Navigating the hidden curriculum: a systemic identity negotiation model of graduate employability

Addressing this gap, this paper introduces the Systemic Identity Negotiation Model (SINM), which reconceptualizes employability as the emergent outcome of a dynamic negotiation process. This paper analyses in-depth interviews with 50 New Zealand employers across ICT, Hospitality, Construction, and Business services.

Findings reveal that employers articulate sector-specific Workplace Ideologies establishing implicit rules of the game, while simultaneously specifying contextually valued capital portfolios. Most significantly, the data underscore the essential role of systems capital, a learnable meta-capacity encompassing reading ideological fields, aligning personal resources, and iteratively shaping one's professional trajectory. Employability is fundamentally a context-dependent process of systemic engagement, where success hinges on graduates’ agentic deployment of these navigational capacities.