Exploring the relationship between coaching and employability competences: preparing students for workplace learning

More than half of the graduate employees leave their first job because they fail to adjust to the workplace. This is especially a pressing issue for sectors that already deal with personnel shortages, such as the education sector. To successfully adjust to the workplace, graduate employees need to engage in workplace learning, defined as learning on the job. However, a lack of employability competences, such as lifelong learning skills, can hinder graduate employees’ learning at the workplace. To prepare students for learning at the workplace, higher education (HE) has implemented coaching trajectories aimed at
supporting students in developing employability competences. The present study explores the relationship between coaching and employability competences and students’ learning process within these coaching practices, using a multimethod approach. Data were collected via student surveys (N= 491) and interviews with coaches (N= 9) from HE institutions in the Netherlands and Belgium. Our quantitative results show a significant positive relationship between autonomy support provided by the coach and the development of students’ employability competences. Focusing on the student’s learning process, the interview
findings reveal that during a coaching session, coaches support the development of employability competences by encouraging students to engage in trial and error and by stimulating their reflection on their own development. Based on our results, we recommend more HE institutions to implement coaching trajectories to prepare students for work-related learning. We conclude this study with practical guidelines on how coaches can best support students in the development of their employability competences and their learning process. A limitation concerns our qualitative data. We conducted interviews with coaches about students’ learning process of employability competences. Although the coaches might have a good understanding of when students learned during the coaching sessions, including the student perspective might have led to more
insights about their learning process.