The holy grail in higher education is to maximise the number of students in graduate jobs.
Some universities create models that generalise employability: that is, if you graduate from university X, you will have all these skills. This seems contradictory to me, although it may work for their context. Careers guidance focuses on the individual, but such models expect all students to develop the same skills regardless of their career idea. I’ve always felt that students should start from their career idea (however vague) and identify the skills they need for it. Clearer career thinking increases motivation, as plenty of research shows, but I also believe we should show students that it’s OK to change your mind, as long as you explore each choice. This understanding can reduce common student fears of making an irrevocable career decision.
We hope to have found a clear way forward with Successful Futures, a university-wide, mandatory approach that embeds careers skills across all degree programmes (undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD) and extracurricular activities. The model identifies 14 employability skills (such as critical thinking, leadership, commercial awareness, networking and resilience) and maps them against each programme.
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This strategic initiative aims to empower students to identify, develop and articulate their employability and enterprise skills through a bespoke, AI-enabled pathway. It leads the students to reflect on what success means to them. They do a self-assessment of how experienced they are in the 14 skills, check which skills have been mapped to their degree programme, explore career ideas through a bespoke AI chatbot, then complete an action plan to fill any skills gaps between what they need for their career idea and the skills they already have.
Consultation and getting programme buy-in
The project began in 2023, when we brought together academics and professional services staff in a board. Working with academics, we developed our skills model and then consulted with employers and alumni and engaged 108 students to test the model. This collaborative approach ensured the model’s relevance and applicability to students from all disciplines, including engineering, medicine, business, arts and humanities.
The next, and most crucial, stage was to get all 565 degree programmes (undergraduate, master’s and PhD) mapped against the model. Academic programme leads were asked to identify which of the 14 employability skills were being taught in each programme and, for each one, to describe in which modules and how the skill was taught and assessed, and if students were told they were learning this skill. Careers consultants then determined whether the programme provided sufficient evidence for a student to convince a graduate recruiter that they had indeed developed that skill. They looked for examples describing how students are supported to develop aspects of the skill throughout their programme, with activities and assessments linked to named modules, and compared this with the skills definitions from the model. Careers consultants used their professional expertise and understanding of what employers are looking for when reviewing and confirming each skill.
By August 2024, 98 per cent of all our degree programmes had been mapped against the skills model. Any programmes that had not yet mapped could see that their students would be put at a disadvantage, and they complied. (Creating a healthy degree of competition among faculties and schools to achieve the most completely mapped programmes helped!) We ensured all the university’s 185 extracurricular activities were mapped against the skills model, too. Resources were developed and disseminated to more than 1,200 personal academic tutors, who prompt students to complete the Successful Futures pathway.
How skills mapping supports international postgraduate recruitment
Our student recruitment team views Successful Futures as transformational, particularly for international postgraduate recruitment. The careers team created programme-specific employability statements, which are published online and incorporated in marketing information. The team also worked with the Office for the Academic Registrar to embed Successful Futures as part of university degree approvals, so no new programme can be created or amended without skills mapping.
Successful Futures has helped to build trust and better partnership working among academics and professional services colleagues. The university-wide mandatory approach has fostered a cultural change in the academic community, who now share good practice in skills teaching and work-based learning.
Our launch sessions in the first year covered 70 per cent of programmes, and by July 2025, 1,127 students had engaged with the pathway. We are working towards all students completing the pathway each year.
Successful Futures won the best faculty programme at the Global Careers Summit 2025 in Belfast and has been cited as a case study by Universities UK in its piece on creating career-ready graduates. We have already had approaches from universities in the UK, Ireland and Australia seeking to learn from our approach, both in terms of how we achieved our 98 per cent compliance and how we have linked career ideas to skills development.
As a student who has recently completed the pathway said: “I have a bit of a clearer idea of a potential career path now as a policy analyst either within a government job or an NGO. Working in a charity would be the most fulfilling career for me, specifically an LGBTQ+ charity. To do this, however, I need to improve my research skills and hopefully [gain] experience within an NGO, most likely volunteer work.”
At this early stage, we cannot yet demonstrate the impact on graduate outcomes, but we have built the foundations that make skills identification structurally unavoidable. I hope to report next year on how Successful Futures is progressing and whether we are closer to reaching the holy grail.
Katy Gordon is the director of careers, employability and student enterprise at the University of Southampton.
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