As our students leave university, whether having completed an undergraduate degree or a postgraduate degree course, competition in the job market means that whatever the qualification gained, applicants for jobs have to demonstrate more than simply that they have achieved a degree from a particular university if they are to find themselves on the shortlist. More and more school leavers are choosing to go to university these days, and that inevitably means that there are more graduates looking for jobs; long gone are the days when having a degree put you in the category of a very small minority. When the economy is not strong, there are even more pressures, as organisations take on fewer employees and the turnover of staff is reduced. Whether the case or not, employers often bemoan the fact that while graduates may well have successfully undertaken a degree course at university, they are often ill-equipped to deal with the realities of the workplace, lacking the so-called ‘soft skills’ that are required in any workplace. Employers also say that while they have in front of them evidence of the award, and a transcript showing the marks/grades for each module/unit taken, this does not help them much in the selection process given that these do not show attributes such as the ability to work well in a team, to be reliable, to be punctual or to be an effective leader. Applicants may well claim that they possess such skills and abilities in their CV/resume (writing things such ‘able to collaborate well in a team’), but this does not necessarily mean that they actually have them. It is also claimed that our graduates, while they are with us as undergraduates or postgraduates, are not as good as they should be at identifying their own strengths and weaknesses and showcasing their strengths in the applications that they make. If an employer has, say, 1000 applications in front of them, whether on paper or having been submitted online (where software may be used to sift out the ones that get rejected/go forward), this might mean that the applicant who fails to provide evidence of their excellent skills and abilities is not shortlisted for interview. Getting to the interview stage does not necessarily lead to a job offer but if we fail to make the shortlist in the first place then it goes without saying that we will never get the job. Whether the case or not, it is claimed that today’s generation are much more ‘fragile’ than those of yesteryear, and therefore they take rejection far more to heart. As those of us know from our own experience, when our students apply for internships, if they get two or three rejections at the start, they are quickly dejected and can easily simply give up applying for more unless we intervene and spur them on. As our role is, in part, to help our graduates make the transition from university to a fulfilling role in whatever work they choose to do, what might we ourselves do, as institutions, to make the achievements of our graduates more visible to future employers or to anyone else? We currently provide a certificate/a transcript, but these show only marks/grades. As the first article in this issue shows, there is currently much interest in what are called ‘digital credentials’. Its authors, Kelly K Miller, Trina Jorre de St Jorre, Jan M West and Elizabeth D Johnson, all from Deakin University in Australia, say that these digital credentials, also called ‘badges’, provide actual 890255 ALH0010.1177/1469787419890255Active Learning in Higher EducationBaldwin editorial2019

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社论

当我们的学生离开大学时，无论是完成本科学位还是研究生学位课程，就业市场的竞争意味着无论获得什么样的资格，求职者必须证明他们不仅仅是从特定大学获得学位，如果他们将在候选名单上找到自己。如今，越来越多的毕业生选择上大学，这不可避免地意味着有更多的毕业生正在寻找工作；拥有学位使您属于极少数人的日子已经一去不复返了。当经济不景气时，压力会更大，因为组织雇用的员工更少，员工流失率也会降低。不管是不是这样，雇主常常抱怨这样一个事实，即虽然毕业生很可能在大学成功完成了学位课程，但他们往往没有能力应对工作场所的现实，缺乏任何工作场所所需的所谓“软技能”。雇主还表示，虽然他们面前有获奖证明，以及显示每个模块/单元的分数/成绩的成绩单，但这对他们的选择过程没有多大帮助，因为这些没有显示诸如在团队中工作良好、可靠、守时或成为有效领导者的能力。申请者可能会在简历/简历中声称他们拥有这样的技能和能力（写“能够在团队中很好地协作”），但这并不一定意味着他们确实拥有这些技能和能力。还有人声称，我们的毕业生虽然在我们这里就读本科生或研究生，但在确定自己的长处和短处以及在申请中展示自己的优势方面并没有达到应有的水平。例如，如果雇主面前有 1000 份申请，无论是纸质申请还是在线提交（可以使用软件筛选出被拒绝/继续提交的申请），这可能意味着未能提交申请的申请人提供证明其优秀技能和能力的证据不入围面试。进入面试阶段并不一定会得到工作机会，但如果我们一开始就没有进入候选名单，那么不用说我们永远不会得到这份工作。不管是不是这样，据说今天的一代比过去的一代更“脆弱”，因此他们更把拒绝放在心上。我们这些人从自己的经历中知道，当我们的学生申请实习时，如果他们一开始被拒绝两三个，他们很快就会沮丧，很容易干脆放弃申请更多，除非我们干预并激励他们。由于我们的角色部分是帮助我们的毕业生从大学过渡到他们选择从事的任何工作中的充实角色，作为机构，我们自己可以做什么，使我们的毕业生的成就对未来的雇主更可见或给其他人？我们目前提供证书/成绩单，但这些只显示分数/成绩。正如本期第一篇文章所示，目前人们对所谓的“数字证书”很感兴趣。其作者 Kelly K Miller、Trina Jorre de St Jorre、Jan M West 和 Elizabeth D Johnson 都来自澳大利亚迪肯大学，他们说这些数字证书，也称为“徽章”，提供了实际的 890255 ALH0010.1177/1469787419890255Active Learning in高等教育鲍德温社论2019