Graduate Employability Models, Conceptualisations, Stakeholders, and Future Directions

Employability has become a defining feature of contemporary higher education, yet it remains a contested and fragmented concept. This chapter offers a critical synthesis of major models, conceptualisations, and stakeholder perspectives shaping employability research and practice. It reviews frameworks developed within higher education—such as USEM, CareerEDGE, and Graduate Identity—alongside workplace and career literatures, including Boundaryless Careers, Career Competencies, and Heuristic Employability. More recent integrative approaches, such as the Employability Capital Growth Model, are discussed in relation to comparative and international perspectives. The chapter interrogates possession-based, relational, and processual accounts of employability, explores stakeholder responsibilities, and warns against narrow neoliberal discourses. It concludes by outlining future directions that promote integrative, sustainable, and equitable frameworks for graduate employability.