07 Sep Graduate employability matters more than ever, but are universities telling their story?

For years universities have talked about employability. What’s changing is the extent to which prospective students are using it to decide where, and what to study – by Mark Ferguson, Director, More Fire PR Ltd

New findings from the QS International Student Survey 2026 make interesting reading for anyone working in higher education communications, marketing or recruitment.

The proportion of prospective students who regard graduate employment rates as important when choosing a course has risen from 36% in 2020, to 44% in 2026.

When assessing teaching quality, there’s an increase from 53% to 59%, while more than half of those surveyed identify a high graduate employment rate as being the most important graduate outcome measure.

International students aren’t just thinking about their first salary either. Skills development, international experience and professional networks all feature prominently in their thinking. Nearly half expect studying abroad to improve their employment prospects or help them progress in their existing career.

There’s plenty for universities to think about in these figures. But two recommendations from QS particularly caught my attention:

“Showcase the employability journey,” and “use alumni outcomes as social proof.”

As someone who spends much of my working life helping universities communicate what they actually do, I’d go a little further.

Don’t simply achieve good outcomes, show audiences how you actually achieve them. The journey matters as much as the destination

It’s easy to put an employment percentage on a prospectus or webpage. What’s far more interesting is the story behind it.

How did that graduate get there, what happened between them arriving on campus and securing their first professional role, who did they meet, what practical experience did they gain, and which employer projects, placements, mentors or lecturers helped?

QS makes this exact distinction. The advice offered is that universities shouldn’t simply promote graduate destinations, but they should show prospective students the route towards them, including industry projects, placements, skills development, employer mentoring and careers support.

This feels increasingly important. Students and their families are making a major financial and personal investment. Simply telling them a university offers ‘excellent employability’ is no longer enough. They want to see what that means.

I’ve seen this first-hand through More Fire PR‘s work supporting the University of Bedfordshire‘s Career Powered Education approach.

Rather than simply saying that Bedfordshire prepares students for careers, we’ve been helping communicate the evidence behind that promise to prospective students and some of the people who influence their decisions.

That means finding the people, partnerships and practical examples that bring the strategy to life, from industry engagement and work-based learning through to academics, students, graduates and employers who can explain what happens in the real world. This is the difference between making a claim and demonstrating it.

Letting other people tell your story

There’s another phrase in the QS recommendations I like: “Social proof.”

Universities naturally talk about themselves because they have to. But sometimes the most convincing person to explain the value of a university isn’t the Vice-Chancellor, marketing director, or communications team. It’s a graduate now doing the job they wanted to do. Or the employer who keeps recruiting its students, or the industry partner working alongside its academics.

QS argues that graduate stories, career pathways and employer testimonials help prospective students understand the opportunities available after graduation.

I’d argue they do something else too: They make institutional claims believable.

If you say your courses are closely connected to industry, show me the company working with your students. If you say graduates develop valuable workplace skills, let graduates and employers explain how. If research is changing practice, find the people who can demonstrate where that change is happening.

Good PR has always recognised this. Independent voices and real examples tend to carry more weight than another paragraph of corporate copy.

And these stories don’t need to live in one place. A graduate profile might become media coverage, a video, a LinkedIn post, a newsletter feature, material for recruitment teams, or something an academic can use when talking to prospective students.

One good story can travel surprisingly far.

Reputation is built beyond recruitment

There’s a wider point here which is easily missed if we look at employability purely through the lens of student recruitment.

Universities have many audiences. Students matter enormously, obviously, but so do parents, teachers, employers, governments, funding bodies, academics, potential international partners and the communities universities serve.

The communications objective changes, but the principle doesn’t. Our international work has demonstrated this from another angle. Through a long-running programme with Times Higher Education‘s Campus+ we’re working with university academics at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco, to turn their knowledge and experience into thought leadership for a global higher education audience.

The immediate objective there isn’t undergraduate recruitment. It’s about demonstrating expertise, sharing ideas and raising international visibility. But the underlying principle is remarkably similar.

Don’t assume people know what you’re good at

A university may have outstanding researchers, strong employer relationships, innovative teaching or remarkable graduate outcomes. But if those strengths remain largely within the institution, their reputational value is inevitably limited.

Communications takes that evidence and puts it in front of the people who might act upon it.

That’s how an employer begins to associate an institution with talented graduates. It’s how an academic elsewhere in the world discovers potential collaborators. It’s how a teacher remembers a particular university when advising a sixth-form student. And it’s how a prospective student begins to think: that’s somewhere I can see myself succeeding.

From employability strategy to reputation

So what should university leaders and communications teams take from the latest QS findings?

1. First, audit the evidence behind your employability claims. Don’t start with the slogan. Begin with the students, graduates, employers, placements, projects and the results that prove it.
2. Second, tell the journey, not just the outcome. The graduate who secured a great job is interesting; explaining how their university experience helped them get there is much more useful.
3. Third, bring independent voices into the story. Alumni and employers provide credibility that institutional messaging alone can’t replicate.
4. And finally, think beyond individual campaigns. The same evidence can support student recruitment, media relations, thought leadership, employer engagement, social media, international reputation and internal communications.

The latest QS findings show that employment outcomes are becoming increasingly influential in student decision-making. They also show that prospective students are connecting teaching quality more closely with what happens after graduation.

For universities, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. Doing excellent work remains the starting point. No communications campaign can manufacture strong graduate outcomes, meaningful employer partnerships or high-quality teaching where they don’t exist.

But if these things do exist, keeping quiet about them doesn’t help anyone. Brands and reputations aren’t created by logos or straplines alone. They’re built when people repeatedly encounter credible evidence of what an organisation does particularly well, until those strengths become part of what the organisation is known for.

For universities competing for students, staff, employers, partners and international recognition, this matters.

Do good things. Prove they work. Then make sure the right people know about them.

It’s a fairly simple communications principle. But in an increasingly competitive higher education market, it could make quite a difference.