This article draws on research commissioned by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and conducted during 2013. It interrogates the ways in which the employability agenda has been fed through to the level of individual politics departments. The project was particularly concerned with establishing whether, and how, colleagues in politics and international relations (IR) had taken ownership of student employability at the level of the curriculum. In the article, the key findings of the research are summarised. There is also discussion of the (sometimes troubling) professional implications of infusing concern for graduate outcomes within a pedagogic framework that emphasises critical engagement with the underpinning political structures of the labour market.