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Forms of graduate capitaland their relationship tograduate employabilityMichael TomlinsonUniversity of Southampton, Southampton, UKAbstractPurpose – In the context of far-reaching changes in higher education and the labour market, there has beenextensive discussion on what constitutes graduate employability and what shapes graduates’ labour marketoutcomes. Many of these discussions are based on skills-centred approaches and related supply-side logic.The purpose of this paper is to develop an alternative, relational conceptualisation of employability based onthe concept of capitals. It discusses how this provides a more detailed and multi-dimensional account of theresources graduates draw upon when transitioning to the labour market.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a new model on graduate employability, linked tofive areas of capital which are seen as constitutive of graduates’ employability and significant to theirtransitions to the labour market. The paper draws together existing conceptual approaches and researchstudies to illustrate the different features of the model and how they relate to graduate employability. It alsodiscusses some practical implications for those helping to facilitate graduates’ transitions to the job market.Findings – The paper argues that the graduate capital model presents a new way of understanding graduateemployability which addresses the challenges of facilitating graduates’ transitions and early careermanagement. The forms of capital outlined are conceived as key resources that confer benefits andadvantages onto individuals. These resources encompass a range of human, social, cultural, identity andpsycho-social dimensions and are acquired through graduates’ formal and informal experiences.Research limitations/implications – Whilst this is a conceptual model, it has potentially strongimplications for future research in this area in terms of further research exploration on the core componentsand their application in the labour market.Practical implications – This re-conceptualization of graduate employability has significant implicationfor graduates’ career management and strategising in developing resources for enhancing their transitions toand progression within the labour market. It also has implications for career educators in developing practicalemployability strategies that can be used within institutional settings.Social implications – The paper raises salient implications for the effective and equitable management ofgraduate outcomes post-graduation which has clear relevance for all stakeholders in graduate employability,including students/graduates, career educators and employers.Originality/value – The paper develops a new model for conceptualising graduate employability andillustrates and applies this to discussion of graduate employability. It also raises practical applications aroundthe different components of the model.Keywords Higher education, Policy, Employability, Skills, CapitalsPaper type Conceptual paperIntroductionThe issue of how and why graduates succeed in the labour market and what can be done toenhance their “employability” continues to dominate discussions on the economic impact androle of higher education (HE). It is 20 years since the Dearing (1997) report made activerecommendations for the enhancement of graduates’ “employability skills” and calls foruniversity curricula to be more attuned to the needs of the economy. Such concerns have beengiven a renewed momentum in light of recent UK Government proposals linking institutionaleffectiveness and quality to graduates’ returns in the labour market (Department for Business,Innovation and Skills (DBIS), 2016). However, what makes a graduate desirable to employersEducation + TrainingVol. 59 No. 4, 2017pp. 338-352© Emerald Publishing Limited0040-0912DOI 10.1108/ET-05-2016-0090Received 18 May 2016Revised 30 January 2017Accepted 31 January 2017The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:www.emeraldinsight.com/0040-0912.htmThe author would like to thank various members of the Careers and Employability Service at theUniversity of Southampton, in particular Hazel McCafferty, Helen Fuge and Kathryn Wood, for somehelpful discussions related to this approach.338ET59,4and what role HE plays in this has been subject to considerable academic debate andemployer analysis (Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011). Whilst it is often assumed that graduates whopossess the most desirable level of skills – or indeed “attributes” – are more employable, muchanalysis has shown graduate employability to be broader and more complex ( Jackson, 2016;Holmes, 2013; Tomlinson, 2012; Brown and Hesketh, 2004).This paper develops a new conceptualisation of graduate employability, based ongraduate capitals. It conceptualises graduate employability as largely constitutive of theaccumulation and deployment of a variety of interactive forms of capital. Capitals aredefined here as key resources that confer benefits and advantages onto graduates. Theseresources encompass a range of educational, social, cultural and psycho-social dimensionsand are acquired through graduates’ formal and informal experiences. They also comprisemultiple forms which interact and help reinforce the strength of each form. The main formsof capital which are integral to this approach are: human, social, cultural, identity andpsychological. Much of the conceptual framings of capitals have been informed by eithereconomic or sociological approaches which have highlighted the advantages of gainingformal qualifications and the favourable economic positioning this engenders. In the formercase, overarching human capital accounts are popular amongst policy makers and makestrong links between higher investments in learning and improved employment prospectsand earnings. More sociological approaches (see Bourdieu, 1986) highlight the ways inwhich the relative acquisition of cultural capital, largely in the form of educationally andculturally derived knowledge, generates educational (dis)advantage between individuals.Whist these theories are relevant to the current conceptualisation, this paper offers amore integrated approach; it also shows that whilst each of these components relateto different properties, they overlap to some degree and their boundaries are fairly fluid.More significantly, this paper offers an alternative vocabulary to understanding graduateemployability, its development in HE and in graduates’ transition to the labour market.The paper first considers the ways in which graduate employability has been commonlydepicted through conventional notions of graduate “skills”. It then outlines the maincomponents of each form of capital, their salience to graduate employment and then some ofthe practical dimensions to developing these forms in and around HE.The dominance of the employability skills discourseMuch of the current understanding of graduate employability, particularly in relation to therole of HE, has been framed around the enhancement of graduates’ employability skills.Further developing graduates’ employability skills, beyond their formal academic learning,is seen as a way of equipping them for meeting the challenges of graduate-level work. HEIsin particular have been very responsive to the language of skills adopted by employers andbeen prone to reproduce such discourse both in relation to institutional strategies andspecific pedagogic initiatives (McCowan, 2015; Holmes, 2013). The discourse inflation onskills and attributes within HE would appear to have eclipsed even what employers haveespoused on such matters.A strong body of critical literature has emerged which illustrates various limitations ofthis approach. The first of these centres on a critical appraisal of the wider meaning anddefinition of skills and its bearing on the notion of employability. As James et al. (2013)argue, there is quite some difference between fairly homogenous “graduate skills” and“skills that graduates have”. The latter are not only highly diverse and context-specific, butalso developed through multiple contexts and not just within HE. A crucial issue is the wayin which they are further co-ordinated by employers, including the extent to which skills areable to be meaningfully deployed and further developed in graduates’ working lives. Holmes(2013) has further challenged the overall conflation of graduates’ purported “possession”of “skills” (and/or “attributes”) and their ability to secure employment on leaving HE.339Forms ofgraduatecapitalAnother body of literature has critically examined the link between formal skills-centredprovision and how much value these have on graduates’ employment outcomes, includingtheir overall relevance to employment settings (Mason et al., 2009; Wilton, 2011). Suchevidence has pointed to the limited efficacy of skills initiatives, formally delivered in HE, ongraduates’ future employability. One of the issues, as the above research has illustrated, is thecontextual barriers between formal university learning and the workplace and the degree towhich acquired HE-level skills are either transferable or transversal. As Mason et al.’s reviewpoints out, any formally acquired employability skills cannot simply be transferred given thatso many of the actual skills graduates deploy are derived from, situated in, and furthergenerated through, the actual work context in which they are utilised.More recently, calls have been made for a more nuanced conceptualisation of skills sothat they encompass what actually impacts on graduates’ post-university transitions. Inattempting to move the broad schema of generic skills to more efficacious ground,Bridgstock (2009) has developed the notion of “career management skills” which refer to therange of high-impact and longer-term careers-salient competences that have genuinepurchase in graduates’ post-university lives. This includes the abilities to purposively selfmanage and proactively navigate future pathways. Jackson and Wilton’s (2016) recent workon career management competences illustrates the significance of self-management andcareer insight, particularly in relation to graduates’ ability to map out future goals and theenhancement of their self-confidence and self-perceived employability. They discuss theimportance of experientially rich work-integrated learning for the nurturing of suchcompetences, most of which are soft in form and potentially constitutive of graduates’lifelong learning.This paper departs from dominant skills approaches to employability and insteadconceptualises employability as constituting a range of dynamic, interactive forms of capitalwhich are acquired through graduates’ lived experiences. The model shown in Figure 1depicts two important dimensions for each form of capital: the key resources related to eachand how they are utilised when graduates enter the job market. The possession of capitals isimportant, as is developing ways of enhancing them, but knowing how these have purchaseGraduateCapitalHuman capitalSocial capitalCultural capitalPsychological capitalIdentity capitalHard skills (subject specialism,technical knowledge);career building skillsNetworks, contacts, relationshipformation, bonding activitiesJob performance;application of knowledge andskills;matching of qualifications tojobsAwareness and access to opportunitystructures;insider knowledge of jobsCultural knowledge;embodied behaviours;distinction and symbolic valueCultural awareness and confidence;favourable appraisal of potential;integration into organisationsResilience, self-efficacy,adaptabilityWithstanding set-backs and jobpressures;malleability and flexibilityFormation of work identities;personal investment in employment;development of personalemployability narrativesCareer insight and proactive jobmarket strategies;presentation of ‘‘employable self’’Key ResourcesApplication andUtility inLabour MarketFigure 1.Graduate capitalmodel340ET59,4and can assist graduates’ entry to the labour market is likely to determine how effective theyare for graduates’ progression. The paper now examines each form as well as the practicaldimensions associated with each.Human capital – knowledge, skills and future performanceHuman capital refers to the knowledge and skills which graduates acquire which are afoundation of their labour market outcomes. This form of capital bears the closest relation toskills approaches given that it is concerned with what and how graduates can makeconnections between their formal education and future employment outcomes. The conceptof human capital was developed by the economist Gary Becker (1993), who has referred tothe “marginal” productive value attached to higher level qualifications in the labour market.Human capital acquired through HE inculcates wider knowledge, technical and embedded,that graduates utilise in higher-end professional labour. In essence, the development ofhuman capital in the form of formally acquired knowledge through higher levels ofeducation and training empowers individuals in the labour market.The strength of human capital, argue proponents of this approach, is that additionalformal education makes individuals more skilled and therefore more productive. This hasbeen a dominant tone in much UK skills formation policy based on the premise that greaterparticipation in HE increases the collective level of investment in human capital andtherefore the productive capacity of the overall workforce. There are clearly cases whenspecialist/technical knowledge is acquired by graduates that is applicable to their futureemployment and therefore enables them to access specific jobs. Such levels of occupationalspecificity reflect specialised knowledge and skills that reflect performance demands andexpertise, for which formal education provides a key foundation.Whilst the formation of occupationally specific human capital remains important forgraduates in a variety of vocational, specialist and certain STEM-related disciplines,in many cases the relationship between graduates’ formal HE and future employment islooser. This is clearly the case in the UK, which compared to the more occupational andregulated markets of Europe, offers less in the way of horizontal substitution of degreerelated knowledge and future job-related specificities (Little and Archer, 2010). In such acontext, “what” a graduate has studied is often paramount for accessing specifiedoccupational domains. Yet even if such graduates do not directly apply subject-specificknowledge, their higher level of academic training is perceived by employers to equip themwith broader skill sets that can be converted productively when they enter working life.Practical dimensions of human capitalUniversity-acquired human capital may, in some instances, be tangible and transferable asin the case of those who have undertaken specialist programmes (e.g. medicine, nursing,law, accountancy). However, in the main, HE provides a general education rather than aspecific training. Skills have purchase if they are applied in manifest ways which impact ongraduate outcome and performance. If a graduate’s employability is closely linked to thesuccessful execution of a specific skill, then its acquisition and deployment are likely to havesignificance. However, whilst this may work in tightly defined occupational areas wherethere is substitution between HE learning and labour market performance, in the UK’sflexible labour market context such links are far less defined. One function of universities isto help graduates harness their knowledge in ways that frame its future economic utility.Working out which skills matter and how these align to targeted industries is clearly ofsignificance, as is the capacity to demonstrate the productive value of generic knowledge.Related to this is an awareness of the language of skills and finding ways of articulatingskill sets and indicating how these may be applicable in future job settings. As Dacre Pooland Sewell (2007) have discussed, regardless of the ambiguous nature of skills, employers341Forms ofgraduatecapitalare at least receptive to this language, therefore making it important for graduates to beaware and able to communicate these back to employers. The key here is graduates’ abilityto exemplify the link between technical knowledge and subject specialism, as well aswhatever generic skills they have acquired, and demonstrate how these may translate intofuture performance.When applying notions of skills to graduates’ post-university outcomes beyondfairly descriptive and checklist criteria, the notion of “career-building skills” appear tohave some purchase. As Bridgstock (2009) outlines, these represent some of themost apposite skills which graduates can develop both prior to entering and whentransitioning to the market in terms of being able to exploit job opportunities.Career-building skills are based on types of knowledge (and related awareness) of not justemployment-specific requirements but also wider labour market knowledge. This wouldencompass, therefore, career-related skills such as familiarity with one’s target labourmarket (including trends, data, skills demand) and knowing how to apply for and accesswork (including CV development and entry requirement), as well opportunity awarenessand exploitation.Social capital – networks and human relationshipsSocial capital in relation to graduate employability can be understood as the sum of socialrelationships and networks that help mobilise graduates’ existing human capital andbring them closer to the labour market and its opportunity structures. Social capital canshape and facilitate graduates’ access and awareness of labour market opportunities andthen being able to exploit them. Bourdieu’s (1986) outline of social capital makes referenceto the resources that individuals have access to as a result of their membership orconnections to particular groups. Their participation in HE provides them with the basisto develop the necessary “bridging ties” with other key social actors (Putnam, 1999). Suchawareness is partly derived from experiences within the students’ social and culturalmilieu and linked to salient social influences, such as family and community members andpeers. The important issue is finding ways of tapping into such resources in the pursuit ofaccessing employment.Putnam’s (1999) analysis of “bonding” and “bridging ties” is important to understandingthe concept of social capital. Putnam (1999) conceptualised both “bonding ties” – theinteractions between members of a group that build and maintain cohesion and solidarity –and “bridging ties” which refer to interactions external to the group. In relation to these ties,social capital is used to describe the resources that are made available to individuals orgroups by virtue of networks and their associated norms and trust. These networks andnorms are significantly enabling as they provide people with a potentially better-informedinsight and understanding of what opportunities exists, where they reside, who the maingatekeepers are and what they need to access employment.The concept of strong and weak ties has been advanced by Granovetter (1985) and is alsosignificant to analysis, referring to the strength of relational bonds individuals form atformal and informal levels. Crucial here is influence that such ties can generate in brokeringtrust, level of information and insider knowledge. Strong ties with immediate significantothers (e.g. family members) in the forms of parental knowledge and networks may be oneway of brokering awareness of employment opportunities, particular when rich sources ofknowledge and information are transferred. However, Grannovetter’s work emphasised thestrength of weak ties in the form of a relatively thin spread of social connections andcontacts – for example, emerging employer contacts – to be influential. The more points ofsocial connection individuals are able to establish, from diverse and knowledge-enrichingsources, the more knowledgeable and trusting they may become towards areas of social oreconomic life to which they may have been less familiar.342ET59,4Practical dimensions of social capitalThe main issue at stake here for graduates’ transition into employment is the ability todiscern and then exploit opportunities, particularly when significant others in their liveshave (or not) played a bridging role in helping them learn about and access employmentopportunities. For instance, considerable policy attention is now given to the progressionlevels and labour market outcomes of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds(Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, 2013), in light of continuedunder-representation of this group in elite professions.It has become increasingly imperative for graduates to be able to develop bridgingexperiences and extend weak ties beyond the formal confines of university. One particularlysalient facet of social capital formation concerns employer engagement, formal or otherwise,in the form of meaningful and gainful interactions between graduates and employers.Higher levels of employer engagement is likely to represent a clear bridging activity,not only through accessing valuable employer knowledge but also making graduates moredirectly visible to employers. A number of immediate ways of harnessing social capitalthrough employer engagement can be encouraged. One is through direct contact withemployers in ways that facilitate some level of reciprocal knowledge between an employerand graduate. Direct employer engagement through career fairs and online profile building(e.g. LinkedIn) are ways through which graduates can make themselves more visible toemployers and enable early bridging to be formed.Another form of employer bridging is through development of work experience, viainternships or other forms of employment, which may establish crucial bridges betweenformal education and future employment – particularly if this provides rich knowledge oremployment opportunities. Such activity will clearly advantage students if they wish toenter related fields of employment. Jones et al.’s (2016) research illustrated how schoolleavers’ work experience not only provided direct access to subsequent employmentopenings, but also helped generate more trusted and first hand of knowledge about jobs andthe measures need to enter and succeed in them.There are other ways in which social capital can be harnessed. Whilst they may nottypically perceive themselves as such, university careers practitioners are a potentialsource of weak ties for graduates. This may well be the case if knowledgeable andengaging practitioners are able to impart valuable knowledge on how to access particularfields of employment and build relations with employers. This extends guidance onapproaching and better interacting with employers, particularly amongst those who arereluctant to approach employers. As the UK Future Track (2012) survey illustrates, thereis a clear need for universities to better enhance networking opportunities and socialcapital amongst lower socio-economic students through extra-curricular activities andforms of employer engagement.Cultural capital: employability and cultural synergy and alignmentCultural capital can be conceived as the formation of culturally valued knowledge,dispositions and behaviours that are aligned to the workplaces that graduates seek to enter.This concept was developed by Bourdieu (1984, 1986) who discussed the transference ofsuch valued cultural knowledge between individuals’ socio-cultural milieus and theeducational context in which it was validated. This is further institutionalised throughformal credentials whose status enhancing functions provide privileged access to the labourmarket. This approach is still valuable, particularly when exploring how the relativeacquisition and deployment of cultural capital, often formed outside of formal education,can provide access to employment (Bathmaker et al., 2013; Burke, 2015). However, in thecontext of mass HE, formally institutionalised cultural capital signalling elite achievementand knowledge formation may be less potent in shaping access to employment. In mass HE,343Forms ofgraduatecapitalthe so-called “field rules” between HE and the labour market have shifted in terms of whatcurrencies graduates potentially trade-off in the market.There are a number of components to the cultural capital approach which continue tohave relevance, partly explaining why some graduates fare better when trying to break intovarious employment fields. One relates to the notion of distinction which Bourdieudeveloped, referring to added-value knowledge, tastes and achievements acquired through arange of cultural contexts and which potentially enrich an individual’s social standing.If higher levels of education no longer signal such distinction, graduates have to do more inthe way of developing these through and beyond HE. The importance is finding how this isvalued in the cultural domains of a targeted employer organisation. Lindberg’s (2013)research on graduate medics, for example, illustrated how various forms of symbolic capitalare valorised in elite occupational contexts and help graduates stand apart. This researchcites examples such as prizes won, conferences attended, as well as other widerachievements, that confer value-added onto graduates and help in the recruitment process.Another dimension of the cultural capital concept applicable to graduate employability isthe concept of embodied capital, which is the manifestation of individuals’ desired embodiedbehaviours and dispositions within a given field. This again is not likely to be ascribedsimilar value across the many occupational fields that graduates enter. For instance,a graduate sales manager may be encouraged to develop and present a form of embodiedcapital that is different to that encouraged for a graduate social worker. Thus, thedeployment of embodied forms of capital is largely referenced against the values and socialmores of any specific sector and organisation, and the types of field dynamics by which itoperates. Embodied behaviours desired within profit-making organisations may be quitedifferent to those in public or third sector contexts. In all cases, the ability to demonstratethe interpersonal and behavioural expectations of a specific organisational field isimportant. The demonstration of appropriate forms of embodied capital via accent, bodylanguage, humour and the overall “personality package” is therefore significant.Practical dimensions of cultural capitalThe challenge to this form of capital is that it is differentiated across the student andgraduate population, which may be reinforced through mass HE. One of the salient findingsfrom research by Bathmaker et al. and Burke on graduates from different socio-economicbackgrounds is the different understandings of field rules, as well as knowledge andconfidence in being able to negotiate them. This is also manifest in decisions andorientations, including in the case of lower socio-economic graduates, precluding areas ofthe job market that their middle class colleagues may feel comfortable in approaching.Likewise, the intangible, interpersonal qualities which employer research has shown tomake a discernible impact on recruitment decisions (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Hinchliffeand Jolly, 2011; Morley, 2007; McCracken et al., 2015) also appear strongly connected tograduates’ wider cultural make-ups.There is clearly a need for institutions to think creatively about how to enhancecultural capital amongst their students. A key issue relates to processes of culturalunfreezing and expanding the realms of the possible, including the development ofpersonal confidence and horizon scanning. The cultural exposure approach, based onbuilding potential students’ confidence and self-perceptions of value, has been a keyfeature of widening participation (e.g. Aim Higher in the UK). This is predicated on theprinciple that if students are exposed to institutional cultures, including its key culturalactors – i.e., current students, academics and managers – this will challenge theirconstraining impressions whilst also potentially expanding their horizons.One of the applications of this in work settings is building up stronger levels of culturalunderstanding and confidence towards targeted employer organisations. This is likely to344ET59,4necessitate greater cultural exposure and awareness of targeted work organisations whichis where stronger interactions with employers, either through informal networks andinternships or work experience can play a role. Such developments have been reported in anumber of studies on school leavers’ employer engagement episodes ( Jones et al., 2016).Key outcomes arising from such interaction include the enhanced personal confidence,stronger visioning of potential new pathways and motivation to achieve. Cultural capitalenhancement is directly sourced in such contexts through actual experiences that providegraduates’ with stronger levels of cultural knowledge and understanding of targetedemployment. Whilst formal technical knowledge of employer organisations may besignificant in harnessing technical-fit and giving both graduate and employer a strongersense of profile alignment, this often needs to be complemented with relevant culturalknowledge. The latter involves awareness of cultural practices and orientations as well asvalues and behavioural mores.Once perceptual bridges have been formed through stronger cultural knowledge andawareness, graduates will need to embody this in the form of behaviours and attitudes thatconvey cultural synergy. Some graduates, including those from lower socio-economicbackground and lower-ranked HEIs may encounter stronger challenges, and potentialset-backs, in this regard (Greenbank, 2011; Morrison, 2014). Further issues reported in theseand similar studies relate to such graduates’ tendencies to downplay wider achievements,particularly those which signal value-added distinction. Yet it may be the case that employerengagement in such institutions can go some way towards graduates becoming more awareof, and presenting more effectively, wider life and employment experiences in advantageousways. Formal recruitment training can further help in this regard, particularly interviewcoaching, whereby graduates are given opportunities to harness embodied dispositions andbehavioural competences which better fit employers’ recruitment practices.Identity capital: self-concept and personal narrativesIdentity capital is defined here as the level of personal investment a graduate makestowards the development of their future career and employability. This also extends to theirabilities to draw on experiences and articulate a personal narrative which aligns to theemployment domains they seek to enter. The key here is a graduate’s capacity to developemerging identities and then warrant and perform this in the early stages of the labourmarket. Such formation is likely to provide advantages if the personal investment peoplemake toward future work propel them actively towards the labour market.The self-perception and self-concepts graduates form around future work can thereforeprovide a frame through which they may be able to channel their experiences and profiles.Both general sociological and sociology of work literature have illustrated theimportance of sustaining a narrative of self, particularly in increasingly individualised andfluid economic conditions (Giddens, 1991; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). Sociology ofwork literature has shown the multiple ways in which identities are formed (or deformed)through the organisational cultures in which they are negotiated. Much of this is to do withactive assemblage of self-images and behaviours, which are derived from broader discursiveconstructions around what constitutes a desirable and valued employee (Du Gay, 1996;Marks and Thompson, 2010; Strangleman, 2012). Identity capital has been defined by Cotethus: “the process of identity capital acquisition describes how the individual invests in acertain identity (or identities) and engages in a series of exchanges with others in a varietyof contexts (only some of which are economic)” (Cote, 2005, p. 225).The potentially significant role of identity formation, as well as other psycho-socialdimensions, has been increasingly acknowledged in broader career management literatureand that relating to graduate careers (Fugate et al., 2004; London, 1993). London refers tocareer identity as the extent to which a career is an integral part of an individual’s personal345Forms ofgraduatecapitalidentity and its centrality to their life as a whole. It also entails their overall sense ofcommitment towards developing a career in terms of being psychologically contracted toparticular jobs and organisations. In graduate employability research and analysis, identityhas been shown to play an important role in how graduates negotiate access to employment,mainly through recruitment.In Hinchliffe and Jolly’s (2011) analysis, identity is presented as a contextually significantcomponent of behaviours and value sets required in specific organisational domains. Theseresearchers nest graduate identity around the four core elements – values, socialengagement, intellect and performance – all of which need to be presented and warrantedthrough discourse and action.The issue of identity warranting has been extensively developed by Holmes (2013, 2015)in his graduate identity model which centres on the emergent identities graduates havedeveloped about their future role and capability have to be warranted or socially affirmedby others. The experience of recruitment or early appraisal of performance may be crucialhere, potentially affirming or spoiling the early ideas graduates had about a job and theirrole within it. The extent to which graduates can build identities, and related identity capital,therefore has a strong bearing on their progression during early stages of the labour market.Further pertinent analysis has been advanced by Jackson (2016) who elaborates theconcept of “pre-professional identity” as a key component of graduates’ early professionaldevelopment and formation. This is where HE curricula and learning have a potentiallysignificant role to play, helping graduates to develop self-perceptions and goals which mayform part of their wider career development. In Jackson’s conceptual outline, pre-professionalidentities are developed through the wider “landscapes of practice” which universitiesprovide. In seeing HE as a landscape of practice, graduate development is not confined towalled disciplinary communities, but can also encompass interactions with employers, careerservices, extra-curricular engagement and other forms of experiential learning. The closersuch experiences actually align to future lives, the more empowering and self-forming theybecome and enable a graduate to project a self-image towards areas of working life.Practical dimensions of identity capitalIf the emerging identities graduates form impel them towards thinking proactively andimaginatively about their future careers and employability then finding ways of developingthese may have some significant impact on their immediate futures. Previous researchindicates that students who invest more strongly in their careers tend to show higher levelof identity capital (Tomlinson, 2007) – future careers are a strong part of their on-going andanticipated future “life project”. Finding ways of enhancing students’ self-perceptions andemergent identities so that they form more cohesive and crystallised career goals may besignificant in shaping the early management of their employability. Jackson (2016) hasdiscussed the importance of the informal dimension of the university experience forwork-related identity, particularly students’ interactions through HE’s diverse experientialofferings. It appears important, therefore, that identity formation moves beyond simply aformal disciplinary milieu.The other key issue relates to graduates’ ability to lay claim to the emergent identitiesthey carry forward to the labour market as depicted in Holmes’ (2013, 2015) research.As Holmes argues, students need to be encouraged to be able to translate potential identitiesinto manifest evidence of the future behaviours and performances that these identities aremeant to embody. Rather than merely reproducing the description of skills, the taskbecomes more one of demonstrating or warranting how these constitute practicesappropriate to future work-related roles and practices. Enabling students to develop thiscapacity may be crucial if they are to demonstrate alignment between emergent identitiesand future performance within a specific working context.346ET59,4The significance of self-presentation or the projection of an emerging employability narrativewhich is attractive to employers relates to another salient mode of identity projection: the CV.Morgan and Miller (1993) have conceptualised the CV as an autobiographical practice,highlighting the significance of projecting and promoting one’s relative employment valuethrough lived experiences. In effect, the CV becomes a key tool through which individualsencapsulate a formal presentation of self through their accounts of their employment, and relatedautobiographical, narratives. If marketability is now a significant component of employabilitythen graduates need to be primed in the ability to present a compelling employability narrativethat conveys their identities. The accumulation of work-related achievements and experiences inturn become markers of potential organisational value. It is clear from research on students’ useof extra-curricular activities that many are now using this as a vehicle towards presenting awider account of themselves, in turn providing a competitive edge compared to other graduateswith identikit educational profiles (Roulin and Bangerter, 2013).Psychological capital: resilience and career adaptabilityPsychological capital is a potentially significant form of capital as it is based on the psychosocial resources which enable graduates to adapt and respond proactively to inevitable careerchallenges. The level of challenge and adversity has clearly increased for graduates leaving HEand fewer graduates expect the process of finding employment to be straight forward.Of increasing importance is graduates’ level of adaptability, not only in terms of navigatingmore uncertain terrain, but also withstanding challenges and set-backs such as potentiallysustained periods of under-employment and unemployment (Fugate et al., 2004). The notion ofcareer adaptability as developed by Savickas and Porfeli (2012) refers to individuals’ capacitiesto respond and adapt to change and flux across working lives. Other research (Brown et al.,2012) has illustrated the importance of various forms of career adaptability-related learning formanaging challenge across work transitions, including learning from others, level of challengeand being open to novel experience. As this research highlights, greater levels of careeradaptability enable individuals to more readily re-orientate goals and make more proactivedecisions when encountering de-stabilising job market experiences.There are a number of constituent dimensions to psychological capital, one of which isproblem-focussed coping towards developing proactive strategies in the face of challenge, mainlyin the form of learning from experience. The key issue at stake is how well individuals are able towithstand what is likely to be inevitable pressure and set-backs over the course of a career, aswell as how flexible they are. Much of the psychological capital concept has roots in the positivepsychology literature and is associated with researchers such as Seligman (1998). At the core ofthis concept is an individual’s capacity to adapt to challenge personal circumstance and establisha relatively high locus of self-control. Chen and Lim (2012) locate the concept of psychologicalcapital in the context of job adversity, such as loss of a job or sustained unemployment, as wellmore widely to a volatile and competitive climate. In the case of graduates seeking top-end formsof employment, high performance expectations and sheer intensity of work is likely to createconsiderable emotional demands. These researchers highlight some of main benefits ofdeveloping strong levels of psychological capital, from higher overall self-perceivedemployability and job search behaviours, through to productive coping strategies.Self-efficacy is clearly important, not only in terms of graduates’ self-perceived ability toaccomplish career goals but also the capacity to withstand adverse conditions. Another keyissue is resilience in terms of withstanding pressures and disruptions in the initial stages oftheir careers in a potentially uncertain and volatile climate. Stronger resilience enablesgraduates to adapt to challenging labour market situations, including periods ofunemployment and under-employment or the case of disappointment in the forms of jobrejection or unanticipated challenge. The more psychological capital graduates can develop,the more proactive and adaptable is likely to be their response in such circumstances.347Forms ofgraduatecapitalPractical dimensions of psychological capitalSome of the dispositions related to psychological capital are more abundant in some graduatesthan others. Other related elements of psychological capital, including enabling mindsets,openness to experience and risk tolerance may also further mediate how potentially adversejob market circumstances are dealt with. Whilst it may not be a straight forward task forthose working in HE to develop a graduate’s adaptability and resilience levels, there are waysof promoting its significance when transiting to paid employment. The more graduates areable to internalise the significance of managing their responses to career challenge the moreequipped they may become at managing adverse situations (Koen et al., 2012).Two key practical concerns arise on the theme of career adaptability. One relates to theincreasing necessity of flexible contingency planning in early career management andguidance and the other is around expectation management and coping mechanisms forinevitable stress and set-back. The first resonates with much of the contemporary literatureon career change, sometimes referred to as “protean career” pathways (Baruch, 2014).Practitioners may need to raise awareness of the increasing movement towards this andframe a graduate’s career goals less around single jobs and job markets and more around arange of pathways, some of which may not be linear and clearly defined. If, as identityresearchers have pointed out, emerging identities can easily get spoiled early on then agraduate will need to reformulate and re-appraise their goals and think proactively and inways which allow them to re-adapt to new employment fields.There is a clear need for practitioners to help manage expectations around an educationwork transition that might increasingly be understood as a “reality shock” (Kramer, 1974).If graduates are primed to believe that, after a relatively smooth (and, in many cases, successful)experience through prior education they will fall seamlessly into chosen pathways this mayintensify the level of challenge and apprehension when faced with experiences discordant withthese expectations. A key issue here is expectation management and the promotion of relatedmindsets around flexibility and career malleability. There is clearly a need for those working inHE to establish the importance of resilience and ways of proactively managing what are likely tobe less linear and stable pathways during early careers and beyond.Discussion and synthesisHE institutions continue to be ascribed a significant role in developing graduates’ employabilityand future labour market prospects. The policy imperative around this has recently intensified(DBIS, 2016). The challenges this brings to HE, as well as the strong supply-side orientation tothese policy goals, has been given critical attention (Wilton, 2011; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005).There is, however, a need to think more broadly and conceptually about graduate employabilityand introduce new vocabularies that connect with its relational complexities and also graduates’lived experiences through and beyond HE. This paper has presented a novel approach, onewhich combines many different facets of students’ and graduates’ formations of skills,knowledge, social relations, cultural praxis, identities and psycho-social dispositions. The formsof graduate capital outlined here are conceived as crucial resources which are cumulative andrecursive in nature, potentially empowering graduates when making the transitions into the jobmarket. The formation and application of capitals further potentially expands the parameters oftheir choices and capacity to act in economically advantageous ways. At their most direct level,they can inform a graduate’s immediate relations to the job market and shape how they andothers perceive their potential and scope.This approach may enable us to think creatively towards resolving continued tensionsbetween relative (dis)advantages emerging from different graduates’ familial andsocio-economic background and the affordances of HE. HE is clearly not in a position tocompensate for either changing economic realities or engrained social inequalities. It can,however, offer emancipatory scope; not only in terms of graduates’ intellectual development348ET59,4but also their access to equitable employment. One of the main features and strengths of thecapitals approach is its emphasis on the significance of multiple resources which areconstitutive of employability, which are acquired across various domains and are notsimply confined to formal educational provision. Capital formation is also, therefore,processual and relational in the sense that capitals are acquired and deployed over time andtheir effects sustained across a range of employment-related contexts.Crucially, different forms of capital feed off, and enrich, other forms. Human capital isclearly foundational for graduate-level employment, both specific and general. But thisalone is insufficient and needs to be complemented by other forms of capital in terms ofbeing socially operationalised in the wider employment milieu in which it is applied.The mobilisation of human capital and its related hard skills and other career-related skillsis achieved through the necessary interactions which graduates have to make withsignificant others in the labour market. It effectively becomes socialised through socialrelations which facilitate access to jobs and enable skills and credentials to be recognisedand potentially utilised. This social capital in turn needs to be channelled through the moreculturally and interpersonally mediated relations between graduate and employer. Thiscentres on the inevitable cultural dynamics integral to the ways graduates negotiate accessto employment, entailing the deployment of employment-specific cultural capital and theiracceptance by employers. These processes in turn are not detached from moresocial-psychological and subjective processes involving graduates’ more immediateresponses to the employment process. Thus, whilst identity and psychological capital aremore personal forms, they can be generative and also influenced by, as well as influencing,other capital formations. An example here would be a graduate lower in identity capital whomay be less prone to making personal investments in future employment which, in turn,may serve to lessen the impact of his/her formal human capital, as well as their ability tomobilise this through the formation of wider social relations.There are a number of united themes in this approach which also connect with otherliterature on the development of graduate employability, including how HE experiencesmight thus contribute. Salient issues emerging from discussion are around employabilitydevelopment through capitals formation, include:• The multi-faceted nature of HE and its many institutional offerings which helpconstitute graduates’ development in numerous ways – academic, pastoral, cultural,political and social.It is this context, which Jackson aptly describes as the “landscape of practice” – seen in termsof the multi-layered, interacting component communities – which can make up a HEexperience. It is through various communities that multi-modal forms of learning andpersonal development occur and where capitals are nurtured. The emergence of professionalnetworks via, for example, employer engagement or work-integrated learning can beadvantageous especially if they provide opportunities for greater exposure to, and confidencearound, professional labour market.Another related issue is:• The significance of experience, particularly narratives of experience, upon whichdifferent capitals are formed.A salient theme here is the continued significance of work experience as an important dimensionof capital formation and one which cuts across its many forms. Whilst work experience is a wayof acquiring further work-related skills, it serves a wider function in bridging the HEemployment link. It also further enables graduates to build up a personal relationship to working349Forms ofgraduatecapitallife that enriches employability narratives, as well as contributing to the potential formation ofearly identities (Wilton, 2012; O’Connor and Bodicoat, 2016). The evidence therefore indicatesthat internships and other forms of paid employment can be useful for bridging existing linksbetween study and the labour market and is valued by graduates, including those with lessfamilial-derived social and cultural capital.This also connects to:• The importance of accessing, presenting and capitalising on experience and beingaware of how these can be used for one’s advantage.Such experiences, as well as the ones students have acquired in and around formaluniversity are crucial in the development of capitals. So-called extra-curricular activities arebetter framed around the enhancement of graduates’ identity capital than “transferableskills”: the key is packaging and presenting them in ways that signal to employersdistinctive personal value. In competitive and congested markets, this has becomeincreasingly paramount. Experiences that can confer advantages in helping buildgraduates’ capacity to articulate personal narratives needs to be captured and presented.When accessing target employment, graduates must embody this and convey it in waysthat convince employers that is aligned to their own practices.There is a potentially significant role for careers educators to facilitate graduates’abilities to exploit and lay claim to the labour market value of experiences and encouragethem to frame these in advantageous ways. This continues to be the case for graduates,particularly lower socio-economic groups, and in some cases female students (Stevensonand Clegg, 2012), who appear to make less of wider achievements or package them aspositional assets. Crucially, a new vocabulary, if channelled effectively by HE practitioners,can potentially have significant purchase amongst students and graduates and be used toframe the management of their employability.ReferencesBaruch, Y. 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