Abstract
The YES programme was introduced in order to mitigate graduate and youth unemployment. Many young people in South Africa, graduates included, find themselves in situations where they enrol for internships to gain work experience and necessary skills. Several measures have been put in place to assist in ensuring that all those who participate in the YES programme are thoroughly supported. These measures include supervision, training sessions and task registry. Despite these mitigation strategies, it is rather difficult to measure if interning in different organisations, companies or businesses ensures quality work experience and skills development. There is also limited research on black social science graduates who intern through the YES programme and how they perceive their employability post-participation. This research study aimed to investigate how black social sciences graduates perceive their employability after participating in the YES programme as an intern. The theory of employability, with reference to the CareerEDGE model, is grounded in the belief that human capital injection through generic skills development will ensure the employability of graduates and their accelerated career development. The key findings of the study were: 1) Graduates have gained the necessary generic skills. 2) Graduates feel supervisors assist in their development of generic skills during YES programme internships. 3) Graduates perceive themselves as employable after participating in the YES programme as implemented in different organisations and 4) Graduates were able to secure contractual employment after participation in the YES programme and are currently looking for permanent employment. Given the findings, this study points to the potentially positive effects of the programme. Therefore, this study recommends that further research to corroborate the findings in this study should be done, and if the findings are consistent, there may be opportunities to make programme recommendations to YES.