Skills narratives amongst media degree graduates and students: Discourses of hard and soft skills in education-to-work journeys

Creative and cultural industries and work

The study was, in part, concerned with steering students away from the narrow, specialised skills focus of recent Irish CCI policy, in which education is intrinsically related to practical and hard skills. Irish CCIs have, indeed, been central to Irish cultural policy over the past decade, with much emphasis on the economic development and enhancement of cultural heritage and the arts, audiovisual production and technology innovation (Hadley et al., 2020; O’Brien, 2019). Various national policy reports have positioned CCIs as potential areas of economic growth, and as providing opportunities for foreign direct investment, job creation and regional development (Murphy and O’Brien, 2015; Brodie, 2019). Such reports emphasise the need for a skilled labour force that can meet the skills demands of Irish CCIs, which are specific to specialist rather than general or transferable skills (Crowe Howarth, 2017). HEIs have responded to such CCI policies and, more broadly, to national skills development policies by positioning themselves as in the service of the economy and as creators of employable graduates who will address these labour market needs (Holborow and O’Sullivan, 2017). This repositioning is often resisted by educators themselves, who see education as facilitating democracy and citizenship rather than purely serving labour market needs (Holborow, 2012). The media programme that formed the basis of this study addresses these different educational outcomes through the development of students’ critical understanding of subjects such as media ownership and representation as well as media production techniques. The skills development module that emerged from this study was a complement to rather than a revision of these existing subjects.

The skills development module was introduced because the researcher recognised, and, in turn, students came to recognise, the Irish CCIs as challenging sectors in terms of employment and work. The graduates in this study attested to this characterisation. In addition, media work and employment have already elsewhere been described as precarious, with career management perceived as more challenging than in other sectors that have clearer career routes and more stable employment conditions (Bridgstock and Cunningham, 2016; Curtin and Sanson, 2016; Gill, 2011). The contemporary conditions of media work are said to involve increased casualisation of contracts, ‘flexploitation’, portfolio work and early exits from the sector, all of which contribute to the construction of a precarious labour force (De Peuter, 2011; Skujiņa and Loots, 2020; Wallis et al., 2019). Aspiring media workers report that finding routes into, as well as sustaining, media work is challenging, with unpaid work and internships common in the wider media sectors (Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2011; O’Brien and Kerrigan, 2020). This precariousness is often seen as evidence of a neoliberal turn in CCIs, in which economic risk shifts from the state or capital to the worker (Bridges, 2017; Ross, 2008). Individual workers are made responsible for meeting the needs of employers or clients through upskilling, financial investment in training, ‘lifelong learning’, networking and portfolio-building, all adding to the ‘self-work’ expected in the neoliberal creative economy (Cohen, 2016; Ouellette, 2014: 104; Randle, 2011: 150–151). As scholars have noted, and as this study of graduates demonstrated, graduates of media degrees often report feeling ill-prepared for media work and perceive themselves as lacking various skills necessary for the work, ranging from practical and technical to transversal skills (Ball et al., 2010; Bridgstock and Carr, 2013; O’Brien et al., 2021). In addition, graduates and media workers report challenging education-to-work transitions, reflecting the sometimes ‘multiple entry attempts, unpaid internships, travel to follow the possibility of work, more education and/or training, and reliance on non-career jobs, family or social security for financial support’ that can characterise media career commencement and development (Bridgstock and Cunningham, 2016: 12). Media education is sometimes, therefore, expected to give these aspiring media workers an advantage in the competitive media labour market through skills development (Banks and Oakley, 2016; O’Brien et al., 2021). The intervention undertaken as part of this study was aimed at drawing students’ attention to the skills they had already acquired and demonstrating how they could be applied in employment contexts.

The employability agenda and its criticisms

There are competing views about the extent to which media degrees facilitate (or should facilitate) media career development, as well as the way HEIs have embraced the employability agenda that prioritises labour market needs (Taylor and Luckman, 2020). This transformation in the relationship between Irish HEIs, students and employers has been criticised and recognised as connected to wider socio-economic forces which include: increasing student numbers alongside the massification of higher education (Hazelkorn, 2014; Loxley et al., 2014); the commodification of degrees through increased student costs and/or fees (Olssen and Peters, 2005); the globalisation of education, with European-led programmes like the Bologna Process reshaping Irish HE (Mercille and Murphy, 2015); and concomitant government reports and policies reframing HEIs’ role as feeding the labour market and addressing identified labour market skills shortages, particularly prevalent since the 2008 global recession that impacted Ireland’s labour market participation severely (Hunt, 2011). Irish HEIs have therefore followed other European HEIs in subscribing to the human capital ideology and in turning their attention to the employability of their students and the production of industry-ready graduates to facilitate economic growth and to encourage foreign direct investment, which Ireland relies on greatly (Ashton, 2015; Holborow, 2012).

Following the emphasis on employability more generally in the National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 (Hunt, 2011), Irish HEIs have increasingly turned towards developing student employability, defined as the attainment of work-related skills and competencies useful in employment. The quality of an HEI is then typically measured in graduate destination surveys that place value mainly on labour market participation (Pollard, 2013). In turn, students come to see higher education in these terms and, as both of this study’s questionnaires show, students’ and graduates’ evaluations of and reflections on their studies were enmeshed in thoughts of employability and concerns about the utility of their skills in graduate life. Therefore, while there are valid criticisms of the employability agendas of HEIs at the macro level, this study is concerned with micro-level approaches to developing students’ and graduates’ understanding of how they can action their skills and knowledge.

Media education, skills and employability

As has been widely demonstrated, media students and graduates vary considerably in what they understand their degrees to be for, what skills and knowledge they believe they have, and what their attitudes towards employment are. Wallis et al. (2019) found that, in self-assessments of their media degree, graduates perceive skills acquisition as only one aspect of a wider university experience, thus countering the narrow programme-led focus of HEI employability initiatives. Beacham’s (2000) study of media programme graduates found that they did not directly align their media degree with specific forms of work, nor were graduates committed to working in one sector above others. O’Brien and Kerrigan’s analysis of Irish media degree graduates found that they struggled to generate coherent narratives of the degree programme skills they used in their employment (2020). Such graduates may not make the connection between skills developed during studies, such as communication or research skills, and the application of these in work (English et al., 2021).

In addition, skills acquired in formal educational settings are often perceived to be less valuable than other career entry strategies. For example, many scholars have found that work experience, placements or internships are identified as helping graduates enter work, as is networking, which is a common route into media work (Ashton, 2016; Haukka, 2011; Marsden, 2011; McCabe, 2016; O’Brien and Kerrigan, 2020). O’Brien et al.’s (2021) research on the education–policy–employment nexus of media in Ireland found that there was little consensus about what skills were valuable among policy-makers, educators, industry employers or graduates of media programmes, despite agencies such as Screen Skills Ireland’s (2019) focus on skills shortages in Irish CCIs. While prevalent within industry, educational and policy discourse, the ‘skills’ often referred to are not exactly defined. Nonetheless, this study provides evidence of the need for students to be better guided in understanding the meaning and utility of skills. Equipping students with the ability to define and communicate their skills was one of the benefits of the study, even if there was a persistent focus on practical skills as well as students’ desire for a blurring of the boundaries between education and work. The approach to the study is described next.

Practical skills are paramount

Many graduates and students focused mainly on accounting for their practical skills (or lack thereof) and the role those skills played in gaining media work. The valuing of practical components of media programmes has been noted in other studies of media graduates who saw practical skills as the most applicable to work (Hiles, 2016; Wallis et al., 2020). Many respondents from both cohorts measured the success of their programme and their capacity to enter media work on practical skills acquisition. Both cohorts were also able to list the practical skills they saw as crucial for media workers and assessed their own professional competence in relation to what they perceived to be the level of their ability or experience. Despite the new professionalisation module, then, students retained a belief in a ‘skills hierarchy’, with practical skills at the top. While some 16% of graduates described their acquisition of practical skills as useful to their career development, 40% felt they lacked the practical skills that would help them into media work. 12% of graduates felt there was too much ‘theory’ on their degree programme and not enough practical modules and this, in turn, was perceived to be detrimental to entering the media industries:

‘The undergraduate course was very theoretical with minimal practical experience, I felt this held me back greatly in securing work immediately after completing my degree.’ (Graduate 51)

One graduate felt that the main challenge in transitioning from education to work was ‘access to the industry and [their] absence of relevant skills for entry level broadcast positions. I was very lucky in that my first employer … made up the deficits in my training’ (Graduate 11). Another felt that their education had not been useful since they did not ‘have experience in Adobe software such as after effects and illustrator’ (Graduate 10). Others noted how the skills they had learned or tools they had used were not industry standard or were already out of date. Therefore, they felt unskilled in seeking out media work and paid less attention to other transversal skills that could be useful in media work contexts.

Equally, among the student respondents who had undertaken modules in professionalisation and career preparation, 29% saw the practical and technical skills as the most directly relevant to media work. Like the graduates, those who prioritised practical skills wished for more focus on these skills and more time spent gaining experience in media practice as part of their education. One student summed this up as follows:

‘I feel I need more regular, hands-on experience with film, television and radio production. The experience I have had so far, while very valuable, has been sporadic and I believe that regular exposure to practical scenarios is the only way to significantly improve and be effective in any field.’ (Student 72)

Others (12%) used the word ‘basic’ to describe their media practice experience or stated that they didn’t have ‘in depth [experience] where I would feel confident’ (Student 2) in using media tools. Students anticipating job hunting soon were therefore anxious that their practical and technical knowledge and experience would fall short of the standards expected of new entrants. This is despite research that suggests that media employers often value transversal skills as much as, if not more than practical skills, which can be developed in employment (O’Brien et al., 2021).

Neither graduates nor students referred to in-job training, nor did they feel confident that employers would provide opportunities for developing practical skills on the job. The tendency was to individualise responsibility for having the skills prior to employment, and to task educators with facilitating practical skills development that participants saw employers wanting. In fact, both graduates and students expected to undertake vast amounts of supplemental career preparation – to demonstrate ‘an economy of experience’ – while undertaking their degrees such as internships, engagement with industry, networking and portfolio-building (Brown et al., 2004: 36).

The next section concerns the narrative of ‘skills are not enough’ that emerged through graduates’ and students’ responses and the supplemental labour that was undertaken in the education-to-work transition.

Supplemental career preparation

Both students and graduates felt that employability was dependent on having already gained work experience by the time of graduation; undertaking internships; engaging in career development activities; and establishing networks and contacts in the industry. They tended to individualise responsibility for employment and, if reference were made to structural issues and labour market conditions, this was largely in the context of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on CCIs. In other words, employability was seen as an individual rather than a labour market issue. In addition, both graduates and students did not see education as distinct from the labour market and instead tended to see their HE years as a preparatory stage of labour market participation. This is evident in the extent to which graduates and students felt that internships, placements, networking, portfolio-building and CV/interviewing preparation should be undertaken during their media degree, demonstrating what Ashton (2015), following Gill (2011), calls ‘work on the self’. While this ‘work on the self’ is often expected to be facilitated by media education, the expectation is that graduates and students will undertake it to enhance employability. As Ashton (2014: 283) states, activities like undertaking work placements serve to repair deficits that students perceive in themselves. Many of the graduates and students in the present study felt themselves lacking in qualities and experiences that would make them suitable for work, and they saw this lack primarily as a personal failing or a failing of their education. Rarely did respondents see this it as an economic or industry failing.

This narrative of ‘lack’ was most apparent in graduates’ and students’ references to having/not having experience, with many stating that they fell short on experience when seeking media work. Experience was articulated as formal employment, placements, internships or doing extra-curricular self-initiated projects during their studies. For example, 14% of the graduates stated that their degree did not provide them with enough experience of media work to be employable. While one noted that this was not necessarily what should be expected of a degree (Graduate 55), another stated that they would have benefitted from more opportunities for work experience and that further training and experience were required on completion of their degree (Graduate 7). While 54% of the graduates went on to gain experience in media work, students were particularly vocal about their lack of experience and how it would impact their career journey. One student stated this succinctly:

‘Lack of practical work experience within the media industry outside of university may hinder my entry into work initially after graduation.’ (Student 72)

Many others saw experience as something for which they were personally responsible. For example, several stated that they should have or wished they had sought out work experience. Students’ comments included:

‘I think that the skills I have gained throughout my degree will be an asset to me [when seeking work] but my lack of experience will be a limitation.’ (Student 12)

However, both cohorts referred to a lack of embedded work placements and internships, which they felt should form part of the degree programme. Such encounters with ‘real life’ work were seen as crucial to entering media work, were perceived as ‘demystifying’ media work and were thought to provide networking opportunities. For example, Graduate 15 stated that they would have liked an internship or placement on their programme ‘even if unpaid’. Other graduates felt that, while they had developed skills and knowledge on the degree programme, a placement would have given them the experience to make them work-ready (Graduate 19; Graduate 22; Graduate 25).

The new module did not alleviate concerns about experience for students, despite their increased confidence in their skills more generally. Students were especially keen to advocate for more work placements or internships as part of their degree programme, with many seeing these as a preparation for graduate life and as providing them with a CV or portfolio of work that would be attractive to employers. 15% felt they lacked this crucial experience. In this sense, a degree qualification alone was not perceived to be attractive enough to employers. One student stated that ‘If we … had the placement option I would feel a lot more secure leaving college as I am competing against marketing students … the majority [of whom] have done placement therefore I feel limited’ (Student 28). For some students, the work placements were valuable solely because employers valued them. For others, work placements provided access to contacts and opportunities for networking and these students wished to use them strategically.

Graduates and students also believed that employability could be enhanced through further degree supports for education-to-work transitions – for example, in the form of portfolio-building, training for interviewing and CV writing and developing connections with the industry. One graduate noted that they ‘didn’t know how to create a media CV’ (Graduate 7), while another stated that ‘It would have been great to have more of an opportunity to build … contacts throughout college’ (Graduate 17). 12% of the graduates referred to direct job-hunting support, with one stating that they would have liked to learn ‘how to apply for different jobs and where to approach, be it individuals, production companies directly or agencies’ (Graduate 21). Graduates therefore felt that their degree should have offered more opportunities for career development and professionalisation.

Students also identified the same career preparation activities as important for their career advancement, and, following their undertaking of the professionalisation module, felt more confident in this. They reported that the module had assisted them with job hunting, interviewing and CV preparation because it had helped them to reflect on and communicate the skills they had already acquired in their studies and to identify alignment between their skills and job roles. While both graduates and students prioritised practical skills and experience and felt the need to attain and evidence these in order to enhance employability, attitudes to transversal skills differed greatly, with the students far more likely to see a role for these skills in education-to-work transitions. The next section discusses these attitudes to transversal skills and the role the module played in building students’ confidence in their employability.

Transversal skills enhance employability

The main success of this study’s intervention was the improved recognition of transversal skills, referred to by the students more generally as soft and transferable skills and which featured very little in the graduates’ responses, particularly among those who had graduated in more recent years. Subject expertise and specialisation were largely associated with technical and practical skills acquisition, with few graduates referring to research skills, interpersonal or communication skills or teamwork skills, which were also part of their degrees. The capacity to identify and communicate transversal skills is particularly important in the context of employability, since CCI employers and policy-makers have noted that there is a shortage of such skills in the creative labour market (Screen Skills Ireland, 2019). In addition, recent research by Succi and Canovi (2019: 1835) suggests that soft skills now play a more important role in employability in the European context, but attention has tended to concentrate on hard or technical skills. Drawing from an extensive literature on the topic of soft skills, they define them as ‘communication, teamwork, problem solving, critical and innovative thinking, creativity, self-confidence, ethical understanding, capacity of lifelong learning, the ability to cope with uncertainty, as well as the willingness to accept responsibility’ (2019: 1836–37).

Even though soft skills such as those listed were central to the media programmes undertaken by graduates, few (8%) were able to name them or see their relevance to their employability. However, when asked what they enjoyed most about their current jobs, 33% mentioned creativity, teamwork and collaboration, communication and their adaptability to a changing industry. Graduate 14, for example, stated:

‘I love being part of a team and creating something that will entertain or inform people. Every day brings something different so it rarely gets boring. I enjoy the variety of different productions you can work on and the energetic and collaborative atmosphere in most work environments.’

In other words, graduates valued the rewards accrued from possession of those skills but did not associate their acquisition of transversal skills with their media programme. As Hurrell (2016) notes, skills deficits are often blamed on ‘supply side’ issues, with educators and graduates blamed by employers for not having transversal skills appropriate for employment. Likewise, Gleeson and Keep (2004) note that employers can blame educators for not creating work-ready and employable graduates. Ultimately, graduates themselves bear the brunt of this blame-game, and, as the research undertaken here shows, feel underprepared and under-skilled for work.

It was, indeed, because of these findings from the graduate questionnaire that the researcher developed the new module in order to develop students’ understanding of the alignment between transversal skills and media and non-media work (for example, through industry speaker talks and examination of job roles and job advertisements). Students were tasked with identifying a broad range of skills they had acquired and with mapping these onto roles in the media industries. Exercises included undertaking a skills audit, identifying entry-level roles in media industries, using a SWOT analysis to identify individual and structural factors affecting employability, creating a professional social media account and a CV, and self-initiating a portfolio project that showcased a broad range of skills. Students undertook the questionnaire as part of a reflective exercise to identify the challenges they perceived in gaining media work, the opportunities they saw, the skills they felt they had and the skills they perceived employers to be expecting.

Although this module lasted for one semester only, the vast majority of students were able to articulate the alignment between the soft skills development undertaken during their degree and media work. While technical and hard skills were primarily named as enhancing their employability (44% referenced these skills), there was far broader reference to soft skills including teamwork (25%), research skills (22%), writing skills (21%), communication skills (17%) and critical thinking skills (15%). Students were also able to identify instances in either work or study when they had put these skills into practice. For example:

‘I have developed many skills I would have never developed before. In soft skills, I have developed my teamwork skills which I was not very good at before starting this degree, and have learnt to not always micromanage the project. I have also learnt to develop and change how I work depending on the situation I am in, which makes these skills easily transferable.’ (Student 11)

When asked what skills they thought employers valued, transversal skills featured heavily in students’ responses. In fact, although students listed technical and hard skills as their greatest deficit, these same skills were not perceived to be priorities for employers. Instead graduates felt that personal skills (such as adaptability, reliability) (33%), teamwork (26%), work ethic (13%), and communication (10%) were more important to employers. Therefore, while the professionalisation module seemed to have little impact on students’ (lack of) confidence in their technical and hard skills, it helped them to recognise the role and importance of transversal skills in work.