Higher education, graduate skills and the skills of graduates: the case of graduates as residential sales estate agents

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. The UK labour market is subject to significant graduatisation. Yet in the context of an over-supply of graduates, little is known about the demand for and deployment of graduate skills in previously non-graduate jobs. Moreover, there is little examination of where these skills are developed, save an assumption in higher education. Using interview and questionnaire data from a study of British residential sales estate agents, this paper explores the demand, deployment and development of graduate skills in an occupation that is becoming graduatised. This data finds no evidence to support the view that the skills demanded and deployed are those solely developed within higher education. Instead what employers require is a wide array of predominantly soft skills developed in many different situs. These findings suggest that, in the case of estate agents, what matters are the 'skills of graduates' rather than putative 'graduate skills'. Permanent

Expansão Universitária E Mercado De Trabalho: Consequências No Campo Do Direito

“…A primeira refere-se ao excesso de escolaridade para obter o emprego, enquanto a segunda, ao excesso de habilidades necessárias para executar as atividades. Essa distinção é realizada pelo fato de os empregadores muitas vezes exigirem credenciais superiores para obter o emprego às reais necessidades de habilidades para executar as atividades (THOLEN et al, 2016;TOMLINSON, 2012). A qualificação também é discutida enquanto subqualificação, para indicar situações em que a escolaridade ou o nível de habilidade é inferior às demandas do emprego, e horizontal mismatch, quando a atuação no mercado de trabalho ocorre em setores que requerem o mesmo nível de escolaridade ou habilidades, mas diferentes daquelas possuídas pelo trabalhador (DI STASIO, 2017).…”

“…No que diz respeito ao overskilling, alguns autores distinguem entre as habilidades requeridas para ser contratado e aquelas usadas no cargo (THOLEN et al, 2016;TOMLINSON, 2012). Os empregos típicos dos profissionais com ensino superior são caracterizados pela exigência de um conjunto de habilidades que os estudantes deveriam desenvolver com o ensino superior independentemente da matéria estudada: raciocínio crítico, análise e interpretação de informação, pensamento abstrato e resolução de problemas.…”

The Changing Opportunities of Professionalization for Graduate Occupations

“…This term is used to describe the growing pool of graduates entering occupations that were traditionally non-graduate. Research on the skills used by British estate agents (Tholen et al 2016) suggests that some employers do indeed hire graduates 15 for reasons other than their university-related skills and knowledge. Whereas estate agents were predominantly non-graduates in the past, now an increasing number of them are graduates.…”

“…Again, in this occupation formal qualifications are deemed to be of low importance. It is also important to note that the skills developed in institutes of higher education are in many occupations not the skills that employers value (Tholen et al 2016). How we can understand the professional projects of new graduate occupations if their knowledge and skill base has not been defined by a traditional university-based education?…”

The limits of higher education institutions as sites of work skill development, the cases of software engineers, laboratory scientists, financial analysts and press officers

“…Yet there is evidence to suggest there is considerable occupational heterogeneity. For instance, a study on where the skills of UK residential sales estate agents -a graduatising occupation found that the site of development was not HE, although it did have a role in developing soft skills (Tholen et al 2016). Currently there is a gap in our knowledge how we to understand effectiveness and capability of HE as a site of work skill development for different occupational contexts.…”