2. Employability in the UK

Employability and English Literature

“Employability is a shared responsibility,” says Maureen Tibby of the Higher Education Academy: a responsibility shared by government, graduate and institution (Maureen Tibby, Employability in a Global Labour Market, 22). An independent, non-government body, HEA champions “teaching excellence in higher education”, and Tibby declares there needs to be a “culture of employability across the HEI” (20). What is required in the current economic situation is a saturated approach: “an explicit articulation of employability: in institutional policies, strategies, curriculum design, assessment strategy and staff training” (Tibby, 20).

Let us take a look at employability with specific reference to the Literature student.

Careers/Employability Services

The entry-level employability provision for Literature students takes the form of careers advice, whereby Careers Offices have become Carers and Employability Offices. One “online portal for career planning” is a link to the Careers page. Increasingly, literature departments now boast a careers/employability page (rather than simply a link to the Careers site), albeit that some appear somewhat token; others are more ambitious and interactive. A small number of institutions are now seconding someone within the faculty or department (as opposed to Careers) to be an Employability Officer. Other Literature departments run a specific careers blog, some quite extensive. In addition, several universities run Career Studies modules, degrees, or in the case of Warwick University, an MA. The Nottingham Advantage Award is essentially an employability module, worth 30 credits, intended to make “graduates stand out in the job market” and includes Peer Mentoring for English (Nottingham Advantage Award, Module Guide and Career Skills for English Students).

The problem here, careers professionals admit, is that careers modules tend to be non-compulsory (those 30 credits for Nottingham Advantage are not part of the degree) and non subject-specific, meaning that even if they enroll, “Students view this module as ‘different’ and sometimes prioritise work for ‘proper’ literature modules” Anna Hunter, Reading Employability, Writing Lives .

This “perpetuat[es] a disjunct between ‘careers’ and ‘subject’” declares Stephen Longstaffe in ‘Employability and the English Degree’ (95). Other disciplines at universities do sometimes make these courses compulsory.

According to UCAS figures, English (more specifically ‘Language’) graduates tend to go into the following areas: Education (38.5%), professional and scientific (15.74%), information and communication (8.38%), retail (7.11%), health and social work (5.58), arts and entertainment (5.08%). This is confirmed by a HECSU report (32), which adds the following areas: marketing (15.4% of their survey’s 2015 English graduate respondents), public relations (15.4%) and clerical/secretarial (13%). So should universities work on the existing information or educate and train students to think more broadly about potential employment?

Employability Awards

Employability Awards are becoming increasingly standard at universities, which, in a regular claim, will make students “stand out from the crowd”.

Some of these awards are essentially accreditation for attending Careers department events. Kent University claims, “By undertaking this award, you are showing initiative and forward planning that will put you in the top 10% of graduate applicants.” Kent offers a separate “employability points” scheme for extra curricular activities like roles in sports or Students Union. The University of the Highlands and Islands offers a Skills and Employability Award, including at least one extra-curricular activity within its requirements.

Essex University’s Big Essex Award, subtitled “showcase your achievement”, uses Careers staff to train students to present academic work and extra-curricular activities on a CV. Bangor University, like many of these Employability pages, quotes Peter Hawkins – “to be employed is to be at risk. To be employable is to be secure”. As well as the standard Careers sessions, Bangor’s Award necessitates volunteering as well as extra curricular activities, while work experience appears to be down to the individual student and its accreditation isn’t totally clear.

London Met’s Employability Award adds volunteering and a “reflective written exercise” to its requirements.

Loughborough University’s Award also helps you “stand out from the crowd” but is the first to cite actual work experience as an optional alternative to voluntary work. Exeter’s Award involves a week’s work experience or volunteering alongside the Careers sessions, plus accreditation for extracurricular courses and, notably, strict guidelines about attendance, presentation and time-keeping. Time keeping and presentation are ‘skills’ discussed in the next post. De Montfort University’s Employability Award will “provide £100 to every eligible student to help towards the costs of securing employment” (though there is also a warning that this may not be possible in future years). Although not hugely different to the previously cited Awards, Exeter’s Award carries endorsements from a long list of employers like KPMG, MacFarlanes and John Lewis, who say, “Employers are looking for so much more than just academics in such a competitive market place now. We want candidates who have started to develop other skills, such as leadership, and have got involved in non-academic activities to support this. The Exeter award could be that difference for a candidate in terms of making them stand out from the rest.” Having completed the Award, students can take the Leader’s Award.

There are several more ambitious Awards. The Nottingham Advantage Award includes an internship/work experience element of a full year, including placements in teaching, adult literacy, arts centres etc. (Nottingham Advantage Module Guide 20). However, the Employer-led modules do not include any for the Literature student, so the placements are essentially volunteering, whereas full internships are geared to health and STEM. The UEA Award, is sub-headed, “how far will you go?” and like Exeter has active links with employers, including Arriva trains, Bayer, Enterprise car hire, IBM, Swedish bank, Handelsbanken and tech company Epos Now. Crucially it offers part-time placements, and internships, on top of encouraging extra curricular activities: it also, unusually, includes academic activities in its accreditation process. These Awards then are increasingly edging into a different category, Work Experience, discussed shortly.

University as Network: Links with Employers

In a 2013 GTI Media student survey a very small percentage of students believed that “commercial awareness and making contacts” were important (Tibby, 22). Employers however consider this networking essential (Tibby, 18). Universities now increasingly nurture active links to employers. Durham University’s Careers, Employability and Enterprise Centre has a close relationship with KPMG, for whom Durham is a “target university”, and who specify English Studies (rather than the more obvious Business School) as an attractive option. Durham’s English Studies department gives quite specific data on employability: of students that left in 2015, 87% are in employment or further study (much higher than the 67% national average for Language and Literature) and on a median salary of £22,636 (Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education).

UEA bring in journalists and publishers and offer “networking coaching” and “creative job hunting” alongside a Career Mentors Scheme with former alumni in advertising, PR, arts administration, publishing and the media. Newcastle University brings employers in to liaise with students. Birmingham was ‘University of the Year for Graduate Employment’ in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 and organizes on-campus recruitment fairs and employer presentations and skills workshops, with Birmingham’s Literature MA claiming, “Over the past three years, over 96% of English Literature postgraduates were in work and/or further study six months after graduation”.

The Literature Degree and Work Experience

The Association of Graduate Recruiters’ Winter Review 2013 stresses the need for students to gain work experience, and the 2010 EU report, Employers’ Perceptions of Graduate Employability, said 87% of employers wanted work experience from graduate applicants. The HEA concurs: “Employers may prioritise applications from those who had placements” (Tibby, 18). As English is not directly vocational, as a TopUniversities.com article points out, Literature students in particular need to enhance their employability via work experience. As we saw from some of the more ambitious Employability Awards, universities are increasingly helping to encourage, arrange and support undergraduate work experience.

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) boasts the Worldwise Centre, based in the English School, which organises five-day placements and short-term internships for students. Moreover, as part of the English course, students will “carry out a work-related project for a real client” which could include “planning for a conference, literature festival, writing competition, or exhibition.”

De Montfort University has two work experience schemes: a 6-month paid scheme working with university staff, Frontrunners, and a paid, 6-week internship with business, Graduate Champions. DMU also runs Unitemps for temp work alongside study and provides an Employability Mentoring Scheme, matching students to professionals as mentor, and making good use of DMU alumni. There is also a DMU Employability Travel Bursary .

More ambitious still, Essex offers an entire placement year studying or working abroad at no additional cost. Westminster University organises work placements, including the University of Westminster Associates in Schools scheme which organizes 15-day placements. However, Westminster also offers one or two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) with business. Westminster declares, “University experience should be designed to enhance your professional life” and the university was nominated as finalists for the NUE Award of Most Improved Commitment to Employability 2016. Westminster claims that “over 84% of our students are in work or further study six months after graduation”.

Surrey University doesn’t give such specific information but has an ambitious work experience programme and was ranked number one in the English Studies category of 2016. Their English Literature Degree , has an optional, year-long Professional Training placement, in degree-related professions such as publishing, marketing, the media industries, teaching, creative writing or arts administration. Professional Training placements and has over 2,300 partner organisations in the UK and overseas.

Employability as Pedagogy: “Transferrable Skills”

The HEA insists that universities must “ensure employability in the curriculum is explicit” (Tibby, 19). Teachers have a key role to “support students’ acquisition of employability by stressing the value of transferable skills as well as academic material” (22) Teachers need to “ensure that assessment enables students to demonstrate achievement and progression relevant to employability” (22).

For some universities, employability is a matter of emphasis in fairly traditional Literary Studies courses: a question of drawing out “transferrable skills” from literary study to the world of work, e.g. Nottingham’s MA, while Birmingham’s MA course cites “presentation, communication and analytical skills” alongside “the ability to work independently, think critically and develop opinions” as key transferrable skills.

Newcastle University takes “transferrable skills” a good way further via a dedicated research project, Beyond SELLL which will involve the entire English department, and will demonstrate how “the study of English can significantly enhance employability” according to Entrepreneur in Residence / “Rise Up Visiting Entrepreneur” Jane Nolan.

Employability as Pedagogy: “Embedding” Employability in Modules

The gold standard in HE employability is incorporating employability into the course itself. Nottingham University ran a symposium on precisely this topic in 2013, and the published papers are a useful resource, though it is not clear how this is put into practice on their English degree. Similarly, Westminster’s MA Brochure claims that “Career development skills are embedded in all courses” but doesn’t offer any detail.  

Kingston University is more specific: in the final year, students complete a 'capstone' project as “a valuable bridge to employment or further research at masters level”. Nottingham offers “project-based dissertations” and School of English placements, which blur the line between work experience and embedded employability.

During its brief existence, the University of Cumbria has been pioneering in embedding employability into its English degree. Cumbria (a) makes the careers-orientated modules compulsory (Longstaffe, 92) and (b) includes “problem solving challenge[s]” alongside traditional “close textual analysis” (82) from the first year, thereby moving away from the “traditional essay-exam-presentation” degree. This process funnels over three years: so a compulsory module in the second year is ‘Texts in the World’, building up to their “capstone employability module” (89) ‘English in the World’. This module combines independent study with taught content from the careers service tested, and what is unique is that the course is assessed jointly by careers and academic staff. This culminates in a six month ‘employability project’, which creates a “shop window” activity for CV and interview purposes – again blurring the lines between ‘work experience’ and embedded employability: or “a non exploitative internship”. Cumbria’s English department has stellar National Student Survey (NSS) results.

Nearby, UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) is similarly pioneering in its “focus on career planning in the curriculum”. Boasting two National Teaching Fellows on their English team, appointed by the Higher Education Academy, they developed UCLan’s Centre of Excellence in Learning and Teaching, which was awarded a grant of £4.5 million by the Government to promote employability. Again, a compulsory module in Year 2, a “Live Literature Project”, is designed to “enhance your employability skills”. (Attempts to funnel the employability facet of the course from an earlier stage appear to have been gradually dropped. It is not quite clear whether the Dissertation still has an employability element). UCLan boasts 100% student satisfaction. Teeside’s English Studies degree offers a final-year core (i.e. compulsory) module: Literary Cultures in the 21st Century (English and Employability), alongside an article-publishing project: again pioneering, but the information available online is limited.

This posting then has given a broad-strokes picture of employability provision for English Literature in the UK. This provision is only a beginning, being transitional, sometimes tentative, with more changes doubtless afoot once under-discussion legislation has passed through parliament. Revealing the importance of this issue in HE, the HEA suggests that all university courses should be “audited for employability’ (Tibby, 20) and then subsequently evaluated based on employability results (Tibby, 19).