Globalisation, Societies and Education

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What really contributes to employability of PhD

graduates in uncertain labour markets?

Thanh Pham

To cite this article: Thanh Pham (2023): What really contributes to employability of PhD
graduates in uncertain labour markets?, Globalisation, Societies and Education, DOI:
10.1080/14767724.2023.2192908

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.2192908

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GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.2192908

What really contributes to employability of PhD graduates in

uncertain labour markets?
Thanh Pham
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The increasing number of PhD holders has led to increased attention to the Received 11 July 2022
employability outcomes of this cohort. This study addressed the current Accepted 15 March 2023
gap in knowledge concerning what contributes to PhD holders’
KEYWORDS
employability via a qualitative approach using in-depth interviews with Employability; higher
23 PhD graduates in Australia. The findings revealed that the extent to education; doctoral
which the graduates could use human capital for their post-study career education; social capital;
depends on the expertise acquired from their previous degrees, the agency
amount of time that has elapsed since graduation, and the positions they
held at their workplaces. Social capital was also found to be a significant
factor contributing to graduates’ career success. Finally, employability
agency was reported as an important contributor. The findings advance
what has been found about agency by providing support for how agency
was facilitated and constrained by both structural and personal
resources. The implications of these findings are also discussed.

Introduction
The national and global policy discourse has been dominated with the knowledge-based economy
(the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 1996). As a result, building a highly
qualified workforce has been identified as a need to meet the demands and challenges of modern
and advanced economies (e.g., Harman 2002; Neumann and Tan 2011). Many countries have,
therefore, focused on strengthening their doctoral education by increasing the number and quality.
There is a common perception that doctoral education is one of the key drivers in knowledge cre-
ation, innovation and national competitiveness (Jackson and Michelson 2015). The significant
increase in the number of doctoral graduates has made different stakeholders become interested
in the occupational outcomes of doctoral graduates (Jones 2013). In Australia, while large-scale sur-
veys conducted by governments and professional organisations such as the Australian Graduate
Survey (AGS), the Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) and Postgraduate Research Experience
Questionnaire (PREQ) provide general information about how PhD holders obtain their job
after a certain time like 6, 12 or 24 months, we know very little about important aspects of PhD
holders’ occupational outcomes. Some of the recurring questions in the debate are, for instance,
how are the resources provided in the PhD programme useful for PhD holders’ career in and
beyond academia? What do PhD recipients have to further cultivate after their graduation to nego-
tiate employability?

CONTACT Thanh Pham thanh.t.pham@monash.edu Faculty of Education, Monash University, 19 Ancora Imparo Way,
Clayton, Victoria, Australia
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published
allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
2 T. PHAM

This contribution enriches the graduate employability literature of PhD holders by unpacking
how PhD graduates developed and utilised their resources to manage their transitions into the
labour market. The paper is structured as follows. It will commence with a discussion of employ-
ment issues of PhD graduates in Australia, followed by a discussion of the theorical perspectives
that underpinned the research. It will finally present how the present study was conducted and
what findings were revealed as well as suggestions and implications for graduates, policy makers,
and educators. The focus is specifically on those PhD graduates who have completed research-
only doctorates, rather than those degrees including elements of formalised coursework which
are more typically referred to as professional doctorates.

Employability outcomes of PhD graduates and associated determinants

Doctoral education has been largely influenced by a human capital approach emphasising the need
for PhD students to be trained with intellectual knowledge and specialisations so that they can work
in either academia or a specific area that is closely connected to their PhD research. However, the
significant increase in PhD enrolment has led to many graduates being forced to look for occu-
pational destinations beyond academia. More than 50% of doctoral graduates in the advanced econ-
omies find jobs outside academia in industry, government, and the non-profit sector (Borrell-
Damian et al. 2010). In Australia, only 25% of all doctoral graduates were employed in academic
positions upon completion of their PhDs (Neumann and Tan 2011).
The diversity in occupational pathways of PhD graduates and the increasing competition in the
labour markets have attracted the attention of researchers interested in the employability trajec-
tories of PhD holders and what influences them. A range of signifiers has been documented.
Many researchers have agreed that a PhD qualification alone does not ensure employment out-
comes (Jackson and Michelson 2015). Instead, these outcomes are determined by other factors.
For example, supervisors were found to be pivotal in various aspects of PhD graduates’ employment
and career motivation (Platow 2012; Jackson and Michelson 2015). The supervisors’ influence was
not necessarily found to stem from the quality of supervision but rather from the personal and pro-
fessional networks they introduced to their PhD students and the career advice they provided. In
fact, PhD students often closely follow in the footsteps of their supervisors and mentors (Jones
and Warnock 2015). Discipline area and institution type were also important determinants of
PhD graduates’ employment outcomes. Jackson and Michelson (2015) found that those graduating
from a Group of Eight (GO8) university are almost 30% more likely to attain a full-time job than
those graduating from non-GO8 universities, and those graduating with a non-medical and health
science-based PhD degree will almost halve their odds of securing full-time employment.
Some studies reported other internal factors as determinants of PhD graduates’ employability,
although the research findings sometimes offer contradictory findings. For instance, attendance status
was thought to be important to PhD holders’ employment outcomes; however, contesting evidence
has been found. Similarly, Platow (2012) reported that part-time PhDs had greater delays in job attain-
ment following thesis submission whereas Jackson and Michelson (2015) found that part-time stu-
dents found employment early. These authors explained that the success of both part-time and off-
campus graduates may be attributed to more opportunities to reflect on and enact initial employment
rather than being constrained by what is available, perhaps casual positions in the immediate environ-
ment of their awarding institution. The implication that these types of graduates are more effective in
seeking employment, more employable, or have more time to dedicate or increased exposure to pro-
fessional networking is weakened by the high proportion securing employment during their final year
of study. Further, residential status has been deemed important with those classed as non-overseas
residents at the time of PhD enrolment significantly increasing their chances of full-time employment
by almost 50% in comparison with overseas residents (Jackson and Michelson 2015).
Finally, today’s competitive labour markets are putting great pressure on individuals to manage
their own careers (Tomlinson and Jackson 2021). Increasing evidence has accumulated supporting
 GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 3

the need for graduates to develop and utilise their agency in strategizing their resources (Pham
2021a). For example, Purcell et al. (2013) examined the importance of the strategies that PhD
holders used to search for jobs and highlighted the fact that different occupations and sectors
required different techniques for job searching; thus, it was important for PhD graduates to deter-
mine and utilise appropriate strategies. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that graduates posses-
sing strong beliefs and confidence about their capacities and career prospects were more likely to
succeed in securing and sustaining their careers (Pham 2021b).
In sum, the extant literature has provided insights into the short-term employment outcomes of
PhD holders and a number of factors that determine these outcomes. Measuring short-term employ-
ment outcomes has dominated the employability agenda in higher education for the last few decades
mainly because the government uses short-term employment rate as an indicator of teaching quality
(Bridgstock 2009). Researchers have however increasingly argued for the need to define employability
as sustainable career because the graduate’s career trajectories often change significantly as they pro-
gress their career (e.g., Billett 2022; Jackson and Bridgstock 2021; Pham 2020; Pham and Soltani 2021).
If only short-term employment outcomes are measured, universities would have insufficient infor-
mation to support curriculum design. Besides, there would be limited insights about how to support
graduates to develop sustainable career which has recently become a serious problem facing many
industries of which teaching profession is a clear example (Department of Education 2022). Research-
ers have, therefore, argued for a broader concept of employability by advocating that employability
involves sustainability (Jackson and Bridgstock 2021; Pham 2020). Given little attention has been
paid to the medium- and long-term occupational outcomes of PhD graduates (Passaretta, Trivellato,
and Triventi 2019), there is a need to explore how PhD holders negotiate medium- and long-term
employability, and to examine how PhD holders build and use the resources needed for this journey.
This study aims to address these gaps, being guided by the overarching research question of ‘What
contributes to the medium-and long-term employability outcomes of PhD graduates in Australia?’

Conceptual frameworks
This study deployed classic and emerging sociological theoretical accounts as the underpinning
theoretical frameworks. These accounts stress that employability outcomes result from the develop-
ment and utilisation of a range of resources. Bourdieu’s cultural theory foregrounds this line of
research by claiming that individuals’ positions and careers are determined by four forms of capital:
economic, cultural, social, and symbolic (Maclean and Harvey 2008). Economic capital includes
tangible materials such as financial assets; cultural capital refers to material objects (excluding econ-
omic resources) that offer cultural values; symbolic capital includes recognisable intangible values
such as reputation; and social capital refers to social connections that come from one’s social pos-
ition and status (Bourdieu 1986). Subsequent research extended Bourdieu’s initial work by high-
lighting the significance of various forms of capital in graduate employability. These include
human (e.g., qualifications, professional skills), cultural (e.g., understanding of local labour mar-
kets), social (e.g., connections with family members and industry players), identity (e.g., career
direction), and psychological (e.g., resilience, capacity to deal with stress) capital for successful
employability negotiation (Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson 2019; Tomlinson 2017).
Most recently, Pham and Jackson (2020) and Pham (2021a) found that merely articulating these
forms of capital is insufficient. To obtain optimal outcomes in the employability negotiation pro-
cess, graduates must develop employability agency. These researchers claimed that employability
agency is facilitated and constrained by a range of factors, including important agentic dispositions
(e.g., beliefs, confidence) and agentic actions (e.g., active engagement, active selection), ethnic
resources, and living experiences. This was because when graduates possessed these resources,
they tended to be more successful in their employability negotiations. The combination of these
theoretical accounts provides a new perspective on the complexity of interactions between PhD
graduates’ employability outcomes and their determinants.
4 T. PHAM

Methodology
Participants
Using snowball sampling, 23 PhD graduates from Australia were selected to participate in this
study. The individuals selected as participants met the following criteria: (i) had completed a
PhD within five years in Australia; (ii) were living in Australia when the research was conducted;
and (iii) had either full-time, part-time, or casual work experience. The participants included 18
domestic graduates and 5 international graduates residing in Australia when the research was con-
ducted. Three of the five international graduates had already obtained citizenship or permanent
residency, and the rest were still holding the Temporary Graduate Visa. Before the interviews
were conducted, ethics approval was granted by the ethics committee of the author’s university.
The participants were recruited and made aware of the nature of the study, consented to participate,
and were ensured that any names used in the research publications would be pseudonyms. The
sample was diverse in terms of gender, nationality, and discipline. Participants’ demographic details
are provided in Table 1.

Method
The current literature is dominated by research using surveys that provide snapshots of graduates’
work experience at particular times and tends to only explore the narrow meaning of employability
by equating employability with short-term employment outcomes. Therefore, to explore the com-
plexity of graduates’ employability experiences, this study deployed a qualitative research method.
This method is particularly useful for capturing the complex relations between associated factors
and graduates’ employability (Lipura and Collins 2020; Pham 2021a). Specifically, this research
used the biographical interpretive method to conduct in-depth interviews with participants. At
the beginning of the interview, the participants were invited to answer an overarching question,
which Ross and Moore (2016) called the ‘Single question for inducing narrative’ (SQIN), as a nar-
rative prompt. The SQIN was ‘Can you please tell me the story of your employability journey since
you graduated in Australia?’. While the participants were responding, the researcher actively lis-
tened to and transcribed key phrases, which were then elaborated upon in more traditional
semi-structured interviews using prompts. As informed by the research questions, the semi-struc-
tured interviews focused on discovering factors that contributed to their employability. Example

Table 1. Participants’ demographic details.

Variable Sub-groups n
Gender Male 10
Female 13
Nationality Australian 18
Chinese 1
Vietnamese 1
Indonesian 1
Indian 2
Age groups 30–40 years 15
41–55 years 8
Field of study Business (e.g., marketing, finance, accounting, management, sales) 6
STEM (e.g., IT, engineering, construction, medicine) 8
Education 3
Linguistics 3
Journalism 2
Art 1
Professions Academics (full-time and part-time) 7
Industry staff (full-time and part-time) 11
Programme coordinators (full-time and part-time) 2
Unstable jobs (e.g., part-time work in shops and supermarkets) 3
 GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 5

interview questions included: ‘What helped you succeed in the first job interview?’, ‘How do you use
your research expertise in the work you are doing?’, and ‘How did you manage to overcome the
difficulties you experienced when starting your position?’ Since the graduates had different experi-
ences, the interview questions were revised depending on each case. Each individual interview
lasted for approximately 30–40 min.
The scroll-back method was also used. The graduates were invited to connect with the researcher
on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) in order to collect a broad range of information
about their social and political contexts, such has their resources, interests, and circumstances.
The graduates were then directed to speak about the connection between these contexts and
their career trajectories as co-analysts in in-depth interviews to provide the context and deeper
meanings (Lincoln and Robards 2016). While co-analysing, the researcher used probing questions
and directed the graduates to certain parts of their timelines, such as their study and career mile-
stones. Since the graduates used social media as the main tool to connect with their home country,
their narratives were surprisingly informative. As advocated by Lincoln and Robards (2016), the
scroll-back method allows researchers to obtain longitudinal data without spending a long period
of time in real longitudinal research. This dimension enabled the researcher to collect data on inter-
national graduates’ long-term employability within a short timeframe.

Data analysis
All interviewees’ utterances were recorded via an audio device and written notes. Both the first
researcher and the research assistant participated in coding data and continuously cross-checked
codes until the inter-rater agreement was 100%. A deductive approach was applied to analyse
the data. The analytical process commenced at a general level starting with the forms of capital
such as human, social, and cultural, as framed by the theoretical framework and then focused on
more specific issues associated with each kind of capital. Specific sub-dimensions of each capital
form (e.g., knowledge, social relations, resilience, cultural fit) that emerged through the respon-
dents’ personal accounts of their early career experiences and outcomes were developed as sub-
themes. Accordingly, the data were disentangled into segments (i.e., a word, single sentence, or
paragraph) so that annotations and codes could be attached. Any code referring to these capitals
was grouped into one or more categories. Then, for each category, any codes that referred to the
same phenomenon as a theme were grouped together. Codes that did not fall into these five cat-
egories were grouped into new categories to allow for further inductive analysis.

Results
The data analysis revealed a number of signifiers of the graduates’ employability outcomes. The fol-
lowing sections discuss three key themes within the scope of this study. The first was the PhD qua-
lifications and professional skills that most of the participants were interested in discussing. The
second was social connections that the majority agreed to be significant. The findings of this research
expanded on what has been reported in previous studies by discovering how the graduates built and
used significant social connections for their careers. The last was employability agency, which
emerged as an important theme from the data analysis but has received insufficient attention in
the extant literature.

A PhD qualification and professional skills

The participants agreed that their PhD programme focused on two aspects: research expertise and
key professional skills. In their opinion, the demands of the labour markets certainly influenced the
extent to which their PhD qualifications could help them secure a job. However, the data analysis
6 T. PHAM

revealed a couple of aspects associated with the usefulness of PhD qualifications that have not
received enough attention to date in the literature.
First, the responses showed the extent to which the participants could use their research exper-
tise, and this varied depending on the connections between their PhD research and the disciplines
of their previous degrees. Those who completed their PhD in the same field as their undergraduate
and master’s degrees appeared much more confident with the level of research expertise they had
obtained from their PhD programme. For example, an engineer who had completed his master’s
degree in Russia and then completed his PhD in the same field in Australia obtained two job
offers directly upon the completion of his PhD degree. He then became a team leader at a private
engineering company after a couple of years, mainly due to his success in securing large projects
that he used his strong expertise to develop. In contrast, those who completed a PhD in an area
that was not connected to their previous degrees were not very confident with their specialisation.
They all thought that three years of doing the PhD were just enough to build a foundation including
research and writing skills and some expertise in the field. A graduate working as a research pro-
gramme coordinator and a project manager shared that the expertise they had obtained in their
PhD programme did not significantly help their careers due to the lack of deep and relevant knowl-
edge. However, they benefited immensely from the professional skills they had acquired during
their PhD programmes. The key skills were time management, critical thinking, multitasking skills,
and stress management.
Notably, most of the participants expressed the view that the professional skills that they gained
and improved during the PhD programme did not necessarily come from their PhD programme
but mainly from the ‘special’ period during which they completed the PhD programme. This
was the case because most of them pursued a PhD degree in their 30s and 40s when they had sig-
nificant other commitments such as getting married, having children, buying houses, and finding
and handling jobs. Fulfilling these personal commitments while concurrently conducting PhD
research forced them to develop a range of professional skills in order to become more self-
sufficient, multifunctional, and especially good at time management. Most international graduate
respondents agreed that they became considerably more resilient, independent, responsible, persist-
ent, and self-sufficient.
Second, the responses revealed the multifaceted connections between their part-time work, PhD
degree, and post-study career. Half of the participants had engaged in some form of work while
completing their PhDs. Some worked at several places as part-time workers whereas others worked
in casual employment both in and beyond their fields of research. Those who had engaged in work
related to their field of research reported that they were able to acquire practical skills in their
research and felt more engaged with their research. This happened because some could use the
experiences and insights obtained from part-time work to adjust and enhance the PhD project.
As a result, their projects became more practical and useful for their post-study careers. In contrast,
those participants who had not engaged in any work in their field of research expressed doubt about
the relevance and application of their PhD research. A couple of participants shared that they could
only apply their PhD expertise after several years of working in the field. This was the case because
when they entered the field as junior staff, they had little power and skills to create changes using the
expertise obtained from their PhD research. Consequently, most had to follow the traditional ways
of doing things set up by their supervisors. However, when they acquired seniority and confidence
in the workplace, they knew how to negotiate and find space for initiatives, many of which were
supported by what they had learned from their PhD programmes.

Social connections
The data analysis revealed that most participants perceived the connections they had developed
with their supervisors as the primary social network during the PhD period. Supervisors supported
their career prospects in various ways. Some connected the graduates with potential employers,
 GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 7

acted as referees, and shared significant knowledge concerning job openings and how to negotiate
with potential employers. Positive relationships with supervisors also enabled them to complete
their PhD research tasks successfully and smoothly, resulting in lower levels of stress and anxiety.
Supervisor support was more significant for those working in academia. These graduates clearly
highlighted that almost all part-time and casual employment opportunities they secured came
directly or indirectly from their supervisors’ introductions. This finding resonates with Jackson
and Michelson (2015) and Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson (2019), who acknowledged the
importance of social networks, especially networks with professionals, for career opportunities.
For graduates based in a particular industry, their employment success was also marked by assist-
ance from key contacts. Some local graduates used their family members, relatives, friends, peers,
and colleagues to secure part-time and casual work before landing a full-time job. A few participants
acknowledged that they had been offered various professional development opportunities by people
they had become acquainted with at events and conferences.
Another theme emerging from the analysis was that the connections that the participants devel-
oped and used for their careers did not occur by chance. Instead, all positive relationships were
initiated based on several factors. Some respondents stated that they had clear career intentions,
so they tried to seize all opportunities to work with supervisors to enrich their experiences and
acquire expertise relevant to their research and targeted careers. They were dedicated and willing
to listen to and learn from the supervisor by completing assigned tasks, initiating ideas, and
being proactive about requesting advice and feedback. These efforts helped them develop and
strengthen their professional and personal relationships with their mentors. Moreover, most of
the graduates shared that they needed to develop and use a range of professional and personal qual-
ities to develop and nurture meaningful relationships with different stakeholders. For example, one
graduate demonstrated his rich teamwork skills by enthusiastically offering to collaborate with
different colleagues, so he was continuously offered casual work that enriched his profile. He even-
tually succeeded in securing a research fellowship due to his rich research experience and strong
recommendations from his supervisors.
Although the graduates shared different experiences in building and nurturing meaningful social
networks, the common qualities that emerged in almost all responses were trustworthiness, dedica-
tion, a sense of responsibility, and approachability. Some also mentioned the significance of mutual
interests that enabled them to develop long-term relationships with professional peers. However,
such a relationship took a great deal of time and investment and required an exchange of services,
meaning that both parties needed to support each other. For instance, a graduate living and working
in Australia for almost 20 years shared the following:
I knew them [their life mentors] when I was an MA student, and then they became my PhD supervisors. We
then worked on several projects, of which two were managed by them as the main investigators and one by me.
We supported each other by covering most of the work of the other if we were the primary investigators.
(James)

Employability agency
The final theme that emerged as a significant contributor to graduates’ employability was the role of
employability agency. More than half of the graduates showed evidence of agentic features (e.g., strong
beliefs, self-determination, persistence, intentional actions, capacities) (Bandura 2001). These charac-
teristics enabled them to pursue and eventually achieve the desired employability outcomes. Among
the participants, three academics emerged as the best examples representing this group. They had
strong beliefs in their research and intellectual capacities and demonstrated strong persistence in pur-
suing their careers in academia. Therefore, they strategically built teaching and research records very
early on and persistently refused part-time work that did not support their profiles as academics (e.g.,
working at a supermarket or cooking at a restaurant). Here, their agency is demonstrated in their
confidence in their capacity to eventually achieve their objectives (Bandura 2001).
8 T. PHAM

Furthermore, several stated that they engaged with agentic actions (e.g., active engagement,
selection, initiative, and reflection), which helped them strategize their resources. The capacity to
be selective arose from recognising their desire to be engaged in the work, which in turn impacted
their decisions regarding how much they should engage with constraints and affordances associated
with their employability. Some had great passion, and thus desperately looked for solutions to over-
come barriers and make improvements. They perceived that their personal and professional
enhancements were not only for the sake of obtaining employment but also for their holistic per-
sonal development, as shared by one of them below.
When you complete a PhD, you will have a voice in the field. I have therefore done many things related to my
research, such as volunteering in industries and writing publications. Many things I did went beyond the
expectations of my supervisors and managers. If you want to become an expert, you need to see your super-
visor or manager as your colleagues but not as someone who tells you to do things. (Son)

In contrast, others only fulfilled their commitments at a minimal level. Therefore, they actively
decided what is ‘judged worth of participation’ (Billett 2004, 320).
I do not define a person with a successful career as someone who is successful in life. Successful individuals
have different choices at different stages of their lives. At some stage, you prioritize career but at others, you
need to prioritize your children and other commitments. Success means that you feel happy and enjoy what
you do. (Mary)

Another important theme emerging from the analysis was the significant role of real-life experi-
ences and self-reflection in enabling the participants to capitalise on their resources. Real-life
experiences allowed the graduates to reflect on how what they had learned in universities differed
from reality and how they had to adjust. Those who worked during their PhD experienced fewer
struggles when transitioning to the workforce. Based on this work experience, they knew how to
be selective when applying their expertise and use professional skills to deal with the expectations
of industries and employers. In contrast, the graduates who could not improve their communi-
cation competencies were often those who lacked work experience. Therefore, the latter often
faced a sense of being stuck because they found it confusing and difficult to decode cultural values
embedded in the labour market. For instance, one graduate expressed their depression when experi-
encing how ‘professionalism’ was applied very personally in the workplace in a way that was entirely
different from that learned at university. In fact, universities and the labour market are two different
discourses. Without insider experience, graduates often find it hard to transfer the knowledge and
skills obtained in universities to the realities of the market (Pham 2021b).
Among the five international graduates, two obtained employment and progressed their careers
based on their ethnic capital. Specifically, one was rejected several times when applying for jobs at
universities and colleges. She then decided to become an English teacher at an English centre where
she could assist a large number of new Chinese students because she was familiar with both English
and Chinese. Another graduate succeeded in landing a job at a multinational enterprise that colla-
borated with clients in his/her home country. In these cases, ethnic capital is international gradu-
ates’ unique or unofficial power (Collin et al. 2011), which these graduates were able to tap into.

Discussion
This research revealed three main issues that require attention in comparison with the extant litera-
ture. First, as discussed in the first part of this article, the role of human capital has been questioned
by many researchers (e.g., Jackson and Bridgstock 2021; Pham 2021b). However, this study revealed
that the value and significance of human capital in PhD graduates’ employability trajectories were
largely influenced by the connections between their PhD research and previous degrees. The
responses revealed that the length of the PhD programme was insufficient for graduates to build
rich knowledge and expertise in the field. Sharing a similar view on the connection between the
length of a PhD programme and PhD holders’ employment outcomes, Jackson and Michelson
 GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 9

(2015) found that part-time PhDs had higher employment outcomes than their full-time counter-
parts because they had more time to seek and engage in professional networking and reflect on the
lessons learned from earlier employment. In addition, this study reported that participants’ pos-
ition, authority, and understanding of workplace culture also determined the extent to which the
participants could apply their research expertise. This finding aligns with Bourdieu’s (1986)
claim that the application of human capital is determined by other forms of capital, e.g., social, cul-
tural, and symbolic. Individuals often struggle to mobilise their expertise and content knowledge in
the absence of other forms of capital.
Second, graduates who succeeded in obtaining employment had not only expanded but also
leveraged their social networks. Their narratives resonated with Popadiuk and Arthur (2014) and
Pham, Tomlinson, and Thompson (2019), who acknowledged the importance of students develop-
ing relationships with supervisors and mentors for career opportunities. While many studies in the
current literature have verified the significance of social networks on careers, this research revealed
novel findings about the mechanism of social networks. The networking experiences shared by the
interviewed graduates revealed that social capital exists at different layers. Most graduates had suc-
ceeded in building informal social networks mainly used for social and entertainment purposes,
such as having coffee and ‘hanging out’. Both local and international graduates tended to develop
these social ties between people from the same or similar ethnic backgrounds. However, a few
graduates had developed deeper connections that were used for professional purposes. These con-
nections were deeper than those at the first layer because they entailed a relatively longer time to
develop (Pham 2020). Moreover, they were often built on mutual interests and could only be nur-
tured when their counterparts had a good understanding of their personal circumstances. Many of
these relationships were defined as contacts with professional peers who often assisted the graduates
in building resources for their target careers or accessing future employment opportunities. Such
resources are found in what Bridgstock (2017, 344) calls ‘professional networks’. The analysis illus-
trated that developing relationships at this layer was much harder for international students because
they did not have contextual backgrounds (i.e., family, education, friendships) to support the devel-
opment of these connections. Finally, only a couple of the graduates succeeded in building very
meaningful relationships, which they called ‘life mentors’ These relationships take a long time to
build and require mutual trust between partners. The partners were not mentors and mentees
but colleagues who supported each other reciprocally.
The final significant contribution of this research was the discovery of how the graduates exer-
cised agency in negotiating employability. As guided by Pham’s (2021a) Employability Agency Fra-
mework, the participants’ agency was supported and constrained by a range of factors, including
motivation and interests, work experience, living experience, specialisations, the conditions of
the labour market, and their beliefs, confidence, and level of engagement. These findings advance
the existing notions of agency in the current literature because most researchers often refer to
agency as the capacity to develop strategies to use various forms of capital effectively and strategi-
cally, depending on one’s ethnic background, areas of expertise, career plans, contexts, and personal
qualities (Pham and Jackson 2020). This tendency has been criticised because it overemphasises
human agency (Archer 2000). The findings in this research evidenced that although the participants
possessed a range of resources, they were, to some extent, constrained by labour market conditions
and employers’ expectations. This was clearly shown in the responses of those who were holding
unstable jobs. These graduates had a PhD but continuously failed to secure a permanent position
due to employers’ high expectations about their research record, work experience, and professional
skills. Under these structural constraints, some could exercise employability agency by acquiring or
acting on particular forms of strategic knowledge or following the rules of the game. For instance,
being aware that small and private companies often used personal connections as an unofficial
recruitment strategy, several succeeded in using their hardworking and dedication habitus to
develop personal connections with ‘professional peers’ who then introduced them to potential
employers.
10 T. PHAM

In addition, the analysis of the graduates’ biographical data revealed that many graduates actively
engaged in constructing their own lives and careers. These graduates had employability trajectories
with a range of struggles. However, they proactively cultivated their personal development by con-
tinuously reflecting on their past experiences, envisioning short and long futures, and working on
possibilities for present actions. These enduring journeys resonate with a line of research that empha-
sises the need to examine agency continuously throughout one’s life course rather than from a limited
momentary and cross-sectional viewpoint (Biesta, Priestley, and Robinson 2015; Eteläpelto et al.
2013). Particularly, Biesta and Tedder (2007) claimed that agency cannot be fully understood without
considering the historical continuum of an individual’s life course. Similarly, Biesta, Priestley, and
Robinson (2015, 626) argued for the need to consider individuals’ active engagement in the ‘inter-
play’ with ‘influences from the past and orientations towards the future’. Here, the life course notions
of agency also allowed for the examination of variations in employability agency wherein the gradu-
ates’ employability agency was determined by the interplay between structural conditions and sub-
jectivities, that changed and evolved. The graduates used and showed multifaceted aspects of agency
differently through their employability trajectories. Some prioritised employment at some point, and
thus had strong agentic features and took various agentic actions to achieve this goal. However, they
also neglected their career at some points due to other commitments, thus failing to engage in key
activities associated with their career development.
This research has important implications for policies as well as teaching and learning pro-
grammes. Doctoral education has been criticised for insufficiently equipping PhD students with
professional skills (Manathunga et al. 2009). In Australia, the importance of a range of non-tech-
nical skills, such as communication, planning and project management, problem-solving, and
analytical skills, in the employment outcomes of PhD graduates has been highlighted in several
research studies (Platow 2012; Manathunga et al. 2009). To address this issue, doctoral education
programmes have tried to embed skills. However, as evidenced by this study, embedding skills is
insufficient to enhance PhD graduates’ employability because the initiative only aims to enrich
human capital, which is merely one of the many other elements PhD students need to build and
use for employability negotiation. Importantly, this study highlights that PhD students need to
guide and build various resources beyond human capital as early as possible.
Moreover, the findings question the validity of graduate employability measurements. Confining
markers of successful transitions to graduates attaining employment six months or even 18 months
after graduation does not adequately capture their employment success (Clarke 2018). It further
risks the continued conflation of employability with employment and overly emphasises short-
term outcomes over longer-term career formation processes. It is important for institutions to
develop and policymakers to endorse more nuanced and broader ways of capturing graduates’
employment outcomes over time. The process of developing meaningful and sustainable careers
is complex and sometimes nonlinear. A number of graduates would potentially be deemed to
have not succeeded in the graduate labour market if the dominant 6–18 month measurement
approach favoured by many national governments was applied. Clearly, one of the first steps for-
ward is to extend the measurement period to at least three years after graduation and then further
extend this to at least five or six years. This will provide a more accurate picture of employment
outcomes over time and how commensurate a graduate’s employment position is with their level
of qualification.
Sampling is a potential limitation because the study only recruited the graduates graduating from
Australia. However, the graduates were from different disciplines and backgrounds, so the findings
provided useful insights about employability trajectories of different groups of PhD graduates.
Future research should extend this research by exploring employability trajectories of PhD gradu-
ates in different countries so that richer insights can be obtained. These insights will then become
valuable sources informing universities to develop effective PhD programmes that can support
employability of PhD graduates with different career pathways.
 GLOBALISATION, SOCIETIES AND EDUCATION 11

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Thanh Pham http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7001-5011

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