Reconsidering Graduate Employability: Insights From Entry-Level Employees in Romania

Young people must navigate complex journeys from school to work in the rapidly changing world of employment. Despite the uncertain career prospects and multifaceted issues that young university graduates in Romania face, there has been little scholarly interest in their post‑university life. From the perspectives of the main social actors and young university graduates, this qualitative study explored the critical themes surrounding the transition from university to work. We used semi‑structured interviews and a reflexive thematic analysis to capture and examine the meaning of graduate employability and how entry‑level customer support representatives (CSRs) describe and perceive it. The findings highlight that most CSRs mainly illustrate the employability notion in three categories: possessing the knowledge, skills, and attributes required by employers; the ability to apply knowledge and skills in the workplace; and being capable of gaining employment, maintaining it, and obtaining a new job if desirable. This study provides further evidence and explains how employability was extensively described based on micro (individual) level characteristics, rather than on macro (labour market supply and demand) characteristics. Likewise, it provides crucial practical insight into its complexity and confusing notions, sometimes described as skills, employment, and work readiness, to name a few. The results are potentially helpful, as they illustrate the need to broaden our understanding of employability and can inform key actors in reconsidering employability beyond the current dominant perspectives in the uncertain graduate world of work.