What do I need to work on? Perspectives of social work employers and graduates

Abstract

One of the main concerns among students and employers in the field of social work is the suitability of academic training for work in social intervention. This article presents the participants’ views regarding the most useful aspects of social work training, as well as the expectations and thoughts of employers and graduates regarding the work done by the latter in this field. To conduct the analysis, we used a mixed methodology based on surveys (n = 100) of graduates and employers and on focus groups with both target groups. Among the most important results is the need to establish mutual recognition between employers and trainers in the field of social work. Although employers mostly demand technical training, an excellent theoretical background is still relevant as one of the ways of building the discipline’s corpus. This study also highlights the fact that university qualifications are not as important to employers as students’ personal experience or internships done during their time at university.

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