For international graduates from European higher education institutions (HEIs), their rising numbers and the attempts to utilize their international experience in a globalized labor market result in an increasingly challenging transition period. This development is accompanied by the students’ intention of staying in the respective host country after graduation, which is consistently above 60% in several European countries, and there is a discrepancy between this intention to stay and the actual stay rates of European host countries. Moreover, data suggest that recent non-European graduates are more likely to be unemployed than their European colleagues or must contend with longer periods of unemployment. Furthermore, international experience is not necessarily a key factor in recruitment. Regardless of whether graduates can stay, return home or establish a career elsewhere, the transition process is often accompanied by the challenges of (re)entry and (re)acculturation.
Based on several case studies of international students and their transitional experience of non-European graduates from study to work, I provide an integrated analysis of transcripts of semi-structured interviews conducted with non-European graduates from German and UK HEIs. Based on multiple case study research, which I carried out in cooperation with a German and a UK HEI and ten of their non-European fulltime master’s graduates, I particularly analyze and contrast their educational, professional and cultural transition experience and the entrance of host societies considering their expectations and motives for studying abroad, including their aspirations for migration, and the correspondence with experienced reality. Subsequently, conclusions are drawn regarding career development and management for prospective and current non-European students, including individual and institutional aspects of transition, such as policy and promotion of employment for foreign graduates in Germany and the UK, as well as implications and directions for further potential research activities will be discussed with the audience.
