Graduate Careers in Context

Ciaran Burke is an Associate Professor of Higher Education, his research focuses on access to higher education and graduate employment pathways. Adopting a Bourdieusian theoretical lens, he has published extensively on issues including graduate employment, social justice and social theory. Fiona Christie is a Careers Consultant, Writer and Researcher. Her experience includes extensive advice and guidance, teaching, and management in Higher Education and she has also worked in Secondary/Further Education. She has recently completed her PhD in Educational Research with a focus on graduate transitions, careers and employability.

"The graduate employment environment is thematically explored in policy, market, institutional, and human resource terms [...] This is certainly a book with something for everyone, and something that everyone can use."Dr Kate Daubney, Head of King's Careers & Employability, written in Phoenix, The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Service."This is a unique book and fills a gap in the literature. The range of writers is impressive and it represents a considerable feat of scholarship. Ciaran Burke and Fiona Christie have done a great job in not just talking the talk but walking the walk in relation to improving dialogue between theory and practice. Judged on its own terms it certainly delivers on its objectives. Speaking personally, this book will definitely be a welcome addition to the reading lists on our courses for career development professionals at Warwick. I can see some chapters quickly becoming core reading on our modules. It should be similarly adopted at other training centres. It will also be useful more widely for educational developers, university learning and development centres, teacher training centres, HR departments, and, of course, students too."Dr Phil McCash, NICEC Fellow, Principal Teaching Fellow in the Career Studies Unit at the University of Warwick, written in the Journal of the National Institute of Careers and Educational Counselling."With the increasing profile of graduate employability in Higher Education Institutions, Burke and Christie's Graduate Careers in Context is timely and most welcome. Bringing together chapters written by leading experts in the field, the book offers a wide range of perspectives on the subject, examining graduate employability from theoretical, empirical and practitioner viewpoints. This is a unique synthesis of the current landscape, and provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary issues in the graduate labour market, graduate careers and employability, and HE career practice. The book will provide valuable food for thought and is a must-read for researchers, students and practitioners in the field."Dr Julia Yates, City, University of London."This excellent collection could not be more timely. Drawing on leading-edge research, it brings together a series innovative and wide-ranging analyses on the ways in which graduate careers can be conceptualised and practically addressed. The chapters in this collection will help shape the direction of debate on graduate career readiness and serve as a catalyst for further insightful and nuanced discussion around how we manage this process within a fast-moving economy for the highly qualified. This collection should be of considerable interest to the HE research and practitioner community alike."Dr Michael Tomlinson, University of Southampton.

• Foreword: Paul Redmond Chapter One: Introduction – Graduate careers in context - setting the sceneFiona Christie and Ciaran BurkePart One: Graduate labour market: theoretical debates Chapter Two: "Investing Your Future": The Role of Capitals in Graduate Employment PathwaysCiaran Burke and Sarah Hannaford-SimpsonChapter Three: Whose employability? Fees, Labour Markets and the Unequal Rewards of Undergraduate StudyAndrew Morrison Chapter Four: Regional Capital and ‘Local’ Graduate EmploymentTeresa CrewPart Two: Graduate careers and transitions Chapter Five: Graduate labour market mythsCharlie BallChapter Six: Graduate Gap Years: Narratives of Postponement in Graduate Employment Transitions in EnglandKaty Vigurs, Steven Jones, Diane Harris and Julia EverittChapter Seven: Geography, mobility and graduate career development Rosie AlexanderChapter Eight: Learning to be employableJane ArtessChapter Nine: Life in the graduate graveyards: making sense of underemployment in graduate careersTracy Scurry and John BlenkinsoppPart Three: Professional and Organisational issues relating to employability Chapter Ten: Organisational Responses to the Employability Agenda in English UniversitiesBob Gilworth Chapter Eleven: A new career in Higher Education careers workSiobhan Neary, Jill HansonChapter Twelve: Contested Boundaries of Expertise in HE careers and employability services Nalayini ThambarPart Four: Careers Professionals Evolving into Researchers Chapter Thirteen: The rise of the practitioner-researcher. How big data and evidence-based practice requires practitioners with a research mindsetDavid WinterChapter Fourteen: Making connections through practitioner research Gill FrigerioChapter Fifteen: Conclusion - editorial reflections and a call to actionFiona Christie and Ciaran Burke