International education, the formation of capital and graduate employment: Chinese accounting graduates’ experiences of the Australian labour market

Who are gaining the highly paid elite placements in UK higher education?

“…We are not aware of previous studies of the relationship between the work experience participation and social class while controlling for academic results, age, gender and ethnicity and of the association between academic results and financial rewards of work experience while controlling for social class, age, gender and ethnicity. The positive correlation between academic results and the placement participation is consistent with prior studies which show the importance of good academic performance in securing placements (Crawford & Wang, 2015aDuignan, 2003;Gomez et al, 2004;Jones et al, 2015) and interview studies investigating the recruitment process for graduate jobs in leading accounting practices (Annisette & Kirkham, 2007;Blackmore et al, 2015;Cheng, Kang, Roebuck, & Simnett, 2009;Duff, 2017). Similarly, the strong link between academic results and placement salary supports the human capital theory of equating academic results to individual productivity (Becker, 1964;Bills, 2003;Schultz, 1961) and in line with prior studies which identify a positive correlation between earnings and/or salary after graduation and grades (Kittelsen Røberg & Helland, 2017;Roth & Clarke, 1998).…”

“…The meritocratic nature of allocating paid yearlong placements may contradict some interview studies exploring the recruitment and promotion process in elite accounting firms by interviews (Blackmore et al, 2015;Duff et al, 2007;Jacobs, 2003;Kim, 2004aKim, , 2004bKim, , 2008Kornberger et al, 2010), but can be explained by other interview studies revealing a class change in elite accounting and banking industries in recent decades (Ashley & Empson, 2016;Riach & Cutcher, 2014;Spence, Dambrin, Carter, Husillos, & Archel, 2015). Traders in financial firms and partners in the leading four accounting firms are often the product of state schools and provincial universities and of working or low middle class.…”

“…Traditionally, elite professions and firms exclusively recruit from elite institutions and offer highly paid graduate jobs to those who have possessed the right sort of manners, interests and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1998;Rivera, 2011;Tholen et al, 2013). This recruitment practice is evident in accounting professions as extant studies show that graduates from upper middle class families are preferred to working class graduates (Blackmore, Gribble, & Rahimi, 2015;Jacobs, 2003). However, if educational elites are not competing for yearlong placements, elite firms would have to adopt an alternative recruitment method for placement candidates instead of traditional selection criteria for graduate trainees.…”

Employability of international students: Strategies to enhance their experience on work-integrated learning (WIL) programs

“…Needless to say, communication is an important functioning tool in the workplace, especially in today's world when connectivity is growing as a key for success in various areas (Martin & Rizvi, 2014), creating stronger demands for both teamwork and collaboration. This explains why communication has often been ranked as the top employability skill required by employers Blackmore, Gribble & Rahimi, 2017). Unfortunately, all of the studies reported in Table 1 have evidenced that international students had an inadequate proficiency in English language which caused confusion, miscommunication and incorrect interpretation of mentor's and supervisors' instructions in the workplace (Birrell, Healy, & Kinnaird, 2007).…”

Accounting and Finance Graduate Employment Outcomes: Underemployment, Self‐employment and Managing Diversity

“…Australian universities draw significant revenue from international education, particularly from Chinese students studying commerce and – more specifically – accounting (Blackmore et al. ). Blackmore and colleagues acknowledge that many of these students seek relevant work experience to gain positional advantage in their domestic graduate labour market which is experiencing high levels of unemployment in business/commerce.…”