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Describes career‐related experiences of over 1,000 graduates in the first few years of their careers in eight organizations, along with the perceptions of their bosses. Long‐term career prospects were an important factor in graduates′ decisions to join their organization, but the degree of importance varied substantially between organizations. Subsequent to joining, most graduates experienced low Career Clarity: that is, they found it difficult to identify short‐term and long‐term career possibilities in their organization. This eroded their organizational commitment. Graduates perceived a moderate amount of support from organizational systems for their career development, but also considerable barriers which they could not control. Their bosses had significantly more positive views of graduate career opportunities in the organization than the graduates. A case study of one organization illustrates some issues in managing graduate careers.

Graduate underemployment continues to be a serious and growing problem in the UK. Yet, there is a scarcity of research that has attempted to identify the nature, extent and specificity of the problem. This study examines the opportunity for skill use (skill requirements of the job, personal skill levels, congruence between these two measures) and intrinsic (job, career, life satisfaction) and extrinsic career success (salary, promotion) amongst underemployed graduates. Appropriately employed graduates (those who were in jobs for which they required their degree) were used as a comparison group. Questionnaire data were collected from 203 business graduates in the UK. The key findings suggested that underemployed graduates reported significantly lower levels of opportunity for skill use and intrinsic (job, career, life satisfaction) and extrinsic career success (salary). The implications of these findings and avenues for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to understand how universities and organizations have responded to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of preparing university students and recent graduates to enter the global labor market, using the accounting, banking and finance sector as a case study. The two research questions are (1) How can university career services and organizations work individually and collaboratively to best develop early career talent following the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What are the challenges that university career services and organizations face when working individually or collaboratively to develop early career talent following the COVID-19 pandemic?

The data for thematic analysis comes from 36 semi-structured interviews with career advisors (CAs) (n = 19) and graduate recruiters (GRs) (n = 17).

This study offers some of the first findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to ensure that organizational behavior and career theory literature reflect the dramatically changing landscape in the university-to-work transition.

Theoretically, our contribution comes from applying a framework of the career construction theory (CTT) within the context of a career ecosystem to understand the views of the intermediary, meso-level actors, which, to date, have lacked representation within career literature. Practically, we provide an insightful bridge between universities and organizations, offering opportunities for greater collaboration, and enhanced outcomes for all stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible implications for graduate employability of the economic changes which are affecting the UK in the wake of the “credit crunch”. It explores the changing economic context and its implications both for HEIs and for graduates starting their careers.

The article uses current surveys and analysis of the graduate employment market, the labour market and the economy in general to identify and comment on possible trends and scenarios.

There appear to be variations between general media coverage of “the state of the UK economy”, which tend to emphasise bad news and survey data, which suggest that the outlook for graduate career prospects and employability remains reasonably strong. The article comments on the increasing connections between enterprise and employability which are being made by universities and summarises current developments in graduate employability and enterprising learning in order to assess how well‐prepared graduates are for the emerging economic environment, and the associated implications for HEIs and educators.

The article has practical implications for enterprise educators and careers and employability professionals within universities as well as for students. It recommends that graduates need a higher level of economic literacy in order to make informed career changes in the changing economic context. A proposal for further research to explore the topic is suggested.

The article is intentionally speculative and aims to inform the discussion on the changing nature of graduate employability and enterprise in the context of rapid economic changes.

Although there is increasing evidence that the creative industries are essential to national economic growth as well as social and cultural well‐being, creative graduates often find it difficult to become established professionally. This study aims to investigate the value of career management competence and intrinsic career motivations (as elements of “protean career orientation”) in predicting positive graduate outcomes.

Self‐report surveys were administered to 208 creative industries graduates from two Australian universities at two points in time: at course completion, and one year later.

The paper finds that individual career management competence and intrinsic work motivations, measured at course completion, were significant predictors of early career success, using both subjective and objective measures, measured one year later.

This study suggests that an emphasis on student development beyond the traditional “key” employability skills may well be worthwhile. The paper also suggests a broad learning and teaching approach by which universities can encourage the development of student career identity, and thus engender student intrinsic career motivations and career self management skills and behaviours.

This is one of the first studies to demonstrate empirically a link between a particular set of skills and graduate outcomes. In addition, it provides insights into the role of student career motivations in positive transitions to the world of work in the creative industries.

Existing research on the early careers of graduates has provided some useful information but has also suffered from several limitations. It has not examined the full range of graduate experiences, nor has it investigated differences between organizations or stages in early career. Reports a study designed to overcome these and other limitations. Presents data concerning the reported experiences of 797 graduates in the first three years of their careers with eight substantial UK‐based recruiters of graduates. The most pervasive finding is that graduates’ experiences varied a great deal between organizations. Thus it is important for managers and researchers to evaluate individual organizations rather than using aggregated data. Nevertheless, some general statements can be made. Graduates felt their social relationships at work were harmonious, but this co‐existed with less than adequate performance feedback from bosses, and some negative opinions about colleagues. They tended to feel that career prospects in the organization were fairly attractive, but were unsure about exactly what paths were available, or how to get onto them. Graduates generally did not feel their work taxed their skills, but it nevertheless developed them, and offered considerable autonomy. Training courses were rated quite positively, but some doubt was expressed about the overall planning of training and development. Organizational systems were seen as neither helpful nor obstructive. Perceptions of the adequacy of pay and benefits varied greatly between companies. With increasing tenure, graduates’ work involved more decision making and supervision of others, but not more autonomy or visibility within the company. Training was perceived more positively in the first year than subsequently. Graduates did not become clearer about career paths with increasing tenure. Overall these results paint a complex and differentiated view of graduate experiences at work. Some trends identified in other work are confirmed, but others are not. Specific areas of concern are identified. The data provide a benchmark against which other organizations can be compared.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptually articulate the differing needs of graduates and graduate employers, which can be competing or complementary in nature. Drawing from theoretical frameworks of career ecosystems and the new psychological contract, a set of propositions are presented using three themes: career management, development of talent and technological change.

A conceptual design offering a conceptual model through adopting the career ecosystem and new psychological contract as a framework.

These propositions offer a new conceptual model, which provides a practical contribution by articulating sustainability of graduates’ careers through employability at the graduate level and competitive advantage at the employer level.

The paper offers important contributions to theory by connecting career management and vocational career literature through acknowledging shared constructs of life-long learning and sustainable employability for graduates. These two streams are often developed in parallel, thus this paper helps to bridge the gaps in respective research agendas. This paper therefore has the originality of helping to advance the fields of career theory and sustainable human resource management.

To increase the understanding of how entrepreneurship education impacts entrepreneurial careers, the purpose of the paper is to investigate the role that a venture creation program (VCP) might have in mitigating or surpassing a lack of other antecedents of entrepreneurial careers. In particular, the authors focus on entrepreneurial pedigree and prior entrepreneurial experience.

Data from graduates of VCPs at three universities in Northern Europe were collected through an online survey. Questions addressed graduate background prior to education, yearly occupational employment subsequent to graduation and graduates' own perceptions of entrepreneurial activity in employment positions. The survey was sent to 1,326 graduates and received 692 responses (52.2% response rate).

The type of VCP, either independent (Ind-VCP) or corporate venture creation (Corp-VCP), influenced the mitigation of prior entrepreneurial experience. Prior entrepreneurial experience, together with Ind-VCP, made a career as self-employed more likely. However, this was not the case for Corp-VCP in subsequently choosing intrapreneurial careers. Entrepreneurial pedigree had no significant effect on career choice other than for hybrid careers.

Entrepreneurial experience gained from VCPs seems to influence graduates toward future entrepreneurial careers. Evidence supports the conclusion that many VCP graduates who lack prior entrepreneurial experience or entrepreneurial pedigree can develop sufficient entrepreneurial competencies through the program.

This study offers novel evidence that entrepreneurship education can compensate for a lack of prior entrepreneurial experience and exposure for students preparing for entrepreneurial careers.

This paper aims to evaluate the career patterns and global mobility trajectories of hospitality and tourism graduates that are relevant for global knowledge and local talent management.

This study maps and assesses the public profiles of over 2,000 hospitality and tourism graduates from five institutions each from a different territory using a popular online professional network.

The findings highlight a network of worldwide mobility from hospitality and tourism graduates of the five institutions. The findings also suggest five different types of mobility trajectories (i.e. stateside, intra-regional, continental, inter-regional and global) and career patterns (i.e. rooted, prospector, seeker, two-homes and wanderer).

Geographical mobility of graduates in tourism and hospitality is one of the less studied phenomena; however, it is important to understand due to growing concerns regarding globalization of the workplace and internationalization of education.

This study provides insights into how knowledge transfer and talent management could be impacted by the global graduate movements.

This is one of the first studies to date to combine mobility trajectories with a classification of career patterns to provide implications relevant for global knowledge and local talent management.

If IS educators are to provide their students with an understanding of the overall context in which they will develop professional careers, they must have good information about graduates’ employment destinations and their workforce experiences. That information is difficult to obtain from standard data collections. This paper explores the early job experiences of IS graduates using survey and interview data. While the graduates have a strong IS professional orientation and experience friendly work environments, their expectations of access to interesting work, career advice and opportunities for advancement appear to outstrip their experience in the workplace.