates would be “widely recognised for their work-ready skills and sought after by recruiters and employers”, able to “demonstrate and articulate their graduate attributes” and to “adapt to changing job markets” (RMIT, 2015, p. 11). The strategy also highlighted the integration of learning with work at every stage of the student experience, with a particular focus on ongoing industry engagement. It stated that “Work-integrated learning is fundamental to the design, delivery and review of every program” and that “Enterprise opportunities are widely available and embedded in program design” (RMIT, 2015, p. 12). Underpinned by increasingly clarified and supportive Program and Course Policy requirements, WIL and CDL have become more prominent across the student journey.

Throughout this period, WIL and careers-focused micro-credentials (‘creds’) have enhanced student awareness and agency in developing their employability, career readiness, and professional identity. Career and WIL cred completions in 2020 and 2021 averaged over 7,500, completed in curriculum or as co-curricular learning. These work-ready focused creds have provided scholarly careers education content that educators could embed into learning activities. The following quotes from students offer clear insights into the value they perceived in these careers focused creds:

“It was helpful in giving the advice to build a resume, I feel as though I have a much more professional resume to use in the future for job opportunities.” (RMIT student reflecting on Job Applications cred, Semester 1, 2022)

“I think everyone is afraid when confronting an interview since it can determine whether you will be accepted to the position you applied or not. For many who have not gained any experience in attending an interview, they are not well prepared so normally they would feel puzzled or unconfident about their answers. The course is essential for final year students and graduates since we could have more insights of what questions, information of the company, skills and knowledge we need to equip before the interview, how to make an impression and how to stay connected with recruiters maybe for another future apply.” (RMIT student reflecting on Interview Preparations cred, Semester 1, 2022)

More generally, a range of enabling factors underlay the shift towards an integrated, university wide, whole-of-program approach to embedding employability and work readiness across RMIT curricula. These included a significant increase in staff engagement and capability building through WIL and employability professional development activities such as RMIT WIL Skills Yammer group, the WIL Community of Practice and national events and webinars via the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN). The evolution of RMIT’s commitment to ensuring career and work ready graduates is evident in a demonstrable increase in scholarly practice, including the involvement of RMIT staff in internationally influential WIL research and publishing, and leadership roles in organisations such as ACEN.

This sequence of developments also underlies Curriculum Architecture, a strategic initiative driving the refreshing of programs through a range of redesign activities and refocusing of program offerings. A key component underpinning the scaffolding and contextualising of employability initiatives is the requirement to embed IPL throughout early, mid, and late stages of every program. As the key Curriculum Architecture principles inform the revised Program and Course Policy suite, all new and revised programs will include scaffolded and contextualised IPL activities. This will require further staff capability building and professional development activities to continue the strategic uplift of these initiatives. Aligned with 2022 RMIT NEXT strategy (which has a nine-year long span, reaching to 2031), this process plays a key role in the university’s commitment to “deliver lifelong learning in partnership with industry, governments and communities, co-creating education pathways and systems for diverse students in a transforming workforce” (RMIT 2022).

 Industry Partnered Learning (IPL) and Work Integrated Learning (WIL)

Prior to the development of the IPL terminology, WIL has been a staple of the RMIT curriculum and student experience, underpinned by the university’s long history of industry engagement. RMIT’s WIL procedure identifies WIL as a descriptor for a range of models and approaches to learning and assessment that integrate discipline theory, knowledge and skills with the practice of work as an integral part of program design.

Industry engaged WIL activities involve students interacting with organisations (industry, government and community) through discipline relevant projects and work placements. These WIL activities may be undertaken face-to-face, online or via a blended approach. To ensure the majority of RMIT’s students have access to WIL, minimum WIL requirements in core courses ensure WIL is structurally integrated. Traditional approaches to WIL, such as placement and internships, are resource intensive and highly competitive as all tertiary education institutions scramble for industry placements. As a strategy for developing a scalable and sustainable approach to WIL, many RMIT programs incorporate industry partnered projects and other industry engaged approaches such as hackathons to ensure all students have opportunities to participate.

How are RMIT stakeholders benefiting from engaging in WIL?

Extensive research and scholarly literature highlight a range of benefits for stakeholders in WIL activities including industry partners, educators and students (e.g. Ferns, et al., 2021; Patrick et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2014). From the perspective of industry and community partners, WIL represents unique opportunities both for recruitment and for addressing skills shortages by inviting direct input into the shaping of graduate outcomes, while also providing direct benefits to workplaces and teams in the form of tangible contributions made by students (Chillas et al., 2015; Jackson et al., 2015). WIL provides partners with opportunities for professional development of their own staff as coaches, mentors and supervisors, as well as developing and strengthening their relationships with the university (AWPA, 2014). From the perspective of university staff, WIL creates opportunities to enhance professional networks, collaborative relationships and engagement with industry. Enhanced industry connectedness supports currency in educators’ understandings of industry needs, practices, skills and capabilities, enabling industry-relevant curriculum design (Jackson, Rowbottom & McLaren, 2017; Sachs & Clarke, 2017). Numerous RMIT educators have developed deep partnerships with a range of industry partners that go well beyond the WIL relationship and have expanded into co-design of curriculum and research collaborations. Educator Dr Carolina Quintero Rodriguez notes, “Our relationship with our industry partner, Caprice Australia, is not just about providing internships and offering feedback to students. Caprice collaborates with me and my team to co-design the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise and will continue to do so in future iterations of the program” (2022).

From a student perspective, as a key component of experiential learning, the strength of WIL is broadly understood through its capacity to connect theory with the practice of work, enhancing students’ career awareness and understanding of the nature of the workforce (Silva et al, 2018). This value is reflected in the following account offered by a student following a WIL experience in the Bachelor of Fashion (Enterprise), also referenced above:

‘Working with Caprice, has been such an engaging new experience. It has made our assignment feel more like work and has set a scene in my head for work mindset in my future career. I liked that we could present fresh ideas to people that were interested in the assignment work we were doing. It felt gratifying and inspirational. It was also so interesting to see the whole process of creating a garment, Caprice really showed us the work and efforts of a team working towards a goal.’ (Student, 2022)

WIL also strengthens students’ resumes and portfolios by enabling the inclusion of authentic experience and artefacts. This increases their opportunities for graduate employment in their fields of study, while developing and providing opportunities for them to demonstrate their transferrable skills, including problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, teamwork and professional communication. It also supports students’ developing understanding of workplace structures and cultures, building their professional networks and creating opportunities to review and develop career plans based on an experientially informed understanding of their chosen industry (Jackson et al., 2017).

Wrapping CDL around WIL

National and international research on enhancing employability in curriculum extends beyond the incorporation of a range of WIL activities in programs, moving towards contextualising, strengthening and consolidating these experiences through strategic use of CDL (Billet 2011; Jackson 2017; Jackson & Edgar, 2019). Jackson & Edgar (2019, p. 41) note that “reflection and feedback underpin any quality WIL experience” and that the fusing of these modes of learning provide “a rich resource for students to draw examples of how they applied theory in practice, developed and demonstrated non- technical skills, networked, and gained a better under- standing of their professional self”. In response to this scholarly research on enhancing student employability, RMIT educators are placing greater emphasis on this more complex approach by explicitly linking WIL and CDL throughout their curricula. The recent development of a suite of RMIT ‘IPL in Action’ snapshots showcase a range of approaches to this strategy, enhancing and adding value to WIL experiences by building in specific tasks including goal setting, purposeful preparation, reflection, networking and the mindful use of experience to inform future plans and experiences.

Career Enrolment Data

Historically, careers practitioners advocating for the embedding of Career Development Learning into Higher Education curricula have faced the challenge of lacking data to support their recommendations and strategies. While the Graduate Outcome Survey (GOS) provides information on employment outcomes for graduates, the data is collected four months after graduation and often has low response rates. It seems reasonable to speculate that these well-known limitations have hampered support and advocacy for Career Development Learning in curriculum. The availability of new data, such as Career Enrolment Data, has enabled career practitioners to gain direct and new insights into the career readiness of students, playing a key role in promoting Career Development Learning interventions in curriculum. For example, as a response to government measures and pressure, many universities in the United Kingdom are using big data in the form of career registration to identify the career needs of their students (Cobb, 2019).

To gather this data, students are required to choose from a set of statements that reflect their career readiness and their engagement with professional experiences at enrolment and re-enrolment, providing time-specific snapshots of this high value data across all year levels. Career readiness data is then categorised into four phases of career readiness: Decide, Plan, Compete, and Sorted. Students also select options from a pre-defined list of professional experiences they have undertaken in the past twelve months. The approach enables the tracking of these aspects of students’ career readiness progress throughout their programs, identifying strengths and concerns relating to graduate employability (Cobb, 2019). The data adds significant strength to career practitioners’ recommendations for tailored Career Development Learning interventions across a curriculum.

Following the success of the data in the UK, Australian universities have adopted the framework and renamed it ‘Career Enrolment’ data, with RMIT at the forefront. RMIT’s Employability and Careers Education team uses the data to drive outstanding and innovative practice, informing its approach to developing initiatives and strategies in curriculum to enhance student employability. Strategic use of the data supports a growing focus on careers education, creating unique opportunities to:

• • inform and support academics in tailoring targeted, cohort-appropriate employability-focused interventions
  • track accessibility and effectiveness for specific student cohorts, including international students, SES and Indigenous backgrounds, supporting an outstanding approach to inclusivity and equity in careers education
  • measure impact of interventions through pre/post snapshots, supporting a uniquely iterative, evolving approach to CDL

For example, RMIT’s Master of Human Resource Management has embedded CDL relying on Career Enrolment data to inform and measure its impact. In the program’s ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ course, students engaged in a ‘career modelling’ intervention to encourage corporate entrepreneurship and the building of sustainable careers. The educator reflected, “Despite nearly 62% of our Masters of HRM students indicating that they were in the ‘Sorted’ and ‘Compete’ categories as part of the Career Readiness Survey, we found that in running the workshop with a small cohort of students, many more have begun to identify with the ‘Decide’ and ‘Plan’ categories, indicating that some may be returning to the ‘drawing board’ to reconsider their careers.” The ‘Professional Human Resource Management Practices’ course embedded a CDL assessment after rising concerns about the international student cohort’s career readiness. This intervention increased these students’ career readiness, with an improvement from 21% in Semester 1 2020 in the ‘Sorted’ and ‘Compete’ categories to 46% within a year.

Following the successful use of the data, the Employability and Careers Education team sought to make it accessible to all RMIT educators. Accessibility is supported by PowerBI dashboard design, multimedia support materials and ongoing training, to foster an informed and collaborative approach to program design. This data not only identifies potential career development interventions within curricula, but also serve to inform continuous improvement across RMIT. For example, the collection and analysis of work experience data for specific student cohorts (such as international students) highlight gaps and opportunities to target those cohorts with specific services including mentoring, volunteering, and WIL, supporting equity in enhancing student employability.

Increasing use of Career Enrolment data has demonstrable flow-on benefits to students, educators and services in tertiary education, including:

• • Increased uptake of student facing career services, because of students’ increased awareness of their career readiness and co-curricular support through the Job Shop, RMIT’s drop-in service centre for student careers support
  • Increased staff awareness of students’ specific employability needs, the range of services available to enhance CDL in curriculum and co-curricular careers support
  • Continuous improvement of service delivery as result of using the data to understand the uptake of co-curricular activities within the university
  • A tangible context for careers support and services through a clear demonstration of the employability needs of their students, informed by scholarly practice
  • Proactive requests from staff for careers education support services to enhance their curricula

Limitations and future opportunities

A nuanced assessment of the reliability of Career Enrolment data might further strengthen the basis for its use. In her discussion of the limitations of the data, careers registration specialist Fiona Cobb observes the inherent potential for self-report bias (Cobb, 2019). In the context of organisational behaviour research, Donaldson and Grant-Vallone explain self-report bias as the under-reporting of behaviours regarded as inappropriate or undesirable by researchers and observers, and the over-reporting of behaviours deemed appropriate or desirable (Donaldson & Grant-Vallone, 2002). Applied to Career Enrolment data, this explanation suggests the possibility that students could over-estimate their career readiness and experience, perceiving these assets as desirable. The data may also point to the possibility of students underestimating their readiness and experience to avoid an appearance of over-confidence or naiveté. For these reasons, and for others related to a simple gap in students’ knowledge that prevents them from assessing their readiness in the context of a realistic current labour market, it seems reasonable to speculate that students could either over or under-estimate their career readiness. This creates grounds for strong caution in conflating the data with a measure of actual career readiness.

However, the unreliability inherent in self-reporting can also be the source of some key insights in the context of Career Enrolment data. For example, when students report that they have not participated in an industry project, but records show that they have, this presents a high-value insight into a need for more explicit communication around the nature, value and basis of these industry engaged project experiences. Reflecting a further mode of useful unreliability, Cobb’s account considers a complication within the seemingly ideal scenario of students self-reporting a steady increase in their career readiness. A downturn in their self-assessment might reflect not a regression in their readiness, but rather the development of an appropriately realistic understanding of their career prospects (Cobb, 2019), a key shift in thinking often associated with undertaking WIL activities. These are two examples of ways in which the unreliability of self-reporting data can also be a source of specific insight. Accessing and utilising these kinds of insights relies on processes of systematic cross-referencing with other data sources, such as the WIL Inplace database management system (the WIL data collection system for RMIT Australia).

A further point of interest regarding the self-reported nature of Career Enrolment data is research that indicates the inherent value of an individual’s positive perception of their own employability – a measure necessarily gained via subjective self-assessment. In the context of graduate employability, Marilyn Clarke highlights the value of individuals’ measures of their own employability, pointing to a connection between a positive outlook on one’s own prospects and a proactive, flexible and adaptable approach to job search. She goes on to note these approaches as particular strengths in contemporary labour markets (Clarke, 2018). Similarly, Cobb outlines a correlation between final year students engaged in career planning (the focus of most of the ‘Career Readiness’ statements from which the data is gathered) and those who find employment after graduation, particularly in graduate roles. She explains, “the three most important predictors of graduates moving into professional or managerial roles three years after graduation are having a plan; having done some research; having a targeted approach to job applications; and having undertaken unpaid work experience” (Cobb, 2019, p.18).

Part of the challenge for meaningful use of Career Enrolment data, then, lies in an open acknowledgement of its strengths and limitations. Cobb outlines a nuanced and strategic approach, mindful of erroneous conflations but also of possibilities for drawing the data into holistic analyses to inform strategy, policy and decision-making, as well as promoting events and services and supporting equitable access for students from at-risk groups (Cobb, 2019). Applications and analyses can allow for strategic interplay between students’ self-reporting, well established research into conditions for strong career outcomes, and evolving social and historical contexts for study and career development. This approach is in keeping with Jackson & Bridgstock’s understanding of employability as a ‘multi-dimensional, lifelong, and life-wide phenomenon that is malleable and driven by the individual yet encouraged and facilitated by HE [Higher Education]’ (Jackson & Bridgstock, 2021, p. 724).

Diverse approaches to IPL at RMIT

The opportunity for educators to access Career Enrolment Data has emerged in a culture of diverse approaches to Industry Partnered Learning, evolving across the full range of RMIT’s disciplines, schools and student cohorts. The following brief accounts of approaches to IPL offer insight into this diversity, and also into the rich scope for the growing adoption of data-informed curriculum development.

• ‘Global Careers’ is a course undertaken by second year students in the Bachelor of International Studies and is developed and delivered by Associate Professor Julian Lee. The course engages students in a series of assessments that support a discipline-specific approach to the building of careers knowledge alongside the development of a range of tangible career assets.

The first assessment is a ‘Self authored reference letter and email-of-approach for an internship’, ensuring practical preparation for the common experience of being asked to draft such a letter when requesting it from an employer or teacher. Students submit an email of approach to the potential referee, a CV, and their own letter of reference as if written by that person. Students regularly make direct use of these career artifacts in the semesters that follow.

Other assessments in the course guide students through the process of creating a magazine article based on their personal interactions with industry professionals, undertaking a career SWOT analysis involving research into the world of work in their chosen industry and reflection on their own state of career readiness, and formulating a career plan of strategies for acting on their insights.

• ‘Professional Human Resource Management’ is a course in the first year of the Master of Human Resource Management program. Its innovative approach to IPL was developed by Dr Alan Montague and later by Dr Beni Halvorsen in response to concerns about graduate outcomes for students, with a particular focus on international students.

The assessment engages students in the authentic task of reviewing RMIT’s careers services, including a strategic critique of the website, resources and tools available to students. These include the CV reviewer, interview simulator and skills-matching tools. To develop their critique to a professional standard, students explore and make use of scholarly resources. To support the consolidation of their own developing skills and expertise throughout this project, they are also required to submit a personal reflection on their experience of the task.

• ‘Fashion Range Development’ is a WIL course in the second year of the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise. The course, designed by Dr Carolina Quintero Rodriguez, centres on a project undertaken with industry partner, Caprice Australia, in which students form teams to develop a fashion range, undertaking the full journey from consumer research to product development, to marketing. In addition to strategic checkpoints at which they receive feedback from the industry partner on their progress, and the inclusion of two career skills-focused creds, the course embeds two key assessments to support students with the process of recognising and articulating the skills they gain through this industry experience.

The first of these assessments requires students to write a reflection on their experience of the industry project, outlining their learning and considering its application for their future work in the fashion industry. The second develops a focus on the team orientation of the project, supporting students to reflect on their performance as team members, and to identify the contribution they made and the role they undertook. This work culminates in each student identifying skills they gained and strengthened during the project, with a view to inclusion in industry-ready job applications and interview preparation.

• Students in the Master of Project Management undertake the ‘Project Management Leadership’ course in their second year of study, drawing its focus on leadership skills together with strategic assessment-based learning of career development skills. Associate Professor Christina Scott-Young has created two key initiatives to support this learning. The first is the engagement of a series of industry guest speakers, including high achieving students working in Project Management and an early career expert. These speakers share their experience of the job search process and respond to students’ questions.

The second is a sequence of three assessments. The earliest, supporting networking skills, involves teams of students approaching and interviewing managers in industry to explore the key attributes of an effective project leader. This is followed by an assignment in which the teams interview new workplace entrants to understand their preferred styles of working and management. Finally, each student develops a self-reflection report, assessing their own leadership attributes, creating an action plan to develop further skills, and a leadership strengths statement to be included in their resume.

• ‘Media one’ is a course undertaken by first year students in the Bachelor of Communication (Media) designed and developed by Dr Seth Keen. It focuses on its partnership with a not-for-profit art gallery and the opportunity for students to interview prominent visual artists. These experiences culminate in students securing a personal work reference and potential social video publications in a professional context.

Working in groups, students produce content that contributes to documenting visual arts practice and reaching new audiences online. The project prepares students to use storytelling methods to prepare evidence of their job-ready skills, making use of the Folio e-portfolio tool, Portfolium, strategically integrating learning with professional experience that leads to internships and employment opportunities, and laying the groundwork for students to develop industry-ready resumes and portfolios in their final capstone course.

Conclusion
The diverse approaches outlined above create significant scope for exploring opportunities to implement and strengthen IPL. These are worth considering alongside recent research by Bennett et al. (2022) identifying a reduction in students’ confidence that their degree programs were preparing them for employability and a professional career. This loss of confidence is potentially in line with growing complexity in students’ understandings of labour market opportunities, competition and their own abilities. Implications include the need for clarity about the relevance of each learning and assessment task, and the importance of a contextualised, data-driven, whole-of-program approach to informing higher education learning activities focused on career development. The study also highlights inherent tensions in the endeavours of higher education institutions to meet the immediate needs of industry while also ensuring that students develop the depth and breadth of disciplinary knowledge and expertise befitting a university graduate. The study points to the relevance of graduates’ intellectual rigor and capacity for creative and flexible conceptual thinking to their ability to navigate and manage lifelong careers.

In response to these complexities, RMIT’s approach to IPL, WIL and CDL will continue to support curriculum redevelopment to build students’ awareness of their career readiness and their career management skills. The space is evolving to build strength through the use of data to underpin and inform initiatives, incorporate e-portfolios to support, demonstrate and articulate the student journey, taking an iterative approach to curriculum redesign. The strategic embedding of CDL further supports a proactive approach to enhancing students’ understanding of the labour markets they will enter.

Reflecting on the ongoing evolution of RMIT’s approach to enhancing student employability indicates a range of challenges but also an array of opportunities for further insight, development and innovation in this area. A key final offering for this discussion is to highlight the important role, as these opportunities continue to be explored, of sharing and celebrating endeavours and achievements in IPL, WIL and CDL across RMIT. There is significant value in acknowledging the strength of the innovations and collaborations undertaken by educators, industry partners and learning designers, as well as the students whose careers are already underway as they explore the opportunities embedded in their programs. This proactive approach to support and recognition will continue to build a culture of creativity, innovation and currency in RMIT’s approach to careers in curriculum.

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Notes