Graduate employability skills through online internships and projects during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Australian example.

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic many students undertaking professional placements and internships had to leave their physical place of employment due to restrictions. Some students doing professional experiences lost their placement, while others entered work arrangements where they worked online remotely. This paper investigates the potential advantage from their experiences in terms of now being more capable in online work skills due to remote working, as the professional world potentially moves to a more flexible working arrangement that may include a remote working environment mixed with an office environment. It investigates, through a case study methodology analysing assessment content from student experiences, the type of new professional purpose that may evolve as a result of a changing workforce environment.

Keywords

• professional purpose
• employability skills
• covid-19
• remote working