A case study for curriculum integration of an ‘employment’ skill into a final year Science capstone subject

There is an expectation from students, governments and society that university graduates will have a range of personal and professional attributes and knowledge that make them employable in their chosen profession. WIL is a curriculum feature that is thought to improve employability, but it is just one of a range of activities that collectively develop a student’s ability to gain and maintain employment. Whilst some activities, like WIL, are situated within the curriculum, many others are ‘outsourced’ to centralised careers services. The onus is often on students to seek out these services and it can also disconnect disciplinary context from career planning. An essential employment skill is responding to selection criteria, and, because the ability to do so is both teachable and assessable, it is a skill that lends itself to placement within the curriculum. We have developed a selection criteria assessment for a final year capstone Medical Science subject and report here on how it is integrated, taught and assessed in the curriculum and what it has told us about student preparedness for finding employment.