Employer Satisfaction Survey: national report [2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023]

The Employer Satisfaction Survey (ESS) represents the largest survey of its kind reporting the views of over 3,000 employers about the attributes of recent graduates from Australian higher education institutions including universities and non-university higher education institutions (NUHEIs). Employer views of the technical skills, generic skills and work readiness of recent graduates provide assurance about the quality of Australia's higher education sector. The ESS has three design features. First, the ESS is the first national survey in Australia that directly links the experiences of graduates to the views of their direct supervisors. Second, the ESS is undertaken on a systematic basis by asking employed graduates who participate in the Graduate Outcome Survey (GOS) to provide contact information for their supervisor who are then invited to complete the ESS. This enables understanding of the limitations and bias associated with the survey methodology. By way of comparison, many other employer surveys are not conducted on a systematic basis and report the perceptions of executives who may have had little or no direct experience with graduates. Third, the ESS is large enough to provide comparisons by broad field of education, type of institution, employment characteristics, occupation and demographic group. Other employer surveys only provide a limited view of the sector as a whole.

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