Embedding employability into the curriculum: five recommendations to improve widening participation students’ graduate employability

Abstract

Ensuring students succeed during and beyond their degree, no matter their background, ethnicity, disability or demographic has been outlined in the mission of the English higher education regulator, the Office for Students (Office for Students, 2018). Additionally, there are endless strategies, agendas, research projects and discussions around improving Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) within universities, yet there is less literature relating to EDI activity relating to graduate employability. This paper argues that the areas where greater attention is required within EDI is the work of academics and careers support services, to enhance graduate outcomes, through the development of core employment and recruitment skills (Underwood, 2022), through embedding professional literacies into the curriculum. From making parallels with strategies to support academic literacies, this paper argues that certain employability development elements should be embedded into the core assessed curriculum of degrees, to support all students in developing their professional literacies.