Higher education is under pressure to deliver work-ready graduates to the labour market. However, setting a target that assumes employers have the capacity, the demand and the funding to support this, creates a huge gap between the ambition and the reality. Bold statements are easy to publish. Delivering them is a different exercise entirely.

How can we expect early talent to know how to navigate a skills-based approach without it being clearly defined?

Ask a careers adviser what they tell a nervous eighteen year old and you'll hear a familiar refrain; work out what job title you want, then work backwards. Pick the destination, plan the ladder, then climb. It's simple advice based on how careers worked for many years. It's also increasingly disconnected from how work actually gets structured, resourced for, and delivered.

The only way for early talent to navigate today's careers is to seek human connection and find opportunity beyond the job board.

For years, a CV has been the go-to document for assessing graduate talent. It tells employers where a student studied, what qualifications they've earned and the experience they've gained. But here's the problem: a CV only tells part of the story. It can't show curiosity, resilience, motivation or the ability to adapt. It doesn't reveal how someone approaches challenges, learns new skills or what drives them to succeed. And in today's job market, those qualities are becoming

With over a million young people now outside work, education and training, the case for a human-centred approach to early talent recruitment has never been more urgent.

The majority of early talent candidates receive little to no credible feedback after applying for numerous applications. Explainable AI may be the solution if designed in the right way and if we ask the right questions when sourcing digital tools.

There are several reasons why networks and skills are shaping the design of today's organisations and it's not a passing trend. As technology has become more sophisticated, job titles and job descriptions have proved to be inconsistent and unreliable when it comes to creating a universal understanding of work. So, how can companies leverage insight to know what people are working on in real time to maintain their competitive edge?

Collaboration between universities and private organisations has become a defining feature of the UK’s innovation and skills ecosystem. Universities are no longer seen solely as places of teaching and research, but as strategic partners in applied problem-solving, workforce development, and innovation. For employers, this shift offers access to specialist expertise and emerging talent; for students, it creates clearer pathways from education to employment. At the heart of thi

Today’s career landscape is changing at such a rapid pace that even those with established careers are finding it a challenge. How do we prepare students for the future of careers when many changes are emerging in real time?

A new DEI landscape Shortly after the inauguration of President Trump he signed his executive order to terminate all federal Diversity,...

Prioritising Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) commitments Organisations have been capturing demographic data on their candidates and...

This is part two in a series of articles exploring how individual capital impacts employability. You can read our first blog from this...

Social capital is one form of internal capital, and a component of employability. Social capital is influenced by one’s background,...

Boundaryless careers have been discussed in academia since at least 1994, when DeFillippi and Arthur wrote about career competencies in...

Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) mean that human tasks are becoming automated. This could potentially harm graduate...

The global economy is experiencing rapid change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Upskilling and reskilling have become more...

From our recent survey aimed at students and graduates, we asked how important is networking in building a career? The average score was...