ABSTRACT

International graduate employability is critical to host universities’ positioning in the education export market, internationalisation agenda and ethical responsibility to international students and alumni. However, little is known about the positioning and re-positioning of international graduates in their home labour market. This article responds to this critical gap in the literature by drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 Vietnamese graduates from Australian universities who have returned to their home country since 2015. The qualitative data were interpreted through the innovative conceptual framework combining Bourdieu’s forms of capital and Harré’s positioning theory. The study found the emergence of three distinctive positionings of Vietnamese returning graduates: the explorer, the advancer and the adventurer. Based on the empirical findings, the study contributes to the literature on graduate employability by showing that labour market navigation is an ongoing interaction between initial capitals and continued accumulation of capitals, which play a critical role in determining returnees’ positioning and repositioning in the market. The findings of the study provide important implications for returning graduates as well as host universities and home employers to provide effective support for this cohort to enhance their employability and facilitate their access to the home labour market.

摘要

国际毕业生就业能力对于东道主大学在教育出口市场的定位、国际化议程以及对国际学生和校友的道德责任至关重要。然而，对于国际毕业生在本国劳动力市场的定位和重新定位知之甚少。本文通过对自 2015 年以来返回祖国的 30 名来自澳大利亚大学的越南毕业生的深入采访来回应文献中的这一关键空白。哈雷的定位理论。研究发现，越南归国毕业生出现了三种不同的定位：探险家、进阶者和冒险者。基于实证结果，该研究通过表明劳动力市场导航是初始资本与资本持续积累之间的持续相互作用，对确定海归在市场中的定位和重新定位起着关键作用，从而为有关毕业生就业能力的文献做出了贡献。该研究的结果为回国的毕业生以及东道大学和本国雇主提供了重要意义，以便为这一群体提供有效支持，以提高他们的就业能力并促进他们进入本国劳动力市场。