Graduate outcomes are a key indicator of university performance, yet the progression of students in career preparation during university is ill-understood. The Career Registration Methodology (CRM) addresses this gap by tracking students’ career planning and participation in employability and professional experiences (EPEs) throughout their university enrolment. This research used CRM to monitor students’ employability development and career readiness, assessing their impact on graduate outcomes. By analysing longitudinal CRM data and Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) results from 1653 students, this study examined how EPEs and career readiness influenced full-time employment, job offers, the perceived value of qualifications, and perceptions of overqualification. Correlation and trend analyses revealed positive associations between career readiness over time and employment outcomes, with regression analyses identifying EPEs as the most significant factor. Practical implications of the findings highlight CRM’s value in aiding higher education institutions, especially Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and Career Development Learning (CDL) educators, to identify trends and tailor support whilst students are still in the university. As the first CRM study in Australia based on the first available cohort, the exploratory nature of this research is acknowledged along with recommendations to refine periodic, non-intrusive measurements such as CRM for enhanced validity and reliability.

The advent of Career Enrolment Data (CED) in Higher Education is an important development for graduate employability practitioners and other stakeholders seeking to understand, analyse and enhance students’ career readiness. CED, collected annually from all students in participating universities, requires students to self-report on their own career readiness, and is described as having ‘the potential to be a component of a standardised measure of learning gain in relation to student employability’ (Cobb, 2019, p.23). Reflections are offered by two graduate employability practitioners currently tasked with introducing CED to educators and recommending its use to support careers-focused components of their curricula. Drawing on different disciplinary backgrounds to inform their approaches, both practitioners are keen to explore opportunities to capitalise on the strengths of data insights. However, they advocate for a carefully nuanced and contextualised approach, openly acknowledging relevant limitations and risks when presenting the data to educators and other stakeholders. Drawing on one author’s background in psychology, it considers the process of self-reporting on which the data wholly relies, noting potential influences and biases that may be relevant. The second author offers a sociological perspective, using the concept of neoliberalism as a framework for engaging with concerns about an employability agenda driven by corporate and economic interests, and a culture of auditing sometimes associated with hardship for academics and a detrimental effect on pedagogy. While it should be noted that experts in CED such as Gilworth and Cobb take care to acknowledge limitations and risks (Cobb, 2019; Gilworth, 2023) this reflective account grapples with the challenge of ensuring that these important nuances are not lost as the context shifts from theory to practice.