The results of the annual Graduate Outcomes Survey are upon us again, and across the sector we scramble to analyse our performance in terms of highly skilled employment outcomes and how this might affect our internal performance measures and external league table standings.
But it is worth looking beyond the narrow high skilled employment metric and reconsider the value of some of the less scrutinised questions in the GOS survey. What do they tell us about graduates’ journeys, and how they might inform our understanding of what graduate success looks like? And could this in turn influence how we talk to our students about employability?
The Graduate Outcomes Survey does not simply ask students whatthey are doing, it also asks how they feelabout what they are doing, and about their life more generally. As well as reflection questions about how meaningful graduates find their current activity, the extent to which it aligns with their future plans, and whether they are using what they learnt in their degree, respondents are also asked a series of subjective wellbeing questions addressing levels of anxiety, happiness and how far they are satisfied with their lives and feel the things in their lives are worthwhile.
