Skills for employability? No need thanks - we're radiographers!

In the current economic climate, graduate healthcare professionals (hcps) are facing increasing competition for jobs and where the baseline qualification is common to all applicants, the need to ‘stand out from the crowd’ becomes of particular significance. Within the Cardiff University Graduate Employment and Enterprise Skills Strategy, 2010-2015 (EES), employability is defined and a comprehensive list of attributes identified that are considered to enhance employability of graduates across the range of disciplines. The dilemma for HEIs that provide hcp education is that the skills and attributes for healthcare services are specific and identified within regulatory and professional standards. Consequently these standards mould the requirements of hcp education but the generic skills of employability are largely left to HEIs to interpret and embed within a curriculum that is already very full in ensuring that professional competencies are achieved. The expectations and perceptions of employability of 65 UG Radiography students at Cardiff University were explored using the TurningPoint pupil response system and examples of various person specifications for jobs given to students to examine. Findings showed that while students acknowledged the necessity of skills for employability, they considered these to be integrated within their degree programme. Of the group responding, only half were able to identify the required person specification for a band 5 radiographer, with 10% choosing the example of a retail store manager as the job they would apply for. Harvey (2001) suggests that where once employability being translated into employment was seen as the responsibility of the graduate, expectations of contemporary higher education suggests that responsibility is reciprocal, with HEIs providing opportunities for students to develop their skills and students taking up and engaging with the opportunities offered. To this end, through a collaborative programme of skills training with the Centre of Skills, Enterprise and Volunteering (CSEV) within the Cardiff University Students’ Union, opportunities for development of the skills for employability have been offered within a pilot project for radiography students