Accessing the graduate labour market: assessing the employability of Irish non-traditional graduates of Trinity College, Dublin

Abstract

Widening participation to third-level education for non-traditional groups is a strategic aim of educationalists in Ireland, to increase the rate of students from socio-economically underrepresented backgrounds accessing, participating and completing higher education. Drawing on the discourse of 'employability' this paper explores 'what happened next?' for 171 non-traditional students from Trinity College, Dublin upon completion of their undergraduate studies. The paper discusses the findings from a three-year mixed methods longitudinal study, completed in 2010, which achieved a 71% response rate, of graduates of the Trinity Access Programmes (TAP). The paper also discusses the graduates' experiences of the 'graduate labour market' in reference to the concept of 'employability'. The experience of disadvantage in the labour market was not found to be a strong feature affecting graduate progression. Although it was found that some graduates were 'under-employed', the majority of graduates were successful in developing professional careers in 'typical' graduate occupations in Ireland, in the education, legal, health and business sectors. An examination of the shift in socio-occupational classification of graduates comparative to that of current non-traditional undergraduate students is also presented, demonstrating the continued importance of widening participation schemes to assist graduates from such backgrounds to access and attain higher education successfully.