With increasing emphasis on employability in higher education (HE), there is an urgent need to understand how HE influences students' career interests. Vocational psychological interest literature has assumed that career interest is stable from adolescence to adulthood. Newer conceptions of interest, drawn from developmental-educational…

More than half of PhD graduates work outside academia. Yet we know little of the nature of their post-PhD careers and the conditions influencing them. Further, research to date tends to focus on either individual factors (e.g., graduate perceptions of PhD skills used) or structural factors (e.g., organizational interest in hiring PhDs). Few…

The paper draws on evidence from a survey of Australian and UK students (N = 433) on students' career values and their relationship to their proactivity in career self-management. Much of the dominant approaches to careers have focused on career competencies and adaptability in the context of increased movement from traditional to more…

In recent decades, governments have sought to increase the number of PhD graduates and support their transition into non-academic employment. The UK is no exception to this trend: investing significantly in doctoral funding, skills training and programme reform to facilitate progression into the non-academic labour market. To an extent, these…

Over the last two decades, international governments have positioned PhD holders as vital to prosperity -- and yet, understanding of PhD holders' economic, social and cultural contributions remains considerably undeveloped. This article shares insights from a secondary analysis study of PhD employment in the UK. This study made use of the…

There is a paucity of research into female-identifying dancers as parents, how the transition from dancer to pregnancy to parent is managed, and whether and how a dancing parent can maintain a career in dance. This paper shares findings from a qualitative interview study with (n = 30), predominantly female professional contemporary dancers that…

This paper examines the underexplored implications of long-term international academic mobility on the lives of Turkish academics in the United Kingdom (UK). Within this international context, the study probes how ethnicity, gender, and religion intersect to shape these migrant academics' experiences while working at UK higher education…

When a pronounced taste for science leads researchers to self-select themselves in academia, higher education systems must be able to protect it. By relying on the economic theory of higher education, the international mobility and the sociology of science literature, we compare the working condition in the four major European higher education…

Gender inequality in the workplace remains a persistent issue that impacts upon women from their first point of entry into the labour market. In this paper, we explore the experiences, of 20 women in the UK as they take their initial steps onto the career ladder upon graduation. Adopting an interpretive methodology that uses a Bourdieusian…

Many studies have highlighted the limited 'opportunity structures' of working-class undergraduates. However, there have been few studies exploring how students' agentic internal conversations mediate societal structures. Internal conversation is a reflexive process in which thoughts and decisions are considered in relation to social circumstances.…

This article explores how UK students and recent graduates experience the process of transitioning to the labour market, based on a secondary analysis of 1969 survey responses from current students and recent graduates using an online jobs board. It finds that gender, class and ethnicity all structure students' experience of transition in a…

Rising worldwide scrutiny of the PhD has focused on issues such as return on investment and career outcomes. This article investigates PhD graduate careers and knowledge transfer looking at the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS). Firstly, our extensive literature review of PhD graduate outcomes reveals limited knowledge of HASS careers…

Each month, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) surveys a random sample of individuals who three months prior registered on mba.com--the GMAC™ website for prospective graduate business students. Their survey responses provide an inside look into the decision-making process of people currently considering applying to a graduate…

This paper explores undergraduate capabilities in career self-management and the influence of work-integrated learning (WIL). Career management competencies are an important aspect of individual employability and impact on wellbeing, graduate job attainment and long-term career success. Enhanced competencies among graduates can assist Faculty in…

This article aims to deconstruct the underpinning tenets of the term "newer researcher into higher education." In recognition of the ambiguities of the term, we begin by questioning the nature of the field(s) of research into higher education (HE). Secondly, we critique the policy discourses associated with the term "newer…