International Students’ Employability: What Can We Learn from It?

Abstract

The rising number of internationally mobile students has changed the global higher education landscape, with many countries competing to attract such students, particular the ‘best’ students. We may have learnt a great deal about international students’ academic/social experiences in host countries through volumes of research in this area, but there is a severe lack of attention to their experiences of transition to employment. Although as a diversely framed discourse, ‘employability’ – as a central connector in the transition between the university and labour market – is commonly discussed within a narrow national focus. Drawing upon some empirical evidence of international students’ experiences of transition to the labour market, this chapter illustrates how studying international students’ employability as the means by which they actively approach and engage with labour markets allows us to enhance our understanding of the concept of employability through the inclusion of wider contextual variables that have been brought into the discussion.