Escape Rooms for International Recruitment and International Business Management: Developing Global Graduates With the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Introduction

International education has been and continues to be a significant contributor to most developed economies despite Covid-19 preventing student mobility and severely impacting the way curricula were taught. For example, in 2019 international education was Australia’s third largest export area (Chowdhury, 2022) and in the UK education exports are expected to reach £35 billion per year by 2023 (Department for Education and Department for International Trade, 2021). The travel restrictions associated with Covid-19 and increasing international competition has put pressure on Higher Education Institution (HEIs) international student recruitment targets, making it a strategic priority, further emphasised by increased student demands for outstanding learning experience. For international student recruitment and admission teams the process of recruitment and introduction into the University environment has also been affected as reliance on technology increased. In addition, due to the increasingly international scope and digital focus of the future business careers the ever so diverse international student body tend to demand more added value from taught curricula and their experience at overall. In addition to subject knowledge, university students expect to develop a range of transferable employment-focused skills such as international and cross-cultural awareness enhanced by advanced digital skills throughout their studies and extra-curricular activities.

The future-proof career enhancing skills are subject of an ongoing debate. The widely recognised skills of leadership, communication and subject knowledge are still necessary, however additional skills are required to navigate new, post Covid careers. Transferrable soft skills such as resilience, ability to cope with rapid and relentless change, digital and international communication are becoming more sought-after by the global labor market (Fakunle & Higson, 2021). This is in addition to the recent literature which has highlighted how there might be different skills needed to successfully manage one’s career in different parts of the world. ‘Employability in context’ calls for a deeper understanding of the demands of the local labor market in different regions of the world and cultural context of companies operating there (Thi Tran et al., 2019).

Although Covid-19 prevented many forms of curriculum internationalisation and affected the traditional international recruitment drive, implemented technology innovations enabled students to gain some degree of international exposure and ‘tasters’ of university life whilst studying remotely. Escape Rooms are an example of such technology enabled tool which have been used throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to engage students in international learning or offer academic taster sessions to potential students. This book chapter builds on the authors’ experiences of creating Escape Rooms for such purposes. It offers an example of a multi-purpose Escape Room used in student recruitment taster sessions and as an extra-curricular activity to enhance students’ international exposure. The authors offer step-by-step guidance on how facilitators within the university setting can create an Escape Room for use as generic academic taster sessions or to enhance internationalization at home projects. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been used as the subject for the Escape Room to provide added value to all curricula as these are embedded into sustainability agenda globally. The SDGs are also becoming increasingly important in Universities’ sustainability outlook and being placed high on strategic plans of international organizations. Therefore, exposing learners to the application of SDGs in diverse contexts offers added value for those studying international business courses.