Title: The influence of the curriculum, individual characteristics, recruitment policies and the labour market on graduate employability

Authors: Esther van der Schoot

Addresses: Department of Human Resource Management, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands

Abstract: Nowadays, graduates need to cope with an increasing diversity and complexity of care situations in healthcare organisations. For this reason, it has been decided to broaden curricula. So far, research on the development and effects of broad curricula has been restricted. This is remarkable, given the fact that over the last 20 years significant investments have been made in developing curricula that supposedly fulfil the requirements of the labour market. This article describes an empirical study in which the main focus has been on the influence of the curriculum on the employability of nursing and healthcare graduates in the Netherlands. From comparable studies it is known that other factors – such as the individual characteristics of graduates, the recruitment policies of healthcare organisations and labour market factors - also influence the position of graduates in the labour market. For this reason, these factors have also been included in this study.

Keywords: employability; curriculum; on-the-job training; education policy; individual characteristics; recruitment policies; labour market; nursing and healthcare sector; qualitative empirical study.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2003.002418

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2003 Vol.3 No.2, pp.171-179

Published online: 17 Jul 2003 *

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