Workpackage#2
The need to track alumni is strong for international students who have put much effort in studying abroad. Research shows that in the process of choosing to study abroad the attractiveness of the region for employability after graduation is already considered. Moreover, these students are of great value for local companies operating on a global scale.
Attracting and retaining international students who are acquainted to the host country is much easier and effective for local companies because they already have some cross-cultural adjustment. Yet, the HEIs involved in this project do not know if the international students stay in the host region or country, nor how their careers evolve after their graduation and whether the career guidance during the study helped them in getting cultural adjusted to the host country.
Therefore, the aim of WP2 is to contribute to the development of a prototype of an international alumni monitoring tool (IAMT), based on a preliminary research, data and litterature collection and a Theoretical Framework on international students’ employability and retention. IAMT can be used as a dashboard to keep track of the employability of their current and alumni international students. The added value of the IAMT, is the focus on the gathering of more in-depth information on the factors that affect the cross cultural adjustment of the international alumni since cross-cultural adjustment is crucial for retaining international talents successfully.
Based on the experiences with the development of a prototype, WP2 also creates a IAMT manual that will help other HEIs to build a
tailor-made monitoring tool for their own organisation which fit their own business information systems
Data Collection
Research and data collection on the attraction and retention of international students. Respondents involved in interviews are SMEs employee and employer, international students, UASs' staff and third party organizations' staff. On the research insigths are based the development of IAMT and other INTERLOCALITY outputs.
Theoretical Framework
The framework, visualised in the circular employability chart, maps out which main individual characteristics and competencies influence the chances of international talent of finding a job on the local labour market, as identified via our extensive literature research and qualitative research.
International Alumni Monitoring Tool - IAMT
This tool prototype will track and collect objective and subjective data on the international alumnis' employability and career progression wihtin the fields of engineering or business administration..
The ouput will be ready in October 2024.
IAMT Manual
The IAMT manual provideS
HEIs information on the content elements of the IAMT, as well as guidelines on how to build it themselves.
The ouput will be ready in December 2024.
Online gaming tool
This tool focuses on the complete employability journey of international students, starting with their study choice to finding a suitable job in the local labour market after successful completion of their study. The tool is a means to drive the conversation between the multiple stakeholders about this topic, and the difficulties and success factors international students experience within their employability journey. The tool is based on interviews with international students.
