Journal article
Creative career readiness: preparing graduates for a precarious labour market
Cultural Trends, Vol.Advanced access
06-Oct-2026
Abstract
In response to the challenges of the creative labour market, this paper examines an alternative work-integrated learning (WIL) initiative delivered at a peri-urban Australian university designed to prepare graduates for creative employment. A balanced set of hard and soft skills is necessary for navigating the precarious, gig-based creative labour market, presenting challenges to traditional WIL programmes and compromising graduate career readiness. The Rise project complemented traditional placements, with students producing an event under the joint supervision of an academic and university manager. We evaluate the Rise project’s rationale and effectiveness within the local socioeconomic context. Through the lens of Protean Career Theory, we critique how the burden of adaptability has been disproportionately placed on emerging creative workers and propose that alternative forms of WIL can redistribute some responsibility to institutions. We argue Rise presented a contextually responsive and pedagogically just model of WIL that prepared students for contemporary creative careers.
Details
- Title
- Creative career readiness: preparing graduates for a precarious labour market
- Authors
- Karen Hands (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastDeanna Grant-Smith (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- Cultural Trends, Vol.Advanced access
- Publisher
- Routledge
- DOI
- 10.1080/09548963.2026.2741710
- ISSN
- 1469-3690
- Copyright note
- © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991260595802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
13 Record Views